BY MURRAY SMITH
PARIS As the danger of a general strike against his planned reform of the pension system receded, French social affairs minister Francois Fillon knew who to thank. He paid tribute to the "responsible attitude" of Bernard Thibault, general secretary of the CGT trade-union federation, adding that "even in the most tense moments" Thibault had maintained an attitude of "reasonable opposition".
Reporting Fillon's statement on June 17, the daily Le Monde commented that the minister was "grateful [to the CGT] for having done its utmost to prevent the generalisation of a movement that looked like getting out of its control".
Thibault could probably have done without this poisoned gift from Fillon. He's having enough trouble explaining to many of his members why he refused to call for a general strike, instead adopting a tactic of marching them up to the top of the hill and then marching them down again, not once but several times.
And if Thibault will now have to face serious opposition within the CGT, rival CFDT union federation leader Francois Chereque, who blatantly sold out the movement in mid-May, is likely to see tens of thousands of members leave his organisation.
The mobilisations on June 19 were not as massive as on previous days of action. Nevertheless, 350,000 people across France (50,000 in Paris) took part in militant and defiant demonstrations.
For this most determined core of the movement it was a way of saying to the government, "see you in September". As France's long summer holidays approach, that is the horizon that is being looked to by everyone.
The pension reform will now be adopted by the French parliament, but that won't be the end of the matter. It will have to be applied sector by sector and opposition will continue.
The climate in schools is such that fresh conflicts can flare up at any time.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is congratulating himself on having faced down the movement against the Fillon plan. At the same time he is visibly apprehensive for the future, and has promised that he will rule out "any brutal initiative" over health insurance.
His victory was won at the price of provoking the biggest working-class mobilisations for decades and radicalising a whole generation of young workers. It won't be easy to put the genie back in the bottle.
Everyone will now be drawing the lessons of May-June 2003. What most worries politicians (and many union leaders) is the way the movement developed to a large extent through democratic rank-and-file assemblies and horizontal coordination at a local level between different unions and workplaces. Maintaining and developing these links will be one of the keys to victory in future confrontations.
Raffarin may have won a battle, but the war is far from over.
From Green Left Weekly, July 2, 2003.
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