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| Back on the rails - the impact of November’s strikes on a scene of shifting political allegiances |
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| Wednesday, 05 December 2007 | |
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It was inevitable that there would be ructions when Nicolas Sarkozy carried out his election pledge to end the privileged retirement scheme for certain public employees. Alain Juppé wanted to do the same thing back in 1995, but the fury of the rail unions was such that he backed off and Alain Madelin, his Minister of Finance, had to resign. But Sarkozy has succeeded in introducing this long-overdue reform. Some concessions have been made to sweeten the pill but the basic principle has been established that everyone should contribute for 40 years to the pension fund before being eligible for a full pension. This principle was supported by a comfortable majority of public opinion and the strikes have now been called off, just in time to get back to the serious business of Christmas shopping. After early enthusiasm, when about 80% of the workforce walked out, the cheminots started drifting back to work until the strikers dropped to less than 20% – still enough to cause serious disruption to normal service. Maybe the shameful attack on the TGV signalling system – more than 30km of communication cables vandalised – was the final event which caused the unions to vote for a return to work: they were really horrified by such sabotage, utterly foreign to their code. Sensing their cause’s increasing unpopularity, the union leaders showed a certain pragmatism. It was Bernard Thibault, head of the CGT – usually the most intractable of the unions when discussing working conditions – who led the way to the negotiating table, leaving François Chérèque, of the more middle-of-the-road CFDT, to follow him, rather miffed as it was he who had first suggested talk instead of strike. Both men have been booed by their own hard-core members, who refused even to listen to proposals for change. A number of these members have moved to SUD Rail, home of the Trotskyites, and of the final 2% of strikers who were the last to suspend the strike. Thibault and Chérèque were joined by Jean-Claude Mailly of the FO (the third big French union) in their belief that reforms cannot be postponed indefinitely, especially when proposed by a firm and united administration. They are also aware that a 10-day rail strike further diminishes the shrinking cake from which everyone, manifestly, seems to feel the need of getting a bigger slice. The Socialists were very conscious of the danger of the strike’s unpopularity rubbing off on them if they showed unqualified support for it, which might reflect in next year’s municipal elections. So their reaction has been rather muted and they were conspicuously absent from the street demos. In any case, the political map has changed considerably since the presidential elections. Jospin’s old gauche plurielle (the left with a bit of a bulge towards the centre with the PS dominant) finally disintegrated during the presidentials; now there’s a droite plurielle (with the UMP dominant with a bit of a bulge towards the centre). Sarkozy’s ‘presidential federation’ includes Éric Besson’s new party Mouvement progressiste, Nouveau centre, Gauche moderne and the old Parti radical. Jean-Louis Borloo, a long-standing UDF man, is eyeing this group with the idea of consolidating them into a centrist party. Between them and the PS you can still see François Bayrou and his Modem if you look hard enough. The students who are trying to close the universities in opposition to plans to make them more independent are also going against the majority of their fellows who only want to get on with their studies. The protesters, mostly from the social sciences, are trying to recreate the heady days of May 1968 but their cause is not popular and their attempt to support the striking railway workers by occupying the railway lines indicates that their real preoccupations have nothing to do with academic concerns. Any stick to beat Sarkozy will suit them. Export successes Anne Lauvergeon, head of the atomic giant AREVA, has pulled off a remarkable deal in China, where she has signed a contract to build two atomic power plants worth E7 billion… and managed to negotiate the deal in euros rather than dollars. AREVA is the only firm that can extract and treat uranium, design, build and maintain atomic power plants and treat the resulting radioactive waste. EADS and Airbus have done a similar deal for 160 planes, mainly A360s, which goes some way to improving their current order book that is too heavily denominated in dollars and as this steadily weakens, Airbus loses ever more money. But to talk gloomily of looming bankruptcy when both Boeing and Airbus have order books so full that they can accept no new orders until 2012 seems exaggerated. In fact, the aviation industry is likely to be suffering from a serious shortage of aircraft within a few years, which should ensure the future of both firms in the long run. These two deals make up the bulk of the contracts valued at E30 billion announced by Nicolas Sarkozy on his visit to China. Another French success overseas has been the new Hanoi métro. This will be built like Ligne 14 on the Paris network, fully automated and the only one to keep running normally right through the strikes. Not surprisingly, plans are afoot to automate many of the other Parisian lines as quickly as possible, a tendency which the strikes have no doubt accelerated. Hamilton Mills |
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