They Eat Horses, Don't They?

by Piu Marie Eatwell

  The Gallic population’s natural propensity to take to the streets in revolt against oppression is both manifested in and contained by France’s legendary tradition of striking. Striking in France – like street protests and demonstrations – is so much a part of daily life as to be almost banal, and the French are completely inured to their days being disrupted by an endless flow of industrial disputes. The newspaper Le Parisien includes strike forecasts in its daily schedule of likely traffic problems, consulted by Parisians in the same manner as folk in other countries might consult the weather forecast. Strike contingency plans are an essential part of any French commuter’s armoury. Yet another strike? Time, then, to get on the bike, take the roller blades out of the car boot, or – a particularly favoured option – take a day off work.

  However, striking in France is much more than organized protest against specific working conditions. Because of the country’s Revolutionary history, every act of taking to the streets – even if it is just in protest at proposed job cuts – has traditionally been regarded as a microcosmic act of social rebellion: a sort of re-enactment of that great original revolt of 1789, the Revolution which created modern France. ‘Every strike contains the germs of civil war,’ wrote the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1938,4 and left-wing French political theorists echo the implicit link between striking and popular protest in a wider sense. ‘A general strike, like all freedom wars, is the most powerful demonstration of individual strength in the uprising of the masses,’ wrote the French theorist of revolutionary syndicalism, Georges Sorel (1847–1922).5 Similarly, the French philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartier (known as ‘Alain’) observed that ‘There is strength and a sort of war in the act of striking.’6 The very French word for strike – la grève – carries with it dark, complex, and revolutionary connotations. Grève originally meant ‘out of work’, and derived from the fact that unemployed labourers seeking to be hired would traditionally go to the Place de Grève – a square in central Paris now occupied by the Hôtel de Ville – where potential employers would also congregate. It subsequently came to acquire the sense of ‘put an employer out of work’, namely by withdrawing one’s labour, its first recorded use in the sense of ‘strike’ dating from 1844–8.7 But the Place de Grève was also one of the places where executions took place in the years of the Terror. In Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris or The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), for example, the location figures as a sinister reminder, with its pillory and gibbet, of the darker side of the French Revolution:

  ‘The Grève had then that sinister aspect which it preserves today from the execrable ideas which it awakens, and from the sombre town hall of Dominique Bocador, which has replaced the Pillared House. It must be admitted that a permanent gibbet and a pillory, “a justice and a ladder”, as they were called in that day, erected side by side in the centre of the pavement, contributed not a little to cause eyes to be turned away from that fatal place, where so many beings full of life and health have agonized…’

  The fact that striking in France is inextricably linked to a struggle for rights in a much deeper sense than the right to an extra day’s holiday or a protest against job cuts is illustrated by its use as a form of expression for those who otherwise would have no means to voice their views. In the twentieth century, working-class Frenchwomen played a major role in strikes long before they had access to the ballot box; while immigrant workers used strikes as a method – one of very few open to them – of voicing protest against their downtrodden position in society. French strikes in the earlier twentieth century were often festive affairs: the sit-in strike was traditionally accompanied by a ritual of dancing, seen as late as 1978 in the occupation of the Renault Flins factory. In 1973, women textile workers at Cerizay (Deux-Sèvres), protesting at the sacking of a colleague, set up an ‘alternative’ workshop, placing their sewing machines opposite each other rather than in rows and insisting on sewing whole garments rather than just endless collars or buttons, as a protest against being reduced to mere cogs in a production line. The clothes produced were exchanged rather than sold, local shops setting up collection boxes to help the strikers, in a strike of ‘joy and song’.8 The French left-wing activist Daniel Mothé eulogizes industrial action in no uncertain terms: ‘The launch of a strike inspires in the activists, and sometimes the workers taking part, ecstasies comparable to those provoked by religious or sexual rites, or even by intellectual or artistic creation.’

  But are French strikes today still the joyous expression of protest by an underclass that is battered but not beaten, echoes in microcosm of that great protest of the French people that led to the creation of the French Republic? Sadly not. A surprising fact, given the number of strikes in France, is that only a very small proportion of French people these days actually belong to a trade union. In fact, less than 10 per cent of French workers belong to one.9 This compares with 27 per cent of UK employees who are trade union members, although union membership has been in decline throughout Europe in recent decades. Since the 1980s, a growing number of official strikes in France have been carried out by public-sector workers – in other words, those who in the main already enjoy the privilege of closed markets, extended retirement plans, paid additional work hours, and lengthy holidays. (Public-sector worker strikes increased from 443,725 strike days in the period 1982–5 to 830,924 in the period 1996–2000.)10 For foreign observers in countries where workers are routinely obliged to work until their late sixties or later, it was hard to muster much sympathy for French public service workers on strike in 2010, in protest at President Sarkozy’s relatively modest proposal to increase the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62. In fact, the French are extremely privileged compared to other countries, in that they can expect to be retired longer than almost any other nation in the world: 22 years for men and 27 years for women.11 The truly exploited workers of France today – immigrants working on the black market and those on short-term contracts drafted to escape the generous social provisions – do not have recourse to a union to fight for them, or to organize a civilized street protest; periodically, they simply resort to torching cars instead, as was seen in the 2005 riots that hit Paris.

