Strikes,
floods, protests and sense of betrayal pile on misery for France
As
the Euro 2016 tournament nears, its host country is struggling with
violent strikes, extraordinary weather and a growing air of malaise
Kim
Willsher in Paris
Saturday
4 June 2016 22.44 BST
Less than a week
from the start of Euro 2016 and the French coq – symbol of the
national football team – should be crowing to the cries of “Allez
les Bleus”.
Instead, with days
ticking down to the first match in the European championships on
Friday, there is a pervasive atmosphere of gloom in France that has
little to do with how the national side acquits itself, or the
atrocious weather. Threats of terrorist attacks have been high on the
list of concerns for months; recent torrential rain has brought
floods to a swath of central Europe, including central France, where
the river Seine burst its banks and brought parts of Paris to a
standstill.
But what has
depressed the national mood at what should be a time of celebration
is the widespread threat of industrial action in the form of strikes,
blockades and noisy, violent demonstrations against employment law
reforms.
Suddenly, the
eagerly awaited tournament has gone from being a chance for France to
show off to an event that risks enforcing every negative cliche about
the country. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot,”
Paris-based entrepreneur Sabine Peters told the Observer last week.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, the French, they’re always on
strike’, and here we are a few days from the Euros, a popular event
we are hosting … and there are strikes. An entire society is being
held hostage by a group of relatively few people acting out of
self-interest. It’s sad, especially as there were signs that the
economy was just starting to pick up.”
Since March, France
has seen violent clashes between police and protesters, and strikes
over proposed reforms to employment law. Dozens have been injured on
either side; the ferocity of the attacks has shocked the nation.
Leading the strikes
is the powerful Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s
oldest and biggest union, whose single aim is to have the new law
thrown out. To that end it has organised the picketing of ports,
power stations and fuel depots, leading to concerns over possible
petrol shortages and electricity cuts, walkouts by train drivers and
transport staff, and national days of action. As Euro 2016 draws
nearer, the mouvement social (industrial action) has gained momentum
and its motivations have become more diverse. Air France pilots, who
are acknowledged as well paid, announced strikes for this week over
general pay and conditions.
Prime minister
Manuel Valls accused the CGT of blackmailing the country, but
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, leader of the governing Socialist party,
said he did not believe “for a single second” that the union was
“holding the country to ransom” or would disrupt transport during
the tournament. “The image of France is at risk,” he warned.
The response from
Fabrice Angei, national secretary of the CGT, was that the government
had better believe it. “We’ve been demanding the government
withdraw this law for three months, long before the Euros, so it’s
clear we’re not blackmailing them over the tournament. If they had
agreed to negotiate, we would not be in this situation. But Euro 2016
will not stop us from continuing our movement,” Angei told the
Observer.
The CGT has called
for a national day of action on 14 June, four days after the
championship opens and the day after the debate on the bill opens in
the French senate, whose centre-right majority will attempt to put
back clauses – such as a proposal to end the 35-hour limit on the
working week – that the government dropped to appease the unions.
The national
disruption comes a year before a presidential election in which
François Hollande’s chances of winning a second term appear
nonexistent, even though figures show that France may be emerging
from economic crisis. Last month the Economist said France’s
economy was showing signs of growth and there were “indications
that confidence is returning”.
Not quickly enough,
perhaps, for Hollande and his Socialists, but then the confidence
problem goes much deeper than opposition to one law, or even
opposition to the party in power or the man at the Elysée. France is
going through a long-term political existential crisis, summed up by
the morose phrase, heard often of late, “France is unhappy”.
Angei admitted that
discontent in France goes deeper than the labour law. “This law
takes us back 200 years, but the battle has crystallised a lot of the
unhappiness in France and has revealed the malaise that exists. The
reason we’ve seen lots of people on the streets is because people
feel this government has betrayed them.
“François
Hollande was elected on a leftwing programme; he said he didn’t
like the world of finance, then he comes to power and supports the
bosses. The ordinary citizen sees this and doesn’t identify with
this government.”
Mickael Maindron,
38, a technology consultant, said: “It’s true we’re not very
happy at the moment, although the French do have a tendency to
complain, but the political parties are asking us to make efforts and
these efforts are not being translated into benefits in daily life.
It feels like we’ve been in a state of permanent crisis for the
last 30 years.”
Maindron, who
advises small businesses and startups, says that trade unions and the
government are out of touch with reality. “Small businesses are
caught in the middle, and current working laws and practices serve to
keep young people out of the jobs market while prioritising the
rights of those already in jobs.
“All we want is
more flexibility, and to be left alone to work and try to succeed.
Some [union] people prefer to battle to keep their rights even if in
the end they lose everything because the world has changed. They
would rather fight not to change the rules, not to retrain, and for
their company to close down altogether than accept a few job losses
and save something. They disparage company leaders – but we are not
all earning huge salaries and exploiting the staff; some of us pay
ourselves less than the people who work for us.
A police line at a
protest in Lyon. Photograph: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images
“I sometimes feel
France is not seeing how the world is changing around it. We have
professional politicians who don’t live in the real world and never
have. They go to the same schools, study the same programmes they’ve
been studying for the last 100 years to be leaders and
administrators. They’ve never worked one day in a business.”
Peters, whose
company Gloss and Boss aims to help women who have taken a break, for
family or other reasons, back into the workplace, said France was
suffering a crisis of confidence. “We’re good at running
ourselves down, and visitors come here and run us and the system
down, so we’re conscious of that. There’s also a real problem in
that only 8% of workers belong to unions but the unions have a
monopoly, and the politicians are out of touch.
“There’s this
paternalist idea of the company boss, and even the president as the
bon père de famille looking after everyone, that we have to change.
There are 3 million small and medium-sized businesses in France and
most of them are run by men. We have to invert this mentality.”
Alexis Poulin,
director of European media network EurActiv, added: “Social
dialogue in France is always very antagonistic, so we see shows of
force through demonstrations on the streets. But the biggest problem
in France is that the people in power have a real credibility
deficit. We don’t respect them any more.”
Outside, day after
day of torrential rain has piled on the misery. South of Paris
thousands of people were evacuated from Nemours and Montargis as
floodwater swept through both cities, causing three deaths. Dozens of
villages were left without electricity and running water. In the
Métro, announcements of disrupted services alternated between
blaming intempéries (bad weather) and mouvements sociaux for
cancelled trains. Football fans are wondering how they will get to
matches being held in cities far from the capital such as Bordeaux,
Nice and Marseille.
Around 8 million
people are expected at Euro 2016, generating an estimated €1.24bn
(£970m) of business in France. The world’s eyes will be on Paris,
which is bidding for the 2024 Olympics, and other French cities. In
2005, when the French capital made its bid to host the games –
losing to London – unions held national strikes and demonstrations
on the day Olympic committee members were due to visit. At the time
the Guardian wrote: “The unions are angry about government plans
that will affect a range of issues, including the 35-hour working
week, jobs and salaries.”
Then, France was run
by a centre-right government. Today the government is centre-left.
Eleven years on, ordinary French people can be forgiven for a gloomy
sense of plus ça change …
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