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NEWS & LETTERS, August-September 2007Our Life and TimesBy Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth France’s looming confrontationFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy has already drawn the battle lines for fall. A new labor law slated for passage this summer would limit the right to strike in the public sector, with workers forced to give a 48-hour advance notice and most provocatively, the requirement that a “minimum level of service” be maintained during strikes. Unions have already threatened a “long and hard strike” if such laws are applied. Sarkozy also plans to “reform” the university system by cutting the education budget and reducing student representation. In response, Bruno Julliard, president of the National Union of French Students, also predicted a confrontation. Referring implicitly to France’s long history of student activism, whether under fascism or in 1968, Julliard declared that if Sarkozy does not back down, “The students will assume their responsibilities when classes resume in the fall.” Sarkozy sent his own brutal signal on July 14, Bastille Day. He refused to pardon a single prisoner, breaking with the tradition of presidential pardons on the national holiday. Jacques Chirac, his predecessor, pardoned 3,500 prisoners last year, a fact that even the guards’ union noted, while warning of violence inside the prisons as a result of Sarkozy’s stance. |
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