Saturday, November 13, 2010

Workers Without Status in France Emerge as a Social Force

France is the second immigrant nation in the world, after the United States. For more than a century, migrant workers – often from countries colonized by France and from Eastern and Southern Europe – came to build the country.

by Karen Wirsig, The Bullet
October 19, 2010

At the end of the afternoon of May 27, a mass demonstration marched into the Place de la Bastille in Paris. The march itself represented what can now be viewed as a low point in the national union mobilizations to challenge the proposed weakening of France's public pension regime and other reactionary responses of Nicholas Sarkozy's government to the world economic crisis. But despite the rain, despite the niggling worry that fatigue was overtaking the movement and apathy the French public, a group of marchers went to work making sure it was a day the French labour movement won't soon forget.

Workers without status demonstrating against the Sarkozy government reforms.
Hundreds of striking workers without status, known as “travailleurs sans papiers,” set about occupying the steps of the Bastille Opera House in what was to be a crucial stand in their astounding strike. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/421.php

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