French General Strike

Leaflet distributed in France December 5th, 2010

Workers

We are back on the streets against yet another reform of the pension system, supposedly the last! This is what the Balladur government said back in 1993, when it increased the contribution period from 37.5 years to 40 years; then the government of Sarkozy in 2010, then that of Hollande which passed a law that progressively increased the contribution period to 43 years.

Yes, social security is still in deficit and the deficit is likely to get worse, but not, as the propaganda tells you, because there are too many old people and not enough young people, or because we live too long – Ah, how happy the bourgeoisie would be if a worker would die quickly after a long life of labor for capital!

No, it’s not because there are not enough young people; more young people in this economic system means more unemployed today. The real reason is that this moribund mode of production, capitalism, is incapable of giving work to everyone. This obsolete system, which relies on the exploitation of wage labor, has been in crisis for almost 45 years now.

Since the 1974‑75 crisis – which put an end to the post‑war expansion that followed 50 million war deaths – world capitalism has experienced a crisis of overproduction in a 7- to 10‑year cycle. And from cycle to cycle the general situation worsens: there is the colossal debt of states, companies, and families; frantic speculation in housing, raw materials, etc.; restructuring and relocations at a glance; and endemic unemployment. And of course, with each crisis, the social security deficit, and therefore the pension system, explodes: there are company bankruptcies, mass layoffs, and therefore a reduction in contributions, hence the deficit of social security funds and pensions!

After the recession of 2008‑2009, which saw industrial production fall by 17% in Germany, by 22% in Italy and by 15% in France, to name only these countries, we had a small recovery of production in 2017‑2018. But since mid‑2018 there has been a global slowdown, which is now turning into a recession: from China to Germany, via the United States and Japan, no country is spared. While in previous cycles, after 2 or 3 years of recession, there was a recovery in production that led to a higher than the previous maximum, today the level of production is still lower than that reached in 2007: -8.5% in France, based on official indices, but if one had to take into account massive relocations to low‑cost countries, one could double or even triple this figure!

In this context, the deficit of social security and pension funds is inevitable. What needs to be corrected is not social security and its pension system, but the capitalist mode of production, which has become a parasitic organism that no longer has any historical function and is leading humanity towards a new catastrophe: an economic crisis more serious than that of 1929 and which in the end will push the various bourgeois and imperialist states to a new world confrontation, the premises of which we already see today.

The great historical role of capitalism has been to socialize the productive forces by substituting for the small family and fragmented production of the small peasant and the artisan the mechanized and centralized production of the big industry, whose machines are set in motion by millions workers who function as one and who have neither ownership of the means of production nor ownership over the product of labor. Here we have the economic base of communist society. However, this base conflicts with bourgeois property relations, hence the repeated economic crises.

The industrial, financial, and landed great bourgeoisie, with the help of their state, are doing everything possible to maintain its economic system in a condition of survival which assures it of immense class privileges; it does not shrink from any measure, no matter how much suffering it engenders for the great mass of workers.

It has used high unemployment to put pressure on wages, and increased the precarity of the labor force by resorting to the limited-duration contract and by bringing the CDIs (indefinite-term contracts) closer to the fixed-term contracts, thanks to the modification of labor legislation, massive recourse to subcontracting and relocation, etc., etc.

And of course there is also a question of reducing the deficits that its economic system provokes, by modifying the pensions and unemployment insurance, although at the same time the different governments, right or left, are not embarrassed to make tax gifts to the big bourgeoisie. These gifts are now worth several tens of billions, and are, from an economic point of view, totally counter-productive: the big bourgeoisie does not invest, on the contrary it uses these sums in pure speculation, raising the price of housing, which allows it to grow even more on the backs of workers.

The solution exists: it involves the overthrow of the big bourgeoisie and its state, its expropriation, the abolition of wage labor and capital, passing to the communist management of production and distribution.

You must therefore prepare yourself morally and politically for confrontation with the bourgeoisie and its state.

But for that you have to organize yourself first and foremost at the union level by founding a real class union that will seek to unify your struggles and centralize them. This means getting out of regime unions that pretend to organize you and sabotage social struggles, spreading discouragement and demoralizing workers.

One way to begin could be the organization of grassroots committees, bringing together the most radical elements and the most determined to unify the struggles and centralize them, thus exceeding the limits of categories and companies. Such committees could unify the struggles of Hospital Workers, SNCF, RATP, Teachers, etc.

You can push back the bourgeoisie and its government, as the yellow vests have shown about the price of gasoline, or youth demonstrations under the Villepin government, and the great strike of the SNCF under the Juppé government in 1995. It all depends on your will and determination.

However, to confront the bourgeoisie and its state, the trade union organization is a first step, but not enough in itself; we must organize ourselves politically with a clear and coherent program and a clear view of the goals to be achieved. To accomplish this we must join the ranks of the International Communist Party, which against all odds, through the post‑war upheavals, has maintained the continuity of the revolutionary communist program.

Long Live the Class Struggle, Long Live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!