  François Mitterrand once observed, with characteristic astuteness, that ‘there are two ways to sabotage the right to strike: to regulate it, as does the Right, or to use it wrongly and perversely, as does the Left.’ Many are the French services that are badly broken and in dire need of repair, yet paralyzed by vested interests that hit the streets at any hint of proposed reform. For example, the chronic shortage of taxis in Paris (there are a mere 17,000 licensed taxis in Paris, as against 25,000 licensed taxis and 44,000 minicabs in London),12 is a direct result of the refusal of current taxi drivers to allow new licences to be issued. Every time any French government timidly suggests liberalizing the taxi market – as several have done – the taxi drivers protest en masse, blocking traffic in central Paris and airport routes with angry honking.

  There is, however, an odd thing about traditional French street protests and strikes. That is, whenever the government of the day grows a backbone and toughs it out, the protesters tend to grumble for a while, then return to their old routines as if nothing had happened. So it was with the May ’68 revolution, which actually saw the re-election of the Gaullist party the following year (just as Ronald Reagan’s election as Governor of California in 1967 may well have been helped by his commitment to ‘clean up’ the anti-Vietnam War student protests raging in the state at that time). Similarly, the pensions furore of 2010 was essentially ignored by the Sarkozy government, and petered out into a grumpy acceptance of pension reform. Not that the French have much choice in such matters; as we shall see in the next chapter, they have invested so much power in their president that there is not much they could do to rein in his actions, other than protest. It is as though, in France, the traditional, time-honoured strike or mass demonstration is a massive social safety valve, a chance to let off steam, shout and have a ta
ntrum, before returning to the real world. Which is perhaps just as well, because with five republics, two empires and a monarchy since 1789, perhaps the last thing the French need is another revolution.

  Myth Evaluation: Partly true. There is a historic tradition of street protest in France, of which striking is a manifestation. But although there is often a great deal of ‘sound and fury’, the result – equally often – is nothing.

  FRANCE IS AN EGALITARIAN SOCIETY

  The French want equality, and when they do not find it through freedom, they seek it through bondage.

  ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, FRENCH HISTORIAN (1805–59), EXTRACT FROM L’ANCIEN RÉGIME ET LA RÉVOLUTION, 1856

  We are used to thinking of the French as the ultimate egalitarian nation. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité was the motto of the French Revolution of 1789: principles that had already been articulated by French thinkers who led the world in championing the freedom of the individual as the basis for running a state. Most famously, the Francophone Swiss Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, in his 1762 treatise The Social Contract:

  ‘If we ask in what precisely consists the greatest good of all, which should be the end of every system of legislation, we shall find it reduces itself to two main objects, liberty and equality — liberty, because all particular dependence means so much force taken from the body of the State and equality, because liberty cannot exist without it.’

  Equality, for thinkers such as Rousseau and the leaders of the Revolution, was a counteracting force in the form of levelling laws imposed by the state to control the naturally selfish instincts of man; and ever since, the French have prided themselves on being (unlike the snobbish English) the nation of free-thinking, banner-waving, street-marching brothers-in-arms. Although, looking at the enormous upheavals of recent French history, one could be forgiven for thinking that the path to equality has been far from clear-cut. In fact, it’s hard to see why people have problems understanding modern French history. Monarchy, Revolution, Republic, Empire, Monarchy, Revolution, Monarchy, Revolution, Republic, Empire, Republic. Dead easy, really. Few are the European countries that have had as many changes of regime, in as short a time, as the French. And yet, if you look behind the ostensibly breathtaking transformations in the French political landscape, one feature remains constant as the northern star. And that is the centrality of the state.

  I can think of hardly anybody except Jean-Jacques Rousseau who can be reproached with these ideas of equality and independence and all these fantasies that are simply ridiculous.

  VOLTAIRE, FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT WRITER (1694–1778), FROM A LETTER TO MARÉCHAL DUC DE RICHELIEU, 13 FEBRUARY 1771

  L’état, c’est moi (‘I am the state’), the Roi Soleil (‘Sun King’) Louis XIV once famously said. Napoleon could have said as much. And in recent times, little has changed. The president of France – thanks to the powers conferred on him by the Fifth Republic established by General de Gaulle in October 1958 – is the most powerful political leader in the Western world. Unlike the parliamentary democracies of countries such as the UK – where a system of checks and balances, in theory at least, places some restraint on the untrammelled exercise of power by any one individual – the French president reigns supreme. De Gaulle himself admitted as much, when he said to his minister of information, Alain Peyrefitte, that he had tried, in the constitution of the Fifth Republic, to create a ‘synthesis between a monarchy and a republic’. ‘What, a monarchic Republic?’ Peyrefitte is said to have responded, astonished. ‘No,’ replied de Gaulle, ‘let’s say rather a Republican monarchy.’ Once every five years, the president of the French Republic is required to go out on the street and answer to the rabble. For the next 1,825 days, he can virtually do what he likes.*

  * Although there is, occasionally, the inconvenience of cohabitation – that is, when the majority party in the French parliament is not the same party as the president’s.

