People from all sides of politics came out on the streets of Paris in great numbers on May 1.
Ahead of the second round of the French presidential poll on May 6, it was a highly politicised May Day. In the first round on April 22, the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande beat the right-wing incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.
The far right National Front's candidate Marine Le Pen scored a record vote of about 18%. The Left Front's Jean-Luc Melenchon took about 11% of the vote.
France
The results of the first round of the French presidential elections on April 22 shone a powerful spotlight on a society polarised by economic crisis and the austerity regime of president Nicolas Sarkozy and his ruling Union for a Popular Movement government.
Presidential elections in France are a media spectacle rivalled perhaps only by those in the United States. In day-to-day life, there is also a real buzz as people argue and discuss the race on worksites, the street and, habitually, in cafes.
Streets are plastered with posters of candidates and clever activist propaganda (over the top of some street signs here, activists have put up 鈥淚mpasse Sarkozy鈥).
There鈥檚 no election quite like a French presidential contest. It is a six-month-long race in which nearly every political stable usually has a runner and where the handicapping system is less rigged against 鈥渙utsiders鈥 than in many other countries.
A huge rally was held at Paris's Bastille monument in support of Left Front presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon on March 18, the Morning Star said the next day.
More than 100,000 trade unionists, members of the French Communist Party (PCF) and disaffected former members of the Socialist Party (PS) marched under red balloons and flags.
Melenchon said: "We're going to make this election on April 22 a civic insurrection.
"The insurrection is ... the most indispensable of duties in this France disfigured by social, territorial, cultural and gender inequality."
The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus & the Affair that Divided France
By Ruth Harris
Allen Lane, 2011
542 pages, $26.95 (pb)
The Dreyfus Affair in France a century ago shows how little has changed. 鈥淣ational security鈥 was on the lips of politicians and military officers as an innocent man from a vilified group was framed for treason in a rigged military court and sent to rot in a prison hell-hole to serve political ends amid war hysteria.
Make the name 鈥淎lfred Dreyfus鈥 or 鈥淒avid Hicks鈥 and the template fits.
The euro will survive for now 鈥 but only because working people in Greece and other European countries face greater suffering. That鈥檚 the not-so-hidden agenda behind the new US$227 billion bailout of Greece organised by the most powerful countries of the European Union, mainly France and Germany.
The New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) held its congress in the Paris suburb of Montreuil over February 11-13.
The congress adopted by a large majority a document, Our Responses to the Crisis, which analyses the multiple crises gripping capitalism: economic, social, food and climate, and outlined a vision of anti-capitalist, ecosocialist politics.
President Nicolas Sarkozy enacted a new law on November 10 that increases the retirement age of French workers. The move came just days after more than a million workers and students mobilised across France against the law.
French workers and students have mobilised in large numbers again to oppose changes in pension laws that will raise the age at which workers are able to retire.
The seventh national strike in as many weeks took place on October 28, as indefinite strikes in many industries against the changes entered their third week.
The protests took place despite the government鈥檚 pension bill passing through France鈥檚 parliament on October 27.
The following statement was released by the Socialist Alliance in Australia. Visit www.socialist-alliance.org for more information.
* * *
Socialist Alliance salutes the millions of French workers and students who have taken to the streets in a wave of sustained demonstrations and strikes against the Sarkozy governments鈥 attack on pensions.
Since October 12, France has been gripped by intensifying mass opposition by workers and students to proposed counter reforms to the country鈥檚 pensions system by the right-wing government of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Public opposition to the attack has been highlighted by three national strikes each involving millions of people, two national student strikes and a growing wave of indefinite strikes in a range of industries 鈥 most notably the crippling shutdown of the oil industry.
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