FRANCE AT CROSSROADS INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES FOR MR POMPIDOU’S SUCCESSOR

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33516, 23 April 1974, Page 14

FRANCE AT CROSSROADS INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES FOR MR POMPIDOU’S SUCCESSOR

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RICHARD SCOTT

in the "Guardian" earlier this month.)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

General de Gaulle sought to make France great among the nations by the force of his own personality and the deft political use of autocratic power. Georges Pompidou sought to achieve greatness for France by providing her with a sound, stable, and developing economy. He achieved much success. The country’s industrial production doubled in little more than a decade. She has become one of the world’s greatest exporters. The standard of living of her people has risen sharply. She has enjoyed several years of relative industrial peace and virtually full employment.

But Mr Pompidou's death has come at the moment when the economic position in France seems about to change. There are signs that the era of steadily growing prosperity and peace on the labour-industrial front might be ending. Small-scale strikes have been breaking out: among coal miners in Lorraine, shipyard workers at St Nazaire, car workers at Le Mans, electronic workers in Moselle, bank clerks in Paris. There have also been massive protest demonstrations by farmers and viticulteures. Many of the strikes started unofficially, even if some were later supported by the trade union organisation concerned.

The steeply rising cost of living and apprehension about unemployment are the chief factors. In the past few months the rate of inflation in France has become among the highest in the world. It has begun to overtake the rise in wages. The standard of living has begun to fall.

The consequences ot the international energy crisis have not yet forced serious production cuts, but the future is uncertain. Some unemployment developed during 1973, and there is anxiety that it may increase in the second half of this year. The substantial additional national fuel bill can only be paid out of increased exports, if the economy of the country is not to be restricted. But the other industrial nations, too, will be competing desperately for a larger share o' the world’s export market. There are also political reasons for the change on the labour front. First, the anti-inflationary incomes and prices policy has been a good deal less rugged than it has recently been in Britain. Employers are likely to be tempted to give way to wage demands in the face of strike threats, in the hope of later making good their losses by getting away with raising their prices. Then the recent political malaise in France, the uncertainties over the health of Mr Pompidou, and the possibility of early Presidential elections and Government changes, has had some effect on the leaders of the trade unions and the political parties on which some of them lean. They too, like the politicians, have been discreetly making their dispositions, manoeuvring, preparing for the electoral battle.

Union rivalry

There has been a fresh outburst of antagonism and rivalry between the two largest trade union federations — the Communist dominated Confederation Generale du Travail (C.G.T.) and the less simply defined Confederation Franchise et Democratique du Travail (C.F.D.T.). The membership of the latter, second only in size to the C.G.T. is largely non-Communist, Socialist, Christian, and youthful.

| The emergence two or [three years ago of the Gauchistes. who regard the French Communist Party as an old-fashioned conservative hidebound body, resulted in friction between the C.G.T. and the C.F.D.T. However much the C.G.T. leader, M. Seguy, denies it, everyone regards his organisation as less than independent of the Communist Party. So the C.G.T. too, became tarred with the same brush over-cautious conservatism. But the C.F.D.T. tended to support the Gauichistes, and they earned for ’themselves a more radical image — of being closer to [the most under-privileged ’groups of workers.

This difference became apparent over the Renault affair in early 1972, after the killing of a Gaucheste Worker by a Renault guard. The C.F.D.T. supported the subsequent anti-Renault demonstrations. The C.G.T. did not. There were fierce verbal exchanges between the two. I There was also, and there ■remains, a serious policy [difference between them. The C.F.D.T. has espoused , the cause, which is anathema to the Communists, of “autogestion” — which appears to mean workers’ control at the factory level, although Mr Maire, the C.F.D.T. leader, has never been precisely clear what he does mean.

On the eve of last year's general elections and for some months after, the two organisations made a major effort to co-operate. But once again the C.F.D.T. declained to associate itself with the common programme of the Left. It maintained its status as a valid and credible alternative to the C.G.T. for the leadership of labour, something the Communist-supported C.G.T. can never tolerate. During recent weeks the in-fighting between them has resumed.

Running dispute

The C.G.T. gives the impression of concentrating on building up its forces and extending its control over its members — a control which has always been greater than that of the other trade union organisations. But meanwhile, there has been a running dispute between Mr Seguy and Mr Maire over tactics. The former tends to disapprove of small local strikes — certainly ones which are independent of the C.G.T. — preferring to reserve his forces for massive, often politically motivated actions.

L.I.P. was therefore a cause of contention between them. The C.F.D.T. was in the majority in this bankrupt watch-making firm and its local leaders, supported by C.F.D.T. headquarters, made the running. Although in the end the affair was badly mismanaged, the gallant struggle of the L.I.P. employees captured the imagination and sympathy of the whole country, some of which rubbed off on to the C.F.D.T. itself. And, what was equally unpalatable to the C.G.T., L.I.P. at one moment appeared to be vindicating the practicability of “auto-suggestion.” The support which the C.F.D.T. has been giving to most of the recent strikes

i has also evoked strong criticism from the C.G.T. The 'French worker tends to be a ■ good deal less subject to 'the discipline of his national trade union officials than in Britain. Power of labour In most recent cases. Mr Maire’s support was only given, not always very forcefully, after the strike had been called. To the [C.G.T. the situation appeared Ito be getting out of control — certainly out of its own control — and Mr Maire iwas accused of irresponsibil'ity and adventurism and of breaking the unity of the labour front in supporting local Gauchistes in actions neither co-ordinated nor approved of by the nation's labour leaders. Mr Seguy has been anxious to restore the unity of the labour front and to see that proper con- | trol is exercised over the ac [tivities of the workers, and a new effort at co-operation is to be made between the C.G.T. and the C.F.D.T. No doubt the growing [concern of union leaders about the employment situation may cause them to think twice about encouraging industrial action which could worsen the prospect: But there have been sign that possibly this spring when the Easter holiday are over, but perhaps morlikely in the autumn, some massive demonstrations of the power of organised labour would be staged. But with the death of Mr Pompidou and the certaint' of a presidential election within the next few weeks, the immediate situation has changed. Labour leaders will now be primarily influenced by the domestic political scene.

Although the Gaullist era may not yet be ended, the Left stands a better chance of coming to power than it has done for the past 16 years. It will presumably not wish to frighten the electorate on the eve of such vital elections by staging large-scale strikes. And other considerations are likely to be subordinated to the need for unity.

There seems little doubt that Mr Mitterrand, the Socialist leader, will be the single candidate of the Left for the Presidency. His personal political reputation and the strength of his party has steadily increased in the past two or three years.

Rather than their candidate come second to Mr Mitterrand on the first ballot, the Communists are ready to support him from the outset as the candidate of a united Left. This would presumably ensure Mr Mitterrand the Communist vote on the vital second ballot which takes place betwen the top two candidates in the first ballot. The Communists abstained rather than give Mr Mitterrand their support in his run off against General de Gaulle in the 1965 presidential elections. Mr Mitterrand cannot easily decline the honour of representing the whole Left this time, but he would almost certainly prefer to contest the election without the stigma of representing the Communists, which is likely to cost him many votes in the centre [and even on the Right wing iof his own party.