FRENCH REACTION
Sam White reports on the
conservatism of French students and ticket collectors
Paris IT WAS, of course, inevitable that the student unrest of the past month should find its echo, after the government's swift capitulation, in industrial unrest. This is exactly what happened in May 1968, when the government's first concession to the students, the re-opening of the universities after their official closure and the dropping of charges against arrested students, pro- duced a wave of wildcat strikes which finally developed into a general strike, paralysing France for the remainder of the month. The strikers were finally bought off by wage increases amounting in some cases to 30 per cent, which were wiped out within a year by the subsequent price increases. Nothing on such a scale will happen now, when the economic climate is entirely different, with near-full employ- ment then and unemployment on the three million mark now. Nevertheless, the temp- tation to strike at a government deemed to have been enfeebled by its defeat at the hands of the students was too great for that body of workers whose jobs are secure, that is to say those employed in state- owned industries.
As in 1986, the first strikes were wildcat ones with the union leadership left with no option but to endorse them. The most serious has been the rail strike, which has paralysed the French railways and which was called at the instigation of the ticket collectors, if you please, the most pam- pered section of the most pampered trade union in France. Coming at the height of the Christmas travel season, it has infuri- ated tens of thousands of holidaymakers. Having given in to the students and made concessions to the farmers, who have suffered a genuine and severe drop in their incomes, the government cannot afford to yield to substantial wage demands from the rail unions without precipitating a wave of inflationary wage demands. With the previous Socialist government having put an end to wage indexing, the government is on strong ground in arguing that the unions themselves would be real losers if a new inflationary spiral com- menced. In any case, public opinion will be firmly on the government's side in the case of a showdown with the unions, an unlikely event in any case, as the unions themselves look like climbing down. It is interesting to note, however, that so much which is retrograde and downright reactionary in France should be based on the state-owned industries and on the universities. It would be hard to find a more reactionary cause in France today than that represented by the student defenders of the status quo in higher education.
Everyone knows that French universities are grossly over-populated and lamentably under-staffed and under-equipped. Every- one knows too that the first step towards reforming the system must be the introduc- tion of some form of selection for universi- ty entry over and above the mere acquisi- tion of the school-leaving certificate, the Baccalaureat. As with so many other things, so with the Baccalaureat standards have dropped. In the Thirties, Forties and Fifties only some 40 per cent of students passed their Bac. Now it comes up with the rations, as it were, and 80 per cent of students pass it.
All are entitled, as of right, to enter the university of their choice, and as a result the university population has doubled to twice that of Britain and now stands at one million. Students are distributed among 72 universities, 13 of them in Paris — de- humanised, slummy institutions, shunned, as far as possible, by students and profes- sors alike. What saves the higher education system in France from at best total mediocrity is the existence within it of the so-called 'Grandes Ecoles', catering for about ten per cent of the student body. These produce the elite in France in all branches of knowledge and administration. Entry can only be secured by passing extremely stiff exams. Once entry is se- cured, and the exam papers, incidentally, are numbered so as to insure against favouritism towards the children of highly- placed parents, the student is paid a salary and his future is assured.
This body of students, needless to say, has stood aloof from the current agitation in the universities. So here we come to contradiction number one: while refusing selection as a means of entry to a universi- ty, selection is permitted for those bran- ches of the university system catering for the more talented and better educated. Contradiction number two is that while selection is not permitted for entry into a run-of-the-mill university, it is nevertheless practised in a most savage form after it. Thus for example in the medical and law faculties only 30 per cent of the students are judged fit to continue their studies after the first year. Similarly in the arts faculties only 40 per cent of students are judged fit to complete their three-year course. It is against this background that the govern- ment decided on a few minor, indeed almost imperceptible reforms which apart from a slight increase in tuition fees would have rendered the universities more com- petitive and given them the right, not to exclude students from universities, but simply to redirect them to others, not necessarily the ones of their choice.
It is this which produced this month's explosion of student anger and forced the government to beat a hasty and humiliating retreat. It will be a long time before another government dares to tamper with a system of which the chief victims, it must be stressed, are the students themselves.
The diplomas for which they so hopefully struggle are becoming more and more devalued. Far from being a passport to a job, when and if finally obtained they prove to be, in the majority of cases, utterly valueless.
The fact that the system's defenders should be the high-spirited and generous- minded youth of the country renders the tragedy all the greater. It also renders the political exploitation of this issue all the more shameless. When President Mitter- rand, with his own possible re-election in mind, describes the student cause as just, or when the newspaper Le Monde, in search of circulation among the young, devotes a special supplement to the history of the students' triumph' then it gives one cause to despair.
Meanwhile, with the onset of the New Year the coming presidential elections, scheduled for early 1988, will sharpen in intensity and their possible outcome be- come clearer. There are now only four real candidates in the field, with ex-President Giscard more or less gracefully conceding that he is a non-starter. They are Mitter- rand himself, his only socialist rival Michel Rocard, and on the Right, M. Chirac and the somewhat enigmatic former Prime Minister M. Raymond Bane. Oddly enough, or possibly because of it, as M. Mitterrand's executive powers have de- creased so has his popularity in the country grown to give him an apparently clear lead over all other candidates. This may turn out to be misleading, because, for a second term, he will have both to produce a programme and to indicate with whom the Socialists intend to ally. At present they have neither a programme, nor any poten- tial allies, either to the Right or Left. The same problem, in a mitigated form be- cause of his open break with traditional Socialist policies, will face M. Rocard. In any case, if M. Mitterrand stands then M. Rocard will be doomed either to stand down or face certain defeat, with the Socialists capable of winning the presiden- cy but incapable of securing a parliamen- tary majority. It seems at the early stage, as though the battle will resolve itself into one between M. Chirac and M. Barre, with Chirac as the odds-on favourite.
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