  A French president in office is immune from legal or criminal proceedings: no Watergate can unseat him, nor Chappaquiddick submerge him. That this should be the case in a country famed for its Republican revolution, and of which the motto is Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, is profoundly ironic. It is as though the French people have never quite got over guillotining their royal family in 1793, and instead insist on appointing a walking and talking shadow to pay homage to the regal ghosts of the past.

  LIBERTY, EQUALITY, CONTROVERSY (skip)

  The slogan Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (‘Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood’) is one indissolubly linked to the ideals of the French Revolution. It is in fact France’s official motto, found on the national logo inscribed on all official documents, along with the colours of the French Tricolore flag and France’s national symbol, Marianne.

  Credit for coining the slogan is traditionally given to Antoine-François Momoro (1756–94), a printer and politician during the 1789 Revolution. However, at that time it was simply one of several slogans in use – such as Union, Force, Vertu (‘Union, Strength, Virtue’) and Force, Égalité, Justice (‘Strength, Equality, Justice’).

  Over the ensuing years Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité came to predominate over rival slogans, although the linking of the libertarian and individualistic ideals of liberty and equality with the levelling and collective ideal of brotherhood has always been a matter of controversy. At various periods – notably the Napoleonic era – the slogan was banned. During the Vichy régime in the Second World War, Marshal Pétain replaced it with Travail, Famille, Patrie (‘Work, Family, Fatherland’), a motto that had a decidedly Nazi ring to it. After the war, however, the original slogan was reinstated, and incorporated into the French constitutions that followed.

  The slogan has inspired countless imitations in many countries of the world, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the constitution of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, which refers in its preamble to ‘the fundamental values of liberty, equality, and community’. However, the implicit tension between the conflicting values that the motto brings together has never been – and perhaps never will be – resolved.

  Just as the Sun King surrounded himself with a tight circle of lackeys, spies and sycophants to impose his laws on the land, so the French president has an army of executives – the hautes fonctionnaires or top civil servants in the administrative, financial and legislative departments of government – to administer his will. The tripartite structure of top civil servants, captains of industry, and – increasingly – bosses in the worlds of banking and commerce, form the technocracy that rules France. This haute bourgeoisie, or ruling class, remains aloof and hidden from the lives of ordinary French citizens. Most have been born into families that for years have occupied high functions in the civil service, industry or banking. As one French social scientist has observed, ‘Birth remains in France one of the principal conditions of access to power.’13 Hot on the heels of a silver spoon comes a sterling education. Many of the nation’s elect bypass the French state schools, attending instead private, Catholic schools or top Parisian lycées known for taking the cream of the crop. And after school comes the most élitist institution of all: the grande école. Originally founded by Napoleon to train up a select cadre of officers to carry out his commands, the French grandes écoles are a league of super-graduate schools that exist over and above the normal French universities. Specializing in different disciplines, each has connections with the sector for which it trains up recruits. Thus HEC Paris (Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris), the leading business school, has close links with the world of banking and finance; ENA (École Nationale d’Administration), the élite school for civil servants, virtually guarantees its graduates the highest positions in the French administration; and the École Polytechnique, the top French maths and engineering school, trains hundreds of technocrats. (The École Polytechnique, known simply as X, is the crème de la crème, a quasi-military establishment under the control of the French Defence Ministry.) Entry to the grandes écoles is
by a competitive entry examination or concours, for which entrants are hot-housed in top preparatory schools called prépas (the leading prépas, naturally, have close connections with the top lycées or secondary schools). Fees, except for the business schools, are virtually nil, and in fact in some grandes écoles (École Polytechnique, ENA and the École Normale Supérieure), students are actually paid a salary of €2,000 a month. The grandes écoles receive much higher government funding than the universities – they get 30 per cent of the national budget, with only 4 per cent of the students. A study in 2008 found that of the 27 French bosses of the CAC 40 companies (i.e. the top 40 companies in France), 20 had graduated from just three of the top grandes écoles: ENA, the École Polytechnique, and HEC Paris.14

  Contemporaries at the grandes écoles hang out with each other, at work and play, for the rest of their lives. Though private social clubs were a British invention, the French have taken to them with an enthusiasm somewhat unbecoming a nation of Revolutionaries. The foremost private club – Le Siècle – was founded at the end of the Second World War, and counts among its members France’s élite civil servants, businessmen, politicians, intellectuals, journalists and academics (some 40 per cent of the French government from the 1990s onwards, whether Socialist or conservative, have belonged to Le Siècle).15 The club organizes an apéritif and dinner on the last Wednesday of the month at the Automobile Club of France in the Place de la Concorde, where the happy few can rub shoulders and discuss world affairs in confidence. Most of the mandarins of Le Siècle are male, middle-aged, the sons of industry bosses, civil servants or financiers, and many of them are énarques (that is, graduates of ENA; the powerful clique that runs France’s civil service is known as the énarchie). More exclusive, but with less political clout, is the Jockey Club de Paris, with splendid rooms at rue Rabelais, a club for aristocrats presided over by the Duc de Brissac.