Students protest new industrial relations in Paris : Melbourne Indymedia

We would like to clarify the situation here since it seems to us that many foreign medias seem to qualify the struggle as a purely conservative "we don't want to change anything" type of protest, just as they did when we proudly said !FUCK YOU! to Pascal "WTO" Lamy, Bolkenstein and all those heartless fucks at the European Comission and in french politics&medias. Our NO wasnt a racist no, it was an anti-liberal no whatever the medias try to say.

First we would like to thank all of those who supported us and the student's movement that's been shaking this decaying conservative country for more than a month. A special THANKS to the italians of "Contropodere" who organized themselves in less than 3 days to have a bus from Rome, Torino, Genoa and Bologna (i think) come up to Paris to help us in thursday's very sucessfull protests.

Tomorrow saturday 18th of march 2006 there will be a very big protest throughout France to have the neo-conservative government of mr chirac and villepin cancel the modifications they passed, without debate in the assembly, to our work code.

These modifications intend to create a new working contract called the CPE (that means 1st employment contract) which is going to allow companies to fire employees without any justifications WHATSOEVER. It is, for now, aimed at the 15-25 years-old category which the government knows is so nihilistic that most won't even take position against them being fired.

Just as in november they used old laws to "speed" (read : bypass) the (of course pseudo) democratic process in order to pass laws that comply with their capitalistic allies and vision of the new world order.

We had massive riots this autumn, which weren't manipulated or controlled by anything (this needs to be known; the french intelligence services themselves said it wasnt religious nor mafia but a population fed up with their lives) except the desire for giving back the violence poor people in the suburbs face everyday with the police, the workplace and the society in general.

France is no heaven ; Paris may be nice to spend a few days in but it's a hard place to live in because we've got too much envy and too many people surrounding it, all wanting the supposed parisian golden life of before.

We anarchists are trying to broaden the struggle which is being diverted to reformism by sold out student unions (UNEF mainly which is the youth branch of the "socialist" /yeah right!/ french party) and to some extent autonomization has increased a lot in a month.

As of march 16th about 3/4 of the 80+ french faculties are on strike, high schools in Paris, Rouen, Caen, Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Limoges and many more are also joining the fac students.

Strikes are decided by assembly voting and propositions for the strike usually amount to 3 to 1 for.
We managed to unify the movement to some extent with immigration rights groups who will also be victims of this piece of crap, just as will the unemployed and the poorly educated. The worker's union, just as in 68, are scared by the autonomization of the various movements but according to many polls 65+% of the population wants the text cancelled.We hope that union members BY THEMSELVES will help the movement with logistics and their experience because the union directions will not declare general strikes for the youth.

We have also rediscovered the joys of fascism, for about a week now between 50 to 100 extreme right (UNI-RED-FNJ : Uni is a rightwing student union, RED is very badly named ;-) because its a racist/homophobic union and FNJ is the youth section of the Front National ie the pigs) activists have been patrolling the small streets of the Latin Quarter, more or less ignored by the cops, with bats and helmets, beating all anti-cpe people they cross. Needless to say we beat them up badly but they are quite motivated and scare the first comers.

For a week now more and more people are fed up of union leaders calling them to protest from 2 to 5 and then thanking them for coming and telling them to go home, that it was a good protest. We do not want negociations concerning this CPE we want its total retrieval.

Thursday more than a thousand people bypassed the union's call and carried on protesting, attacking police and trying to infilter the fortified Sorbonne faculty to regain control after we were ousted at 4am 8 days ago, long after the collaborating union leaders had gotten home and had their nice little tea, satisfied that their union's logo would be shown on all tv channels ; those people are what we call here socio-traitors, just like the communist, green, socialist and revolutionnary parties (PC, Les Verts, PS, LCR) and the workers unions directing bodies (CGT, CFDT, CFTC mainly).

We know that many smaller europeans countries's politics are aligned on those of the big three euro-states and that is why you must understand that we are trying our best to let people know that we need to internationnalize our struggle against global State oppression and everyday precarity.

For now it is difficult to find ways to broaden our revendications because most students innocently think that it is just the CPE which is the problem.

Anyone who went to Genoa, Seattle or Geneva knows that a mere work contract is in reality nothing compared to the oppression of the World Bank, IMF and all those fucking Bilderberg/SkullsnBones/whatever elitist societies which plannify the coming of their all seeing all hearing New Order powered by constant oppression meant to wear combativity down and technological superioty/elitism.

We know we're not alone, we want you to know you're not either.

