In May and June much of France was mobilised (and the rest of us immobilised) while the public sector contested the government's plans for pension reform. At the same time, teachers went on strike in protest against staff cutbacks and another major government project, decentralisation, which will result in less money being available in some schools. At the beginning of July the unions called a tactical halt, the summer holidays being sacred. "Rendezvous in September" was the cry, as the busloads headed home, confident their parliamentary representatives would talk the reform bill into oblivion-by tabling some 7,000 amendments.
Deep in the French countryside, outside a farmworker's cottage built generations ago, I sit at a table between my friends Yves and Sylvie. Here, at their r?dence secondaire, where family links are maintained and memories fill the space, the couple are unwinding after two months of intense union activity. We are three hours away from the hospital where they work as nurses, and where both act as officials for the CGT, one of the largest union confederations. This evening, their recent battles interest me less than the question of why unions are still so vital to many French people.
Yves and Sylvie see unions as the true seat of democracy. French unions are organised differently from their British counterparts. In the health service, although less than 10 per cent of staff are members of a union, all can vote to choose a union representative, and anyone can lobby a union representative to get conditions improved. With certain limited exceptions, everyone in France has the right to strike. Consequently, most of the people you see on television waving banners and singing songs are not union members at all; they are citizens who care about the issues raised by a union. And the unions can justifiably claim that such people strike out of conviction and not coercion.
Only paid-up members can vote for union policy, but in the CGT, "every decision is made democratically," says Yves. "For example, even though the executive were against the 35-hour week, they signed more than half the government proposals. Why? Because the members wanted it. What we want sticks because it comes from real democracy, whereas politics depends on the delegated vote which deforms democracy."
Outsiders see the French union movement as weak: too few members and too many small unions bickering among themselves. And yet, as Sylvie says, union pressure in 1995 ultimately led to the fall of Alain Jupp? government. The cry on the street this spring was "Raffarin resign, Chirac in jail." Some believe that at least the first part is achievable.
As well as safeguarding income, the traditional purpose of a strike is to protect certain valeurs-semi-mystical concepts embedded deep within the French soul, such as solidarit?nter-g?rationnelle, the battle cry of the anti-reformists this spring. This solidarit?s not only the founding principle of French pensions, it implies that "we are making sacrifices so our children will not be slaves." It is a noble vision, certainly, but one which, like the unchanging family house, suggests life will be the same in 40 years' time. The sacrifice is not clear-cut either: very often the government, having caved in as it usually does, discreetly finds a way of reimbursing the strikers for at least part of their lost income. "After all," it was explained to me, "if they admit defeat it's because we were right. And if we were right, why should we lose money?"
But this summer, history was made. The government didn't cave in. First, the prime minister made a deal with two unions, wrongfooting the others (solidarit?s not what it was). Then, in the middle of the holiday truce, Raffarin quietly steered the pension reform bill past the 7,000 amendments into the statute book. He had scented a wind of change, had heard, muttered in the back streets, the Thatcherist heresy: "Your right to strike conflicts with my right to work."
"We've lost the battle of ideas," admits Yves. "There is a tide of opinion which says that public systems are hindering the economy and that the private economy based on performance is the best."
Actually, this battle is not entirely lost. Traditionally, damage caused in the name of union ideology is dealt with leniently. My near neighbour Jos?ov?laimed immunity for damaging GM crops on the grounds that it was union business, but when he got sent down, senior politicians, the press and unions expressed outrage at this erosion of republican values. The court rescinded, ruling that Bov?ould spend most of his sentence at his farm on the Larzac plateau, where he held a huge festival of grievances and was elevated to effective leader of the opposition. There is a very real ideological struggle going on. Change upsets the French at a deep level. Every reform threatens an untouchable "social acquisition." The teachers' issues remain unresolved and other reforms have been announced, including the financing of the health service, where an already massive debt has increased by an alarming 60 per cent in 12 months. The battle of ideas may be lost, but the war of who rules France is far from over.
