Catherine Curran Vigier argues that the collapse of France’s Barnier government, brought down by a no-confidence vote led by the Left’s New Popular Front (NFP), is a victory for workers against Macron’s undemocratic, anti-worker agenda. As strikes grow nationwide, she criticizes left-wing parties negotiating with Macron, calling instead for a united movement to fight austerity and job cuts.
President Macron is increasingly isolated following last Wednesday’s vote of no confidence proposed by the left’s New Popular Front, the NFP, which brought down the Barnier government only three months after it came into office. The vote of no confidence came after Barnier resorted to the 49-3 clause which allowed him to push the budget through without a vote, in denial of parliamentary democracy.
Barnier’s entire government represented a denial of democracy. It was cobbled together by Macron and the right with the support of the fascist RN following last July’s General Election. The Left’s New Popular Front, or NFP, a coalition of La France Insoumise, (LFI) the Socialist Party (PS), the Greens (EELV) and the Communist Party (PCF) got the most seats, but no party had an outright majority. Parliament was divided between the NFP, Macron’s Renaissance, and the RN. Les Republicains (LR), what’s left of the once-dominant conservative party, only got 7% of the vote.
Instead of calling on the Left to form a government, as he should have done according to tradition, Macron refused to accept the NFP candidate, Lucie Castets, for prime minister, and instead looked to the party with the fewest votes – Les Republicans, for a prime minister acceptable to the right and above all the RN. Anti-immigrant and homophobe, former European Commissioner Michel Barnier was the only candidate who met with the approval of RN leader Marine Le Pen, and therefore he became Prime Minister.
For three months Barnier and his coalition of neoliberal and extreme right wingers worked to prepare the population for the most viciously anti-working class budget in a long time. While the Macronists protested furiously every time Barnier appeared to contemplate taxing the rich, the RN waved through attacks on the poor. In particular, it made sure to block a left attempt to repeal the highly contested increase in retirement age, allowing Macron to maintain one of his flagship projects.
Barnier’s budget was a savage attack on working class living standards, with a few tax cuts on the super-rich to divert attention from the real targets. It proposed a new round of public sector job cuts, including 4,000 teaching jobs, the loss of sick pay for the first three days of civil servants’ sick leave, and only 90% of full pay for the remaining days off, and major cutbacks in the health, education and public sector budgets.
But Le Pen’s implicit support for Macron, made her look too close to the power she claims to contest. One the one hand, she craved respectability and claimed that the RN did not want to add chaos to the chaos already existing in Parliament by bringing down the government. But on the other hand, her attempt to win over working class voters were clearly hampered by her support for Macron, however she tried to hide this.
The fall of Barnier’s government is a clear victory for the Left. It means that the vicious budget it prepared can not now be applied, and that last year’s budget measures will continue for the moment. Macron must now look around for a new prime minister to form a government until the end of the year. In a television speech last Thursday, he said he would be naming a new PM in the next few days.
Jean-Luc Mélénchon and La France Insoumise’s deputies are demanding that Macron name the NFP’s candidate, Lucie Castets, as PM and that the NFP be allowed to form a government with the programme it was elected on.
But Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure met with Macron on Friday and said that he was willing to discuss the formation of a government ‘for the common good’, so long as Macron nominated a Prime Minister from the Left, and that concessions were made on both sides. Faure told Macron that his troops would not take part in a government led by a right-wing PM, but his offer of compromises, even on the reform of retirement age, caused outrage in the ranks of LFI.
Melenchon said that Faure had no mandate from the LFI to negotiate an agreement with Macron. Even Marine Tondelier, leader of EELV, the Green Party, warned Faure not to fall into Macron’s trap.
Nevertheless, Tondelier subsequently announced that the Greens and the Communists as well as the PS will meeting with Macron and the leaders of the other parliamentary groups, excepting LFI and the RN, with a view to forming a government. While they claim they will demand a Prime Minister from the Left, Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel said that for his part this was just a ‘preference’.
This is a complete betrayal of the NFP and the millions who voted for its programme. Even the idea of compromise with Macron and his party is a betrayal of the thousands of workers who came out on strike last week to defend public sector jobs and wages.
Up to 200,000 people demonstrated in over 200 demonstrations across France against attacks on public sector workers’ conditions on Thursday 5th December. The biggest teaching union, the FSU, said 65% of primary school teachers were on strike. Overall, around 246,000 public sector workers were on strike, according to the government. This is three times more than the number of workers out on the last strike day in March.
Town hall workers and tax bureau employees as well as hospital workers, administrative employees and airport workers were also on strike. The movement is set to continue with the CGT announcing a strike of dockworkers, for pay negotiations and action on the risks related to asbestos. The CGT has also called for an unlimited strike of railworkers from the 11th of December on, in response to the dismantling of the SNCF’s freight service and the opening of the sector to competition.
These actions come against a backdrop of massive job losses across France
According to figures released by the CGT, 13,000 jobs are threatened in the steel
industry, while 7,000 jobs could go in the chemical industries. The automobile industry is badly affected as well. 10,000 jobs are going in commerce and 6,000 more in banking and insurance.
For the PS, Greens and PCF, so-called parties of the left, elected on the programme of the NFP, to go into talks with Macron while workers are fighting a desperate battle for their jobs and salaries, shows how out of touch they are with the lives of ordinary people.
CGT leader Sophie Binet has called for another strike day on December 12th. She said that all workers threatened with job losses should go on strike and occupy their factories. We can’t let the reformists’ desire for compromise with Macron get in the way of these mobilisations. We need to build a strike movement that will sweep them all into the dustbin, along with Macron and his far-right allies.