Tomorrow we will be dedicating the fights of the day to all the freedom loving people of the world who face 20x more harder repression and living conditions than we do, people in the US, elsewhere in Europe, the peasants, students, women, children who fight everyday in China, Korea, Asia, South America, Africa, Iran, Irak, ALL the people who fight against religious, economical and political obscurantism, oppression and tyranny.

ONE YOUTH.
ONE WORLD.
ONE LOVE.

May, with the help of everyone, freedom and justice reign!

Photos:
http://pl.indymedia.org/pl/2006/03/19079.shtml?comments=true

See good text coverage in English, links and photos at:
http://www.libcom.org/blog/

Well, as you know, the media prefer to show pictures of violence: that helps bring a larger audience.

There were over 500 000 demonstrations through all France and, today, there will probably be three times more as the unions are joining (and a few politicians too, I suppose, since there will soon be presidential elections and the left is trying unsuccessful to appear credible. We call them "the caviar left".

Most universities are closed down. That was by students first and now the police is trying to take over.

France's decline in the world and it's national decay, accompanied by the privatization of anything, is creating a crisis that is lasting for more
than twenty years. There have been in 1995 demonstrations that were much wider than in 1968. But lack of imagination, corporatism and union and political manipulation are always eroding the movements. But there's also among the young a nostalgia of 1968...

What has caused the upheaval is the government's new law that the young can be employed for two years and during that time expelled without any explanation. This is of course a destruction of what resuls of many social movement struggles in the last hundred years. And there is at present a lot of unemployment.

It used to be almost impossible to fire an employee as it was very costly for the enterprise, unless there was a serious fault or an economic difficulty. It's different now.

LYON, France (Reuters) - French youths protesting against a new employment law ended up in an unexpected clash with Turks demonstrating against an Armenian memorial when their separate marches crossed paths in this eastern city on Saturday.

Riot police used water cannon to separate the two groups after about 2,500 Turks opposed to the construction of a memorial in the city centre to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre attacked the demonstrating youths, police said.

The Turks, waving Turkish flags and holding up posters saying "There was no Armenian genocide," reacted after youths denounced them as "fascists" and yelled "go home!", police said.

Both sides pelted each other with missiles and engaged in fist fights, they said, adding that some youths protesting the employment law were apparently of Armenian origin.

Turkey rejects charges that it massacred 1.5 million Armenians living in the then Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Many of the survivors fled to France, which now has an influential Armenian minority of about 300,000. After a long campaign by them, the French parliament passed a bill in 1998 officially recognising the killing as genocide.

The protest against the new employment law was one of many marches across France on Saturday aimed at putting pressure on the Paris government to withdraw the measure that allows employers to fire workers under 26 more easily.

The conservative government introduced the law to encourage reluctant employers to take on new staff and help combat unemployment, which among young people is double the national average of 9.6 percent.

PARIS (Reuters) - Half a million protesters took to the streets across France on Saturday to demand the scrapping of a new law they fear will erode job security, and trade union and student leaders gave the government 48 hours to comply.

Issuing their ultimatum, the leaders said they might decide on a one-day general strike unless the government withdrew the law by Monday evening.

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would "bear full responsibility for social tensions that might follow" if they failed to meet the deadline, the leaders said.

The marches were mostly festive and peaceful, but dozens of youths pelted police with missiles, set a car ablaze and smashed a shop window at the end of the main protest in Paris. Police cleared them from Nation square with many rounds of tear gas.

Scattered violence was also reported in Marseille, Rennes and Lille, where police also charged and teargassed crowds.

"This is an ultimatum," Rene Valadon, confederal secretary of the Force Ouvriere union, said after union and student leaders met following the third nation-wide protest in six weeks. "The government and the president have 48 hours to decide."

Organisers estimated the turnout nation-wide at 1.3 to 1.4 million, with up to 400,000 of them in Paris. As usual, the official count was lower -- the Interior Ministry reported 503,000 nation-wide, with 80,000 in Paris.

GOVERNMENT OFFERS DIALOGUE

In the government's first reaction, spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said: "Beyond the passions of the moment, don't we all have an interest in a dialogue?" He ducked a television interviewer's question whether the government would withdraw the law.

Villepin launched the new contract to spur wary employers to take on new staff, but critics decry it as a "Kleenex contract" that lets young workers be "thrown away like a paper tissue."

"I risk working for two years for nothing, just to be fired at any moment," complained Coralie Huvet, a 20-year-old student marching in Paris under clear blue skies.

She had "No to the CPE" written on her forehead, a reference to the "First Job Contract" (CPE) the protesters oppose because it lets firms fire workers under 26 without explanation during their first two years on the job.

