The one-day general strike in France last Thursday presented an important step forward for the French workers movement in the struggle against the policies of President Giscard d'Estaing and his prime minister, Raymond Barre. Called by federations [CGT, CFDT, FEN] it clearly showed the hostility of the working class to the new economic measures imposed by Barre.
For the first time since 1953 the French bourgeoisie has no optionbut to mount a real attack against working class iving standaros - inat is to impose a mi on wage rises without giving any real guarantee of price They are up to the same thing as Healey in Britein, except that Barre doesn't have the support of the trade unions — he has not even bothered to contact These measures, which put a limit of 6½ per cent on wage rises, also increased taxes by 4 per cent, the price of petrol by 15 per cent, and road tax by 50 per cent. The Idea is to make the workers bear the cost of inflation while the Government creates different measures to help capraist investment and sumulate me rrenca economy in the name of the 'national interest.
New from the three major union Mary THE FIRST CONGRESS of the Spanish Trotskyists of the LCR-ETA VI took place in August, completing the fusion between Ine IwO organisations Revolutionary Communist League [LCR] and the Basque Nation and Sixth Assembly TETA VIl The organisation will henceforth be Entitled known as the LCR except in Euskadi (the masole country. wiere a sebaldit Con gre not thin nationality will decide on nationalities will also be held in Galicia and 631300 a as weas a number of sions. of the congress Faced with a militant reaction from their base, the three main unions issued a common call for a one-day general strike and demonstrations. This common appeal gave a real impetus to the combativity of a workers novement tired of two years of quarrels between the najor parties of the Union of the Left [the Communis and Socialist parties]. But it still left many militants asking - why a common appeal and yet no common platform for struggle?
For the CGT, the strike was 'a springboard towards an active resistance which will impose negotiations'. For the CFDT it was a 'test showing democratic alternative to the regime'.
As for the CP and the SP, it was out of the question for them to give too specific a lead to the workers in case it disrupted their electoral perspective. The whole problem centres on this. Will the workers movement wait for two more years until the 1978 elections to overthrow a regime that openly attacks them?
It was on this problem that workers in the revolutioncontingent une back focussed their demands, calling for a common platform of demands to be discussed in all factories and used as the basis for a struggle to overthrow the Government.
adopted can be summarised as follows:
* Against the 'constitutional reform' we demand the elections Told based on universal suffrage and the right to vote at 16.
monarchy, We clamation of the Republic iona ties demand the immediate election based on discuss universal suffrage of of the congress deci- -ues in euskao which will guarantee full sovereignty and the necessity of a exiles.
immediate holding of Constituent Assembly Against the attempts to legitimise demane ine proAgainst the oppression of the nat- basic within ne oanisa state Moonisations the Government and National Assembane batalonie across ine-ooare