May Day in France: A flash point of unrest

Robert Zaretsky teaches at the University of Houstonand Women’s Institute of Houston. His latest book is “Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague.

Today, France will again host the longest running show of political discontent in Europe.

Since late January, the boulevards of Paris and hundreds of provincial cities across France have been the stage of massive protests. And while choreographed by a common front of labor unions, these demonstrations have, in effect, been caused by President Emmanuel Macron, and his decision to reform the national pension system and raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 — despite a lack of popular or political support.

However, against this backdrop, France — as well as dozens of other countries — will be celebrating Labor Day on May 1. And while it would be glib to suggest that France’s current “democratic crisis”— a term used by moderate union leader Laurent Berger — is just one more repetition of a historical reenactment stretching back over a century, if the past is prologue to the present, Monday’s iteration promises to be the largest, if not the most violent, one yet.

Ironically, French labor unions initially chose the date, May 1, to commemorate the American labor strikes and Haymarket massacre of May 1886. However — with greater foresight than his French contemporaries — then U.S. President Grover Cleveland shifted the federal holiday to the first Monday of September, defusing its revolutionary potential.

But ever since it began in France, le premier mai has served as a flash point for social and labor unrest.

Galvanized by a catastrophic mining accident in the Pas-de-Calais, which buried 1,200 miners in early 1906, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) — intent on winning an eight-hour workday — called for protest marches on May 1. Designating himself France’s “premier flic,” or top cop, then Interior Minister Georges Clemenceau stationed 60,000 gendarmes and troops in Paris in response, mostly suppressing the demonstrations by hundreds of summary arrests.

Tellingly, however, the government also gave critical ground shortly after, passing a six-day work week into law. No less importantly, Clemenceau conceded additional ground in 1919, now serving as prime minister, not only shepherding the passage of the eight-hour workday into law, but also declaring May 1 a national holiday. “The foolish man,” he remarked, “is one who never changes.”

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years, though, is the brittle relationship between workers and governments in the country.

Thirty years after the events of 1906, Labor Day festivities across France celebrated the creation of a Popular Front between the country’s left-wing parties — the Radicals, Socialists and Communists — in 1936. Tellingly, this time workers sported red flags rather than the white lilies of the valley usually exchanged on this day, and a few weeks later, massive strikes and factory occupations by workers paralyzed the nation, hastening the formation of a Popular Front government. Led by Socialist Léon Blum, a battery of laws was then passed, including collective bargaining, a 40-hour workweek and two weeks paid vacation.

However, while the Popular Front was short-lived — falling in 1938 — the concessions it made to labor were not. In fact, they constitute the core of les droits acquis, or the acquired social rights, of French workers today. But there were yet other rights to acquire still, as a subsequent Labor Day revealed another 30 years later.

On May 2, 1968, after students briefly occupied a building on the Nanterre University campus in Paris to demand greater social liberties, officials called in the police and shut the school down — a spark that set in motion what, lacking an agreed-upon term, are commonly referred to as “les événements de mai ’68.” And by month’s end, student and worker strikes had, again, brought the country to a standstill, this time threatening to topple President Charles de Gaulle, who had been in power since the founding of the Fifth Republic a decade earlier.

While students were, in part, rebelling against de Gaulle’s heavy-handed paternalism — one of their favorite slogans was “10 ans, ça suffit!” (10 years is enough!) — workers were striking for higher pay and a greater say. And though the Gaullist regime ultimately withstood the crisis, it did teeter and, much like earlier administrations, it gave ground. Worker demands were once more primarily met, however — largely due to the fact that they were as vague as they were visionary — student demands were at first ignored. Yet, de Gaulle eventually resigned from office the following year, consigning the social conservatism he embodied to the past.

It is these same opposing forces that will again be taking the stage at this year’s tumultuous Labor Day.

Since the protests against pension reform began earlier this year, they have waxed and waned in both size and violence — but they have not let up. And just as estimates of their size differ dramatically according to organizers and police, the two sides also differ on who is responsible for the violence, ranging from anarchist groups like the black blocs to the riot police, whom neutral observers like the Ligue des droits de l’homme — the Human Rights League of France — have charged with excessive force.

In a display of rare unity, however, the country’s labor and student unions have called for a “day of exceptional and popular mobilization against the pension reform and for social justice.” And Sophie Binet, the newly elected leader of the CGT, has doubled down, promising that a “human tidal wave” will flood the country’s boulevards and streets.

Yet, in confusing the reform’s legality with its legitimacy, Macron himself has also doubled down, embracing the immense powers of his office. According to the Fifth Republic’s constitution, the president is “irresponsable” — or not answerable — to the legislature. And in what increasingly resembles a de Gaulle tribute act, Macron has, for most, irresponsibly exercised his constitutional prerogatives. A recent poll suggests that nearly three-quarters of respondents insist he “was wrong to quickly promulgate the law,” while the same percentage share a negative opinion of him.

Overall, the widespread sentiment in France now appears to be “Six ans. Ca suffit!” — six years is enough! And as past Labor Days suggest, changes in both policy and personality have often followed celebrations. However, it does remain to be seen what Monday’s tidal wave will sweep away and what it will leave behind.