BY NAT LONDON
PARIS, France - University students throughout the country have begun a nationwide general strike just as the government and millions of workers have squared off for a major confrontation.
The main issue for the labor movement is a government austerity program being discussed in the National Assembly, which includes drastic cutbacks in the social security system. The university students are demanding increased funding for their schools and hiring of additional staff.
The wave of student strikes started at the university in Rouen in the Normandy region and has already spread to more than 20 of France's 90 universities. General student assemblies are being held at many of the campuses not yet on strike. Over 100,000 students throughout France demonstrated November 21 to press their demands.
Strike paralyzes transportation
Three days later, several million public service workers
took part in the second 24-hour general strike in the last
six weeks. Train, subway, bus, and air traffic ground to a
halt as hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated
against a series of government austerity measures that
would freeze wages and raise the retirement age of public
workers.
Workers were also protesting drastic measures to cut the social security system, which includes medical care, retirement, and unemployment benefits. This strike followed a similar 24-hour action on October 10, during which 3.5 million workers walked out.
By midday on November 24, all 14 Paris subway lines were closed, as was the suburban train network. With 80 percent of air traffic controllers out on strike, Air Inter, the main domestic carrier, was forced to cancel 84 percent of all flights inside France. Striking sailors blocked the ferry service linking the French-run island of Corsica to the mainland.
Schools closed throughout France and striking electrical workers came close to bringing about a nationwide power outage. Bus service stopped in most major cities. Students joined the demonstrations of striking workers.
The number of university students has tripled in the last decade and budget cutbacks have resulted in horribly overcrowded conditions. Universities built for 8,000 students now often accomodate over 30,000.
Some schools report only two square meters of floor space per student. Lecture halls often have seating capacity for only one-third of the enrolled students, while the rest sit on the floor, in hallways, or are turned away. Many courses necessary for graduation have no rooms or professors assigned to them at all.
Students in Rouen started their movement in October with a series of demonstrations. On October 26, hundreds of students occupied the rectorat, the regional offices of the Education Ministry. They were brutally attacked by riot police during the night. The cops evacuated the occupied building.
The next day thousands of students, parents, and faculty members demonstrated in the streets of Rouen. The university was occupied and a national demonstration was called for November 9. The students declared that their school needed an additional 12 million francs ($2.5 million) budgeted and the hiring of nearly 250 additional university personnel.
As demonstrations started at other universities, the government tried to head off the movement by agreeing to some of the demands in Rouen. It finally agreed to an additional 6 million francs this year, 3 million francs in 1996, and the hiring of 200 additional university personnel, including 188 professors. Instead of halting the protests as the government had hoped, these concessions spurred demonstrations on other campuses. A victory similar to that at Rouen was soon won by striking students at the University of Metz.
The national day of action on November 21 drew tens of thousands. Dozens of actions were held throughout the country. The press reported that 20,000 demonstrated in Toulouse, 25,000 in Paris, and actions in the range of 5,000 took place in Montpelier, Aix, Lyon, Tours, Nantes, Pau, and La Rochelle.
For the first time, thousands of high school students joined the protests.
Following the demonstration in Paris, students occupied the Pantheon, a large monument in the Latin Quarter of Paris near the University of Sorbonne, to set up a national coordinating committee of the schools on strike.
Students join workers on strike
The all-night meeting called for increasing the national
university budget by 2 billion francs, for equal rights for
foreign students, and for granting tenure to all university
employees. It also called for another national day of
action on November 30 and for joining with striking public
workers in their anti-austerity protests on November 24.
Many students were particularly angry about the opening of the Faculté Leonardo da Vinci, a university in the Paris suburbs. Built with public funds, it is run more like a private university, with a 25,000-franc tuition fee instead of the 800 francs asked for at other schools. Although the school has only 360 students currently enrolled, it has the same budget as the nearby University of Nanterre with 38,000 students.
Student activists have renamed this campus the `Fac Pasqua' [Pasqua faculty]. Charles Pasqua was the minister of the interior in the previous government of Edouard Balladur. The November 21 national student meeting voted to occupy the `Fac Pasqua' the following week.
In response to the wave of student protests, Education Minister Francois Bayrou announced a new plan for universities. It includes an additional 200 million francs per year for the next four years and 90 `special mediators' to negotiate with students at each campus. Students have so far rejected the offer as inadequate.
Meanwhile, unions called another one-day general strike on November 28. In addition, following their successful one- day action on November 24, railroad workers voted to continue their walkout indefinitely. They were joined by the Paris bus drivers.
Nat London works at the Renault auto plant at Choisy-le- roi and is a member of the CGT. Nathalie Camier, a student at the University of Paris VIII who participated in the November 21 National Student Strike Coordinating Committee meeting, contributed to this article.