(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

French unions kicked off a national strike on March 19 to press the government to boost the minimum wage, increase taxes on the rich and scrap plans to cut public‑sector jobs. At least one million people flooded the streets of central Paris; about three million people took part in 200 demonstrations in other towns and cities across the country.

     Paris police laid out two routes through the capital for the huge crowds of oil, car, banking, pharmaceutical and retail workers who marched shoulder to shoulder with public‑sector employees.

     Rail traffic was disrupted and schools, hospitals, the postal service and public transport were also affected, but a law pushed through by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in August 2007 that requires "minimum service" to be guaranteed has limited the impact of the industrial action.

     Adding to the social tension, many French universities have been paralysed for weeks due to a strike by lecturers, professors and students against a government assault on the higher education budget.

     French unemployment has recently surged past 8 per cent, with more than two million people out of work. Another 350,000 set to lose their jobs this year as the market meltdown destroys thousands of jobs in heavy industry and the car sector. The jobless rate is projected to near 9 percent by the end of 2009.

     Car industry supplier Rencast, an aluminium founder that employs 850 people in south‑eastern France, was officially declared bankrupt on March 18, while the tyre manufacturer Goodyear announced plans to slash up to 1,000 jobs. At the same time, companies like the transnational oil giant Total are laying off workers while simultaneously announcing record profits.

     Unions are calling for an immediate halt to the mass job cuts, and demanding that Sarkozy's right‑wing government scrap a 50 per cent cap on income tax.

     At least 78 per cent of the population supports the unions' demands, according to a French poll published in the French financial daily Les Echos.

     Sarkozy told ministers at a March 18 cabinet meeting that he "understood the worries of the French." But in the same breath he claimed that increasing taxes on the rich would only drive them abroad.

     Weeks after a strike in late January brought 2.5 million people into the streets, Sarkozy announced measures to help people affected by the financial crisis, including special bonuses for the needy. But union leaders point out that the 2.3 billion euro support plan for working people has been dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of euros doled out to banking bosses.

     The country's eight main trade unions demanded that the government react to the latest protests.

     "I cannot believe the government will stay immobile in the face of a phenomenon of this size," Bernard Thibault of the General Labour Confederation said on state television France 2.

     "If things continue like this, the marches will get bigger," Bernard van Craeynest, the leader of trade union CFE‑CGC, was reported as saying by Le Monde.

     The National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) now forecasts a "prolongation of the recession" in the first half of this year in France, saying GDP will shrink by up to 1.5 percent in the first quarter alone, its worst drop since 1975.

     Meanwhile, strikes have been taking place in other EU countries as well, including Italy. A major demonstration is also to be organised by unions, NGOs and charities on March 28 in London, ahead of the G20 meeting on April 2, to call on global leaders to "put people first".