France’s
chaos stems from its failure to adapt to globalisation
A
showdown is taking place on the streets. President Hollande must
stick firmly to his plans for long overdue reform
Natalie Nougayrède
Friday 27 May 2016
19.50 BST
Demonstrating is in
the French political DNA. It’s almost as if, for each generation,
pouring out on to the streets is part of growing up. There is a
collective ritual to this – we have a national penchant for
cathartic moments. Historians point to a revolutionary narrative
harking back to 1789. But if you are looking for some of the
romanticism of May 1968 in the latest unrest, don’t hold your
breath.
Is France is on the
verge of breakdown? Protests against a new labour law have led to
fuel shortages, after trade union activists started blocking
refineries and nuclear power plants. The government has had to start
making use of the country’s strategic oil reserves.
The police have
fired teargas at protesters and arrested 77 people; air and rail
traffic has been partly disrupted; and there were fresh
demonstrations this week with crowds tens of thousands strong. The
dispute over reforms the socialist government wants to introduce to
liberalise the labour market is now two months old – more strikes
and protests are planned in the run-up to the European football
championships France is hosting from 10 June.
This couldn’t have
come at a worse time for the French president, nor for Europe at
large. François Hollande hopes to be re-elected next year but his
ratings are the worst of any postwar French leader’s. His Socialist
party is split, one side favouring market-oriented reforms, the other
holding fast to radical-left or anti-capitalist views.
Mainstream rightwing
opponents are capitalising on the scenes of chaos. Marine Le Pen, the
leader of the far-right Front National – which gained 7 million
votes in last December’s regional elections – is ready to cast
herself as the person to restore order. All this is happening with
France still in a state of emergency after last year’s terror
attacks.
The country’s
European partners are closely monitoring events. With less than a
month to go to the UK referendum, the Brexit camp could profit from
scenes of instability across the Channel.
Germany and the
European commission, who have long pushed for labour-market reforms
in France over worries that the country may become the next weak link
in the eurozone, are scrutinising Hollande: will he backtrack? He has
said he won’t, but he is also notorious for wavering. He fears
another dramatic upheaval in the country – something resembling the
massive 1995 strikes, or even the 2005 riots in the Paris suburbs.
It would be a
mistake to read the latest events as a popular uprising against
austerity measures supposedly dictated from Brussels – or to draw
parallels with movements such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in
Spain. The occupation of a central square in Paris by the Nuit debout
student movement that began in March may have been compared to other
insurgent movements, but it has failed to attract similar crowds or
to widen its appeal.
Never before, under
the Fifth Republic, has a socialist government been confronted with
this degree of social unrest
It’s true there is
strong anti-establishment sentiment in France, but it tends to
benefit the far-right more than the far-left. After the 2008-9
financial crisis struck Europe, France did not go through the radical
economic restructuring, nor the wide-ranging public spending cuts,
that some southern EU countries experienced. Public spending, among
the highest in the OECD countries, has continued to grow.
France suffers high
unemployment, reaching 24% among 18- to 24-year-olds (and 46% among
unqualified young people). Liberalising the labour market is meant to
make it easier to hire; but it will also make it easier to fire
people.
France’s labour
system is very much two-tier: one part of the population benefits
from strong protections and solid, open-ended contracts; the rest
find themselves either out of work or in precarious jobs. French
trade unions represent only 7% of the active population, mostly
employees already in highly protected sectors – partly because
trade union finances are closely connected to the public sector and
large enterprises.
This produces
paradoxes: France’s political culture is such that young people are
prone to mobilise against any kind of reform, especially if they
believe it damages their chances of entering “protected” sectors.
Many fail to see how labour reforms make it easier for them to get a
job in the first place. This has often been described as France’s
“preference for mass unemployment”, over more flexible and
perhaps less well paid work.
So this may be
crunch time for France. Hollande all but wasted the first two years
of his presidency by failing to make significant economic reforms.
Belatedly, just one year ahead of the next presidential election, he
is trying to push forward. But his strategy has zig-zagged and
confused everybody. Now he has run into a radicalised trade union,
the CGT – whose roots go back to the heyday of France’s Communist
party – which has decided that actions such as blocking refineries
can put it at the forefront of a new class war. The other key player
in the union movement, the more centrist CFDT, has come out strongly
in favour of the labour reform.
Within the French
left old disputes have returned with a bang. Never before, under the
Fifth Republic, has a socialist government been confronted with this
degree of social unrest. It’s true there is political polarisation,
as elsewhere on the continent. But one specific ingredient is that
France has hung on rigidly to its welfare state, while other
countries moved to reform theirs years ago. Nothing like Thatcherism
ever happened there, and that’s surely a good thing. However,
France has also been unable to adapt to globalisation in the way
others in Europe have done, as if social rights could only be
protected if nothing changes.
Current events boil
down to a show-down between two currents of the left, one reformist,
and the other backing a labour system the country can no longer
afford – at least not in the way it has existed for decades.
Hollande is hoping most French people understand that, but his
performance has been unconvincing.
Fast-track
legislation and bypassing the parliament hasn’t helped. Yet giving
up entirely on reforms would not only spell the end of Hollande’s
re-election hopes, it would set France backwards – and Europe would
soon feel the effects.
French unions are
protesting against President Hollande’s proposed reforms to labour
protection laws. As tens of thousands take to the streets across the
country, there are fuel shortages and proposals to expand strikes to
the rail network and nuclear industry. France is set to host the Euro
2016 finals in June, and neither strikers nor the government seem
inclined to back down
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