As in Britain, it is more and more difficult for refugees and foreign workers to enter France. They are persecuted by the police. Most French union confederations (CFDT, FO, UNSA…) do very little for migrants, especially for "illegal" ones ("sans papiers") who are supported by associations, not on an internationalist proletarian basis, but on humanist and religious grounds. The main union, the CGT, has organised limited strikes of migrant workers but has never called other workers out in solidarity. The CGT reason that, some migrants deserve to be legal, be-cause they fulfil the conditions of Sarkozy.

The ‘Coordination of Sans-Papiers 75’ (CSP 75) are African migrants who have organised themselves to win the right to stay in France (with papers) for everyone who works in France. The French labour movements history (whose union federations were formed in relation to different political parties and currents) on this issue (as in Britain) is not good.

The Parti socialiste, (PS) has a long history of involvement with colonial wars and of introducing immigration controls. But the former Stalinist party’s record is no better. For instance, during the 1970s, it called on us to "Buy French". In December 1980, the French Communist Party (PCF) controlled Vitry-sur-Seine council sent bulldozers to destroy a hostel for 300 workers from Mali, leaving them homeless. In Febru-ary 1981, leading PCF member Robert Hue, mayor of Montigny-les-Cormeilles, led a march against Moroccan families whom he had labelled "drug traffickers". Now again in 2009 the chauvinism of France’s institutional "left" has reared its ugly head in the PCF-influenced CGT. [Socialist Fight]

The sans-papiers (without papers, illegal migrants) workers joined together in the Coordination of sans-papiers 75 (CSP 75) and occupied the Bourse du Travail in Charlot Street, in Paris, from 2nd May 2008. 1 Like mil-lions of other workers, they ran up against the anti-labour laws of the Sarkozy /Hortefeux government which have done so much to attack workers and their families. For over one year the CSP 75 have fought for their rights and consequently denounced the direction of the policy of the CGT. CGT policy limited and divided the struggles of sans-papiers workers to one of individual rights, subordinated to the needs of French capitalism. The bureaucracy of CGT, op-posed by a number of its militants (but sup-ported by the leaders of all the other trade un-ions) endorsed the policy of "regularisation by work", and "selected immigration". I.E. they agree to retain the Capitalist states right to regularise and determine the duration of a workers stay on a drip feed at the behest of the employers.

The sans-papiers of the CSP 75 demanded by their occupation that all the trade-unions adopt their claim: papers for all and the repeal of all the laws against immigrants. The class collaborationist and chauvinistic bureaucracy at the head of the CGT have refused to fight against the onslaughts of the bourgeoisie and for this reason carried out the violent expulsions of sans-papiers men, women and children on Wednesday 24 June.

The bully-boys of the Parisian CGT benefited from the absence of the majority of the occupants who had left to demonstrate in front of the Prefecture of Paris on that day. Delegates of the CSP 75 (some of whom have, for one year, misused the meetings for "mediation" with the enemy) expected "peaceful talks" and had called the demonstration far from the Paris Bourse du Travail in order to avoid "serious confrontations" (CSP, Official statement, June 27)!

Masked commandos from the CGT armed with bludgeons and teargas, hidden inside the Bourse du Travail, emerged to expel the occupiers and end the CSP 75 occupation.

In the face of stiff resistance by the occupants (soon joined by more sans-papiers), ‘the CGT commando’s’ attacked them with gas in the corridors of the Bourse du Travail, forcing them to barricade themselves in. The Parisian CGT then called upon the police force of Hortefeux to assist their operation. With the benevolent complicity of the Town Hall controlled by the Parti Socialiste (who legally own the buildings) they called in several hundreds CRS (riot police). The violent expulsion succeeded, and the CGT leaders settled quietly back in their desks.

In total 8 workers sans-papiers were hospitalised, 10 fainted, 6 people suffered light injuries. The victims of the CGT led attack included 5 women and a child. The following day, the UD CGT added calumny to its aggression: its official statement of June 25 seeks to put the blame for the violence on the victims.

Since then hundreds of sans-papiers have camped night and day in front of the Bourse, encircled by the CRS and municipal police who tried to prohibit food, water, and use of the public toilets to them. It is once again the rank and file of the CSP 75 and especially the women who are most militant; "The delegates think that we are weak, but it is the opposite. " The base refuses the "criteria" suggested by the Prefecture to divide the movement and prevent another occupation. "How the Prefecture opens a counter here even, without criteria or conditions! " (The Voice of the Women, June 28).

As they did at Montigny-les-Cormeilles in 1981 and Vitry-sur-Seine in 1980, the bureaucracy of CGT (supported by the other bureaucracies and their apprentices) has shown their deeply anti-working class character. They have organised a physical attack on the most fragile fraction of the proletariat, while refusing to fight the xenophobic policies of the Sarkozy government and the preceding governments. The actions of the Paris CGT on Wednesday 24th of June undermine the unity of the Labour Movement and attack its Internationalism.

The ruling class uses all means at its disposal to destroy or, failing this, to control the organisations of the working class. Its goal is to attack working class unity and head off defiance of its rule. The trade union bureaucrats refuse to de-fend the most exploited workers without papers and with. They oppose the general strike of all the workers. The traditional parties of the working class (PS, PCF) serve the interests of the bourgeoisie and have done for generations. By their sell-out programmes, those who are candidates for their succession like the Parti de Gauche and NPA are preparing to do the same.

In order to fight the capitulation’s and sabotage of the trade-union leaders, the workers must organise themselves as a Rank and File to control their own struggle and to constitute a fighting faction of the class with-in the trade unions. These class struggle / rank and file tendencies need to lead in the general assemblies, elect strike committees and centralise these elected committees. Moreover, it is necessary for them to build a new party, ready to conclude the fight of exploited and oppressed, to face up to the bourgeoisie and to destroy its State.

It is with this fighting orientation that the Groupe Bolchevik invites all class struggle militants who believe in the right of all workers to have free movement, for all proletarians to live and work in the country of their choice, to join us in the building of a revolutionary Marxist Party.

Endnote

1. A ‘Bourse du travail’ was a working class organisation founded by anarchist trade unionists that encouraged mutual aid, education, and self-organisation amongst their members in the late nineteenth century. It is now a place where the different confederations unions are housed by local councils. The Bourse du Travail is managed by an Administrative Commission which includes ALL the trade unions having offices, namely CGT, CFDT, FO, CFTC, CGC, UNSA and Solidaires (SUD). All these trade-union bureaucracies are responsible for this aggression, they condemned the occupation from the beginning and unanimously expressed their relief in the official statement of AC dated 26 June.