The crisis of French capitalism and the role of the CGT

The French ruling class and its government are on the offensive. In addition to the tens of billions of euros in cuts to social spending and the civil service, employers are orchestrating a massive destruction of jobs: 300,000 direct or indirect industrial jobs are under threat.

In the face of these attacks, the left and the trade union movement must organise a response. In particular, the CGT has an enormous responsibility, as it is the most powerful and combative union in the country. On numerous occasions, it has proven that it is capable of mobilising millions of workers.

However, for many years, the strategy and programme of the CGT's national leadership have led the working class from defeat to defeat. It is therefore urgent that this union adopt a programme and a strategy that are equal to the situation.

Strategic impasse

Over the past two decades, with the exception of the struggle against the First Job Contract (which we will come back to), all the major national mobilisations organised by the CGT have ended in defeat: against the pension reforms in 2003, 2010, 2014 and 2023; against the labour laws in 2016 and 2017; against the dismantling of the SNCF [France’s state-owned railway] in 2018. These defeats were not due to a lack of determination or numbers. In 2023, for example, several days of action brought together between 3 and 3.5 million demonstrators.

Contrary to what the leadership of the CGT sometimes claims, the government's abandonment of the pension reform in 2020 (which attempted to impose a ‘points-based’ pensions system) was not the result of union mobilisation. This mobilisation, which began on 5 December 2019, had clearly declined when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the government to back down. Macron could not simultaneously throw tens of billions of euros into the coffers of the employers (in the name of ‘whatever the cost’) and, at the same time, impose a drastic and very unpopular counter-reform. But it is clear that, without the pandemic, the ‘points-based pension’ would have been adopted.

The CGT has an enormous responsibility, as it is the most powerful and combative union in the country. On numerous occasions, it has proven that it is capable of mobilising millions of workers / Image: Unité CGT, Twitter

The misguided strategy of the CGT leadership – to say nothing of the right wing of the trade union movement: the CFDT, FO, etc. – played a central role in these defeats. In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy quipped: “Now, when there’s a strike, nobody notices”. This was, of course, a gross exaggeration. But it reflected a reality: one-off days of action – precisely because they are one-off – cannot force the bourgeoisie to abandon its reactionary policy.

This is all the more true as French capitalism declines compared to its main rivals. It is losing ground in all markets: global, European and even national. The public debt has exceeded 3.3 trillion euros. Interest payments alone are expected to reach 55 billion euros in 2025. They could reach 100 billion euros by 2028. By way of comparison, the national education budget stands at 63 billion euros this year.

In 2024, the public deficit reached 6.1 percent of GDP. The government plans to reduce it to 5.4 percent in 2025, which would still total more than 135 billion euros. This year, the French state will have to borrow 300 billion euros from the markets.

In this context, the French bourgeoisie has no choice but to intensify austerity policies and the exploitation of workers in order to defend its profits. However, despite the historic scale of the cuts planned in the new budget, these remain insufficient from the point of view of the class interests of the employers. The latter therefore objectively needs to accelerate the counter-reforms – even if it does not currently have a stable majority in the National Assembly to guarantee this acceleration.

In such a situation, the ‘days of action’ organised by the CGT – however massive they may be – are doomed to failure. The bourgeoisie will only back down if, in one way or another, it is threatened with losing everything.

CPE and Yellow Vests

Over the last 20 years, two major mobilisations have stood out from the accumulation of failed national struggles. The first is the struggle against the First Job Contract (Contrat Première Embauche, CPE) in 2006. This mobilisation went far beyond the framework of days of action; it was beyond the control of the national leaderships of the unions. It intensified daily. Students went from company to company to draw the working class into the struggle. The spectre of a new May ‘68 hung over the country. This is what pushed the most lucid bourgeois – starting with De Villepin – to abandon this reform.

The second movement that needs analysing is the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement in 2018 and 2019. This mass movement erupted in a largely spontaneous manner on the fringes of the trade union movement, precisely because the strategy of days of action had just failed three times (against the two labour laws and the rail reform). In a few weeks of explosive mobilisation, the gilets jaunes obtained notable concessions (withdrawal of the carbon tax, the introduction of a bonus paid to low-paid workers by the state, etc.), whereas the dozens of trade union days of action organised since 2010 had gained nothing. If the bourgeoisie feared the revolutionary potential of the gilets jaunes movement, it was precisely because it was not controlled by the trade union leadership.

