Strikes Won't Stop Sarko
This week, France has been hit by strikes pushed by the Socialist party and unions in opposition to President Sarkozy’s pension reforms bill. But despite the rallies, Sarkozy was able to pass his reforms and the real loser may turn out to be the Socialist party.
The pension reforms in question increase the default retirement age from 60 to 62 and make workers wait longer to receive a full pension. Even if the Socialists take power it is unlikely they would repeal the reform. In truth, the Socialists probably hoped to let Sarkozy take the heat for the needed reforms and use the subsequent crisis and mass strikes to rally voters during the elections. It’s uncertain if their gambit is working though.
France is notoriously famous for its strikes. The play is usually the same: Every five to ten years, a conservative majority tries to pass some social reform, the unions and the opposition organize a public sector strike, and then the government backs off and loses the next election. In reality though, the strikes are not that frequent and the number of lost working hours not that large.
It is a bit hard to understand why exactly French governments back down. In general, holding one's ground in front of a social protest is quite profitable electorally, even in France. After every revolutionary period, the French have happily elected or accepted conservatives or authoritarian regimes. That happened in 1799 with Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1848 with Napoleon III, in 1871 with Thiers (in the wake of the Paris Commune) and in 1968 after the events of May, when De Gaulle dissolved the parliament and the conservative majority won bigger than ever.
One problem is that often the government loses support within its own majority. If there is a powerful dissenting movement inside the majority, then the government may be bound for bad surprises. The last time something like that happened was in 2006, when then Prime Minister Villepin tried to pass a bill which would have made it easier for employees to be fired. Within his own party, Villepin faced opposition from Sarkozy (then minister of the interior). But Sarkozy doesn't seem to have much to worry about this time: he has managed to keep any dissenting faction within his majority from becoming too powerful. And no one is tempted to oppose the government especially with Sarkozy redistributing ministerial portfolios in a few weeks.
Right now, the attitude of the French public is ambiguous. According to the polls, 60-70% support the strikes, but the numbers seem dubious. People are affected in varying degrees by the strikes; those who use public transportation for instance will see more disruptions. It’s possible pollsters may have a hard time finding good representative samples since no one knows when and where the strikes are really effective. Also, other polls seem to indicate that the French more or less support the reform, or at least its basic principles, so why on earth would they also support the strikes?
This time the unions are also attempting a new strategy that seems to be unsuccessful. In the past, they would attempt to paralyze the country by shutting down the public transportation system. During the 1995 strikes, no one could use the train or the subway for weeks. Today, only about 10% of public transport is blocked, so the unions have turned to shutting down refineries and oil depots in hopes of preventing the French from using their cars. But that hasn’t been entirely successful either: while 25% of gas stations have been put temporarily out of business, the government has been able to open at least one refinery by force. It's probably easier to take control of a refinery and put it back to work than to put a railway line back to work. While the government did manage to open the Paris Metro during a strike in 1919, they haven’t been able to since.
The other prong of the opposition’s strike strategy has been to mobilize high school and college students. People from 15 to 25 are easy to put on the street and very good at repeating empty slogans on topics they have no clue about. And grown-ups pretend to take them seriously. In 1986, the conservative government had to abandon proposed education reforms after a young demonstrator was killed by policemen. That may be what Segolène Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate in 2007, had in mind this week when she warned that the government would be "responsible for what would happen in the street in the coming days." Royal though was heavily criticized for her statement.
This week however youth demonstrations have turned violent not with clashes between students and security forces, but because of another kind of "youth": essentially down from the suburbs to pick fights, destroy cars and break shop windows. Often, students have been unable to control their own demonstrations and have turned to the security forces for protection. Indeed, the various incidents that took place during this week's demonstrations were all attributable to the demonstrators themselves. One young girl, who was hit by a rock aimed at a policeman, lost an eye and another was burned after students lit a fire. The student protests seem to have backfired and the Socialists have tried to blame the incidents on the government's refusal to back down.
The most important factor in favor of Sarkozy, though, may be that he seems to understand how important it is to win. First, the loser will probably bear responsibility for the mess in the public eye. Second, people don't elect losers. Third, defeat is a destabilizing factor and the Socialists still have to select a candidate to run in 2012. The strikes over the pension reform may be turn out to boost Sarkozy's chances of getting a second term.