France's fight with unions reveals echoes of Revolution By Lucy Williamson

BBC News, Paris Published duration 5 November 2015

image copyright Reuters image caption Xavier Broseta was one of two executives who had his shirt torn from his back by angry protesters

France was shocked by scenes from a recent Air France demonstration, which ended with two executives fleeing an angry mob, their shirts and jackets torn to shreds.

But what does this headline-grabbing event say about France's relationship with its unions, and their role in French society?

media caption Air France human resources manager Xavier Broseta was forced to climb over a fence to escape

As every child knows, a story needs its goodies and its baddies. And political stories are no different, except that the labels change depending on who is telling the tale.

So why has France had such a hard time deciphering who's who in the recent Air France protest?

'Mirror of French Revolution'

The initial reaction, from the public at least, seemed clear. One opinion poll, taken in the days after the attack on company managers, found that 75% of French were "shocked".

In another, more than two-thirds of respondents called the violence "inexcusable".

The government joined in, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemning the behaviour of some protesters, and calling them "thugs".

image copyright AP image caption France was initially shocked by the violence of the Air France protesters

image copyright AFP image caption But then CGT union official Sebastien Benoit (right) was widely praised for refusing to shake President Hollande's hand

Only France's far left, and the CGT union behind the demonstration, came out in strong support of the shirt-rippers, with the union reiterating their "total support" for those arrested in the aftermath of the violence.

But then something interesting happened, says Gil Mihaely, deputy editor at current affairs magazine Causeur.

"The wind changed," he says. "At first people were shocked by the images, but after the emotion died down, something changed.

"And the worker from the shipyard who refused to shake President Hollande's hand a few days later became a hero."

That worker was Sebastien Benoit, secretary of the CGT's maritime arm. He rebuffed the president during an inspection of a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, criticising him for failing to denounce the "employers' violence" in the Air France affair.

A day later, French radio station RFI ran an article which described the events at Air France as "a mirror of the French Revolution".

"The violence at Air France has shocked the world," it read. "But what's more shocking for French people is the sympathy shown to the company's bosses, when it's potentially 3,000 members of staff that could get the axe."

And so began the slide of victimhood from one side to the other.

Unemployment failings

The violence of the Air France protest may have been unusual, and sympathy for its shirtless and terrified managers may have been real, but that was just the human story.

The debate itself, slicing thousands of jobs in France's difficult economic climate, switched many sympathies to the other side. The union members, many people seemed to concede, had a point.

"A significant proportion of people - especially those in lower income groups - said they 'understood' the violence, even if they didn't approve of it," says Dr Susan Milner, a specialist in French labour relations at Bath University in the UK.

Trade unions in France 8% of employees belong to a union 2010 saw a peak in strikes over pensions Minimum wage (p/hr) €9.61

Unemployment rate is 10.7%

image copyright Getty Images

She believes attitudes towards the Air France protest have been coloured by widespread anger at job losses in France more generally, and government failure to tackle unemployment rates.

But despite the strong stance of organisations like the CGT on issues like the minimum wage, hiring policies and the 35-hour week, Susan Milner says public anger over job losses does not necessarily translate into support for trade unions themselves.

In fact, says Prof Guy Groux of Sciences Po university, conflicts like the one at Air France "spring from despair, the unions being too weak to bring together members in big days of action".

"And the weaker a union is, the louder it has to shout to make itself heard."

Only 8% of employees are members of a union in France, compared with 25% in the UK. But union negotiations affect all workers in a particular company or industry, members and non-members alike.

Their influence, therefore, comes not from membership but from a curious combination of their institutional position as state-sanctioned workers' representatives, and their protest power, says Susan Milner.

"And there's growing tension between these two sources of power," she explains, "[partly] because the economic climate has encouraged grassroots discontent."

image copyright EPA image caption Prime Minister Manuel Valls met union officials after the violence, which he condemned as "unacceptable"

There is discontent with the unions themselves, too, which are often seen as rigid, self-serving and tainted by their establishment position.

In fact, one of the clearest results in polling after the Air France affair was the 82% who said it was a sign of France's "degraded social dialogue", and both politicians and commentators have called for reform - from mandatory union membership, to directly polling staff members on key decisions.

'Old model'

PM Valls has already launched a new project to tweak the relationship between the French state, its unions and employers, paring back the 3,000-page Labour Law, and giving companies and union representatives more leeway in negotiating deals at company and regional levels.

But some are sceptical that reform alone can transform the dinosaurs of the industrial era into representatives fit for France's contemporary economy.

"Unions find it difficult to move from the world of big employers to the world of people who change jobs 10-15 times, or who work in two different places at the same time, or who use their car as a taxi at night," says Gil Mihaely.

"They're still working with the old model in their heads."

image copyright Getty Images image caption France's unions play a vital role in negotiations with companies even if they do not have high membership

Guy Groux from Sciences Po agrees, but says France cannot function without them.

"There are 35,000-40,000 agreements signed between management and unions each year in France," he says, "and the number of strike days has shrunk dramatically."

Unions may also be an occasional lightening rod for a working class that feels increasingly powerless and invisible, but when it comes to violent revolt like that at Air France, says Mr Mihaely, the ruling class also bears some responsibility.

"The story here is not just the unions, it's the French elites," he says.

"That's why we have the same re-enactment of the French Revolution - the aristocracy, the legitimacy of violence, the small humiliating the big.

"There are too many officers who were never soldiers," he explains.

"When you have to announce bad news, every ounce of credibility and legitimacy counts. The future is less job security; it's work more and earn less; it's a smaller pension taken later.