The austerity policies of the Mitterrand government
Daniel JEBRAC
On Wednesday June 8 President Francois Mitterrand held his second major press conference since his investiture. He claimed to be steering the same political course and left the government's projects in a vague sketch.
On June 13 the Finance and Economy Minister, Jacques Delors, announced after the Brussels meeting the devaluation of the French franc by 9.59 per cent in relation to the Deutschmark and the Dutch florin. This latest devaluation, eight months after the devaluation of 8.5 per cent in October 1981, signifies a decrease in value of the frane by 60 per cent in relation to the Deutschmark since 1975.
All the ministerial efforts to establish a continuity between these measures and the presidential speech are scarcely convincing. In his June 8 speech Francois Mitterrand proposed a national meeting for an exchange of views between the social partners, the government, the employers, and the trade unions, 'in July' or "in September' to avoid any fait accompli being forced on either side.
Yet the workers have indeed been presented with a fait accompli. From Monday June 14, the government has announced, there will be 'accompanying measures' to guarantee the benefits of devaluation: a freeze on prices, except for petrol and certain agricultural products, and on wages, except the minimum wage, for four months; holding down the social benefits (particularly family allowances); a new demand on the state employees who have security of employment in the name of 'national solidarity' to increase the unemployment fund.
At the same time, the government has announced that its policies are moving into a new stage, and are leaving the flat for the mountain (on the eve of the Tour de France cycling metaphors seem most appropriate): the attempts at reflation through increased consumption tried in 1981 must give way to increased help to investment.
The Socialist and Communist ministers have more than one trick up their sleeve, and more than one word in their dictionaries: they talk with eloquence and severe frowns of solidarity, effort, and patience...But all workers who prefer to call a spade a spade know what that means: a naked austerity policy. At least they had the decency to wait until after the Versailles summit to present the bill.
THE TEST OF AUSTERITY This turn is going to put everyone to the test. First of all, how to apply the price and wages freeze?
A law of 1950 establishes free wage negotiation. To freeze wages is would be necessary to either modify the law by legislation or to obtain the agreement of the 'social partners', not just at the na•tional level but also at the factory and branch level where wage rises are negotiated. Thus the 2.5 per cent rise planned for Renault on July 1, and at Citroen and for the state employees on September 1. It will be necessary for the trade unions to renounce the agreements they have already signed.
It is a long time since the Confederation francaise democratique de travail (CFDT) anticipated the appeal for austerity, and its congress last May had mandated its leadership to collaborate actively with this type of policy, even if a strong opposition was expressed.
The announcement of these governmental measures came at the same time that the CGT was holding its own congress in Lille, the town of the Prime Minister. Over and above the habitual refrains on the necessity to make the rich and the privileged pay, notably by the device of
ПАРУСУРІДАТІВ
Striking workers from Talbot (DR) tax reform, the congress heard the bad news with remarkable placidity. It is necessary to say that the French Communist Party, installed in the government and anxious to preserve its position in the negotiations on the preparation for the municipal elections for next year, while denouncing the responsibility of the employers for the economic difficulties, remained in solidarity with the government.
On the employers side the first warm reaction of the boss of bosses, Yvon Gattaz, president of the National Council of French Employers (CNPF) had been most benevolent, promising active co-operation, in the name of public-spiritedness, in the general mobilisation against the crisis. But, from the next day, the tone of the employers, determined to push their political and social advantage, went up a notch. They denounced the disastrous effects of the price freeze on their profit margins, and above all demanded the postponement of the Auroux laws on the new rights of workers and trade unions in the workplaces.
Finally, the employers announced a campaign of assemblies of employers, which will culminate in December by the holding of a national assembly of 14,000 employers, in order to keep up the mobilisation of opposition to, and pressure on, the government.
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THE EXPLOITED WILL PAY THE BILL The quack remedies of the government do not reach the root of the problems.
The Socialist and Communist leaders can blame to a greater or lesser extent: the responsibility of the United States, the bosses refusal to invest, the transfer of capital. Their only solution is fiscal reform, whose ability to hit the rich, we know, is only ever relative.
As to the wage freeze, the left, when in opposition, denounced its injustice each time that a rightwing government proposed similar measures. Wages can be well and truly frozen, and social benefits effectively reduced, while the bosses have a thousand ways of bypassing the price freeze, by launching new products for example. At the same time there is no way of controlling investment stopping the transfer of capital. In the final account the balance sheet of the last year is not so bad for the bourgeoisie.
The government has put into operation decentralisation and reform of planintended to make the ultracentralist and rigid institutions of the Fifth Republic more flexible, and to increase the levels of negotiation and dia-
Nationalisations have been well compensated and allowed a movement of centralisation and redistribution of private capital.
The trade union leaderships seem, in their majority, to be ready to help put into operation an 'austerity of the left.'
Nevertheless there remains a major difficulty. This is not the mandate that the overwhelming majority of the workers have given to the Socialist Party/ Communist Party government. This is not what they are waiting for. And, since May 10, 1981, the big reformist parties in the government and the trade unions have not increased their strength, nor reinand the parliamentary magovernment, nority, in the form of the great reforms by the candidate Francois announced
Mitterrand:
decentralisation, nationalisation, television and radio, housing, democratic liberties.
MOR
ATION
L'EG
Part-time work equals part-time unemployment (DR)
Workers have led local struggles to defend their jobs or their wages, to put an end to the bosses despotism in certain en-
But overall, they have mainterprises.
tained a wait-and-see attitude towards the
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Now, the policy of reflation has failed. The string of reforms is finished, the fiscal reforms remain to be approved. The hour of austerity has arrived. And the things to be decided upon, such as social security, will become new demands for sacrifices. There are still two million unemployed, and the figure continues to climb.
The government can count on the summer months to swallow the bitter pill. But the results of the medication are uncertain, and the appointments of the autumn will mark a change in the terrain of the social struggle. After that the municipal and regional elections in spring 1983 will bring the first judgement on the policies of the SP/CP majority.
Revolutionaries will participate in the battle under their own flag. The government asks for time and delays to succeed in the 'new course' in the meantime. The changes are still very slight. The course of time will bring new concessions to the bosses and demand new sacrifices from the workers. This policy is deceiving those who voted against the right and is preparing the way for the return in strength of reaction. This policy is laying the basis for future defeats.
This is why these policies must be firmly and clearly rejected.
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ON THE THRESHOLD OF
A NEW SITUATION
Until now the new government has benefited from what Francois Mitterrand has called 'the state of grace'
, which was also a period of observation.
For all your Socialist,
The heavy defeat of the right in
Feminist, Black Struggles, the elections of May 10 and June 21,
1981 expressed very well the social rela-
Third World, Gay Liberation, of forces.
But it came, for a tionship number of workers, as a divine surprise,
Literature, Posters, result of a mobilisation, but not as the after three years of deep division in their ranks, decline of struggle (1980 saw the lowest number of strike days since 1953), and the crumbling away of trade union
This is why the initiative has strength.
stayed in the hands of the President, the
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