In a few weeks of explosive mobilisation, the gilets jaunes obtained notable concessions, whereas the dozens of trade union days of action organised since 2010 had gained nothing / Image: Thomon, Wikimedia Commons

This movement placed France on the threshold of a revolutionary crisis. To cross this threshold, the national leadership of the CGT should have taken advantage of the momentum provided by the gilets jaunes to launch a major mobilisation in workplaces and steer the struggle towards an unlimited general strike. Instead, Philippe Martinez, then general secretary of the CGT, did everything he could to keep the union out of the struggle. He even implicitly approved of the repression by equating the violence of the police and that of the gilets jaunes. This lamentable position reinforced the criticism of many union activists of the national leadership. These activists wanted to unite the gilets jaunes and the red vests [rank-and-file members of the CGT who organised in solidarity with the gilets jaunes] in the same struggle.

Unité CGT

Opposition to the CGT national leadership crystallised in the period following the gilets jaunes mobilisation. It organised itself around the National Federation of Chemical Industries (FNIC), then led by Emmanuel Lépine, and the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Union, led by Olivier Mateu.

This left wing gradually organised itself, particularly around the website unitecgt.fr. At the National Congress of 2023, it managed to have the outgoing leadership's activity report rejected: a first in the history of the CGT. Since then, it has repeatedly emphasised – particularly during the struggle against the pension reform in 2023 – the need to break with the strategy of days of action and to prepare a vast movement of rolling strikes.

During this struggle, rolling strikes broke out in several sectors but ended up isolated. The national leadership refused to extend these strikes to other sectors of the economy: it confined itself, once again, to organising one-off days of action. On BFM TV, in April 2023, Sophie Binet declared: “We are not asking for this government to fall, but for the pension reform to fall”. By dissociating these two objectives, the secretary general of the CGT undermined the mobilisation. Indeed, the Borne government, like Bayrou's today, was at the service of the ruling class. It could not defend any policy other than that embodied by the pension reform. To repel this attack, it was necessary to set the objective of bringing down this government of the rich and replacing it with a government of the workers.

Even today, the same logic explains Sophie Binet's participation in the farce of the ‘conclave’ on pensions (negotiations, proposed by the Prime Minister, between the bosses and the workers’ unions) or her refusal to coordinate the fight against factory closures at the national level. The day of action ‘for employment and industry’ on 12 December last year was a resounding failure. This did not reflect a lack of fighting spirit on the part of the workers, but rather their clear-headedness: many of them understood that such days are doomed to failure. They refused to sacrifice a day's pay for nothing.

Unlimited strikes have broken out in many companies: Michelin, Fonderie de Bretagne, Vencorex, Arkema, Lubrizol, etc. But an isolated strike, however militant, runs the risk of running out of steam. To give themselves the means to win, these struggles must be coordinated and extended to as many sectors of the economy as possible.

Instead of organising this mobilisation, the CGT national leadership is stepping up its calls on the government to demand a ‘moratorium on redundancies’ and ask the Minister of Economy to free himself from the influence of the employers. It's like asking a wolf to become a vegetarian!

Go on the offensive!

In issue 39 of their online magazine, the comrades of Unité CGT emphasise the need for an offensive strategy: “We know that the generalisation of strikes and their convergence into a general strike, that is to say, the conscious and determined entry of hundreds of thousands, millions of workers, in all sectors and professional branches, is the only way to win.”

“We know that the generalisation of strikes and their convergence into a general strike... is the only way to win.” / Image: Unité CGT, Twitter

They also present a very aggressive programme aimed at mobilising workers on a massive scale in a serious struggle against the ruling class: "Our immediate objectives are clear: to impose wage increases, price reductions and controls, a ban on layoffs, and the nationalisation under workers' control of all major sectors of the economy, with expropriation to meet the immense social needs of the population (housing, transport, energy, employment, etc.). It is time to close the stock market, lock up the speculators, confiscate dividends, and wrest the economy from the clutches of the capitalist market."

We are in complete agreement: this is the programme that the entire CGT should be calling for.

The comrades of Unité CGT must take their opposition to the national leadership to its logical conclusion. They present a coherent programme and strategy, but never explicitly oppose them to those of the national leadership, which they refrain from directly criticising. For example, at the time of writing, none of the recent articles published by Unité CGT contain any criticism of Sophie Binet's participation in the ‘conclave’ on pensions.

Such criticism would, however, be understood and well-received by many CGT activists. Unité CGT and the union leaders who run this movement are very favourably received in many of the CGT's departmental unions and federations, well beyond the FNIC CGT and the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental union. This is particularly the case in the federations of Railway Workers, Glass and Ceramics, Ports and Docks, Energy, and Commerce.

This is no time for diplomacy. While the bourgeoisie is stepping up its attacks on our class, Unité CGT must engage in a direct and combative debate on the strategy of the CGT, whose national leadership is proposing no plan of action and is sinking deeper into the quagmire of the ‘conclave’ on pensions. The adoption of an offensive strategy and programme by the entire CGT will be an essential step in the struggle to end capitalism and all the scourges it brings.