In the western city of Rennes, a stronghold of the three national protests in the past six weeks, students marched in plastic garbage bags with signs declaring: "I am disposable."

The demonstrators were a multigenerational mix of students and older workers, including many parents who accompanied their teenage children. Banners declared "No to throw-away youths" and "Tired Of Being Squeezed Lemons."

Opposition Socialist and Communist politicians also joined the protest, only the third time in almost four decades -- after 1968 and 1994 -- that students and workers marched together.

In the Paris unrest, 12 protesters were injured and 59 detained, police said, while four policemen were also hurt.

In Rennes, police had to storm a group of protesters to remove them from a railway line they were blocking. Another group attacked an office of Chirac's governing UMP party.

RISKS FOR VILLEPIN

Villepin, whose gamble on this unpopular contract could cost him his chance to run for president next year, has pledged not to give in to street pressure. At the same time, he hinted on Friday evening that he could make some adjustments to the law.

Unemployment is the top political issue in France, where the national average is 9.6 percent and youth joblessness is double that. The rate rises to 40-50 percent in some of the poor suburbs hit by several weeks of youth rioting last autumn.

Latest opinion polls show that 68 percent of French people oppose the law, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week, and that Villepin's popularity has dropped six points to 37 percent.

The crisis has isolated Villepin politically at a time when his patron Chirac is himself badly weakened. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin's main rival on the right, has stood back discreetly as the prime minister's troubles mount.

PARIS (Reuters) - Huge crowds of students, trade unionists and left-wingers took to the streets across France on Saturday to put pressure on the conservative government to cancel a new law they fear will undermine job security for young workers.

In a festive mood under bright blue skies, tens of thousands turned out in Paris, Lyon and Rennes in the biggest of 160 planned demonstrations in a growing movement that has created a serious crisis for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Trade union crowd marshals and ranks of riot police kept discreet but watchful eyes on the crowds to avoid any repetition of the violence that marred a Paris student rally on Thursday.

The protesters demand that Villepin withdraw a new youth job contract, known as the CPE, which lets firms fire workers under 26 without explanation in their first two years on the job. He launched it to spur reluctant employers to take on new staff.

"I risk working for two years for nothing, just to be fired at any moment," said Paris student Coralie Huvet, 20, who had "No to the CPE" written on her forehead. Pointing to painted-on tears, she added: "That's depressing, that's why I'm crying."

Organizers, who decry the CPE as a "Kleenex contract" that lets young workers be "thrown away like a paper tissue," said they hoped to have up to 1.5 million people out marching in the third national protest in six weeks.

France's main trade union leaders led the Paris march, followed by dancing and singing high school and university students and then ranks of workers.

Opposition Socialist and Communist politicians also joined the protest, only the third time in almost four decades -- after 1968 and 1994 -- that students and workers marched together.

Many parents accompanied their children in the march, where banners declared "No to throw-away youths" and "Tired Of Being Squeezed Lemons."

UNION LEADERS LOOK AHEAD

Union leaders, due to meet after the march to discuss future strategy, threatened to keep up the pressure on the government with further action next week.

"If they don't listen to us we are going to have to think about moving to a general strike across the whole country," said Bernard Thibault, head of the pro-Communist CGT union.

"We can't hold back because the student movement will continue and there could be some risks," said teachers' union head Gerard Aschieri. "There should be a strike next week."

Villepin, whose gamble on this unpopular contract could cost him his chance to run for president next year, has pledged not to give in to street pressure. At the same time, he hinted on Friday evening that he could make some adjustments to the law.

Unemployment is the top political issue in France, where the national average is 9.6 percent and youth joblessness is double that. The rate rises to 40-50 percent in some of the poor suburbs hit by several weeks of youth rioting last autumn.

In a bid to defuse the crisis, President Jacques Chirac said on Friday the government was "ready for dialogue" on the law that critics say must be withdrawn before any talks can start.

But the government has little room for maneuver without making major concessions. An opinion poll published on Friday showed 68 percent of French people oppose the law, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.

The crisis has isolated Villepin politically at a time when his patron Chirac is himself badly weakened. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin's main rival on the right, has stood back discreetly as the prime minister's troubles mount.

His only consolation is that the opposition Socialists are so split that they hardly seem able to profit from the crisis.

University chancellors met Villepin on Friday evening and urged him to suspend the law and launch negotiations.

"We told him that things are getting worse and that next week could prove very risky," said Yannick Vallee, vice president of the association of university presidents.