Today, for the third time in a month, France goes on strike.
What for this time?
The same as last time—and the time before. They want to prevent the government raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 (if you've worked the requisite number of weeks) and from 65 to 67 (if you haven't). This time, however, the French are striking to prevent something that has already happened. The first two strikes were to stop the proposed reform. But last week, and yesterday, the key clauses went through the Senate. Now nothing can stop the reform becoming law.
And the French are still going to strike?
Airports, railway stations, schools will all close again. The real issue is whether the schoolkids will come out. Sarko has admitted in private that is his nightmare. Traditionally once the lycéens (15-19 years old) get a taste for the street they can't be bothered to go back to school. The shadow of 1968 hangs heavy over France.
But ordinary people—I mean adults—are willing to lose a day's pay walking up and down a Boulevard shouting slogans about something that's already history?
It is crazy, but today is a real trial of strength. Sarkozy knew the only way to get his reform through was to do it fast, without discussion. Once you ask a Frenchman his opinion you'll be there until the bottle is empty and neither of you can remember what you're talking about. So Sarkozy opened the formal discussions on the eve of the summer holidays—everyone was trying to calculate whether they could fit all the kids, bikes, boats into the car, what the rented house would be like, how far the beach, where the nearest two-star restaurant. When Sarkozy began the debate in parliament in early September some members were still wiping the sand off their feet – and by the time they'd dug the sun cream-smeared text out of the beach bag the bill had already passed through. Same thing last week in the Senate – we were told to expect 3 weeks' debate, then, at the end of the second day, the main clause is voted through. None of the rest matters. Sarkozy's plan is to make today’s strikers look irrelevant—Die-hard Socialist Dinosaurs. He's betting most people will agree it's irrelevant and won't show up. Then Sarkozy can say, on prime time TV news this evening (which he has already booked), “I knew with time and careful thought the French people would come round to my way of thinking.”
But he may have it wrong. There's a lot hanging on today. If the unions can convincingly claim around 2 million have turned out (police figures would have to be a little under half that) then a lot of public sector workers—trains in particular, dockers, but teachers too, and school-kids—will start a series of rolling, indefinite strikes which will spell real trouble for Sarkozy.
And all this for a pension reform that's already signed and sealed?
When the French take to the streets in large numbers it is rarely for the stated reason and certainly not for one single reason. Friday's vote in the Senate heralded the end of la grande illusion. Retiring at 60 symbolises all that is best and most glorious in France. Established by Presidential decree in 1982, it became the corner-stone of the 1980's fiction that from now on we would all work less, with the state picking up the tab, assuring everyone a happy, long, well-educated, cultured, healthy life. An offer, it goes without saying, unique to France. Now the state itself is the problem, everyone having to work longer to bail it out. Doctors appear on television to admit the public health system is a mess, despite being one of the world's most expensive. Poverty in France used never be mentioned, now it is a fact of life. French universities are recognised as trailing behind other countries. Unemployment does not go down, nor does the public debt. Even the state-aided national champions—Alstom high-speed trains for example or Dassault jet-fighters—no longer sell. Welcome to the 21st century.
Behind and above all this, many people feel France under Sarkozy has lost its grandeur, without which, as De Gaulle said, it cannot really be France. Jacques Chirac will be dragged through the courts early next year: their former head of state publicly pilloried, a national humiliation. Then the business of EU Commissioner Reding, “appalled” by France deporting Romani, a “disgrace”, she said. The French are taught, and believe, their country is the “mother of Human Rights,” Europe a French creation. Reding's shaming remarks cut deep. But President Sarkozy's subsequent tantrums at Brussels, plus his lies about a non-existent conversation with Angela Merkel, cut even deeper. By taking to the streets today the French want to distance themselves from the man they feel is shaming France.
In fact a majority recognise the need to reform their pension system—they simply object to the way this particular reform has been thrust down their throats. The reform has faults, and the French are right to want to correct them: despite Sarkozy's amendments, it still discriminates against women, many of whom work part-time, or have children, and thus by 62 have not clocked-up enough retirement points for a full pension, so may have to keep working to 67.
But again, there's far more beneath the surface. Whenever there's trouble, as they say in France, cherchez la femme. There is one here, very definitely, no longer young, though quite beautiful, possibly losing her marbles but very, very rich. The richest woman in Europe, in fact. Liliane Bettencourt.
And she needs a pension?
She's already given a friend, a companion, one billion euro. That kind of woman. By unhappy coincidence, skillful or scurrilous journalism, depending on your point of view, the Minister who is making the French work longer, Eric Woerth, is implicated in a potentially enormous political scandal involving this elderly widow. He is allegedly one of the recipients of her generosity; as Budget Minister he was responsible for not running a check on the heiress' tax situation (she admits paying less than 10% tax on an annual income of €409million, during Woerth's watch she even received a rebate of €30million). There is worse: until the scandal broke Reform Minister Woerth's wife managed the heiress' fortune. She got the job just days after her Minister husband bestowed the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest accolade, on the heiress' financial director. Not all necessarily illegal but certainly sleazy. The French are angry, their republican values insulted, that two people so closely tied up in this money-soaked world should be making them work at least two years longer.
There are a lot of reasons behind today's strike. Some people will say they want to topple Sarkozy, certainly a majority are looking to 2012, the next presidential election, and want to ruin his chances of re-election. They're sick of him and his authoritarian, wealth-protecting ways. He's not a statesman, they say. He's energetic, certainly, and a clever, Machiavellian politician, but he doesn't do things that stick, it's all façade. They're even saying now what nobody dared say a few years ago, that he's only half-French!
The French: a guide for the perplexed
October 12, 2010
