Articles by Chris Latham

Source: Green Left Weekly

French people have sent a strong message to the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy with 90% of voters in a referendum organised by anti-privatisation campaigners rejecting plans to partially privatise the national postal service, La Poste.

The result highlighted public opposition to Sarkozy’s neoliberal assault on public services.

France, like other capitalist countries, has been restructuring the public sector under both centre-left and centre-right governments since the 1980s. However, these reforms have been blunted by working-class resistance, most spectacularly during the 1995 strike wave against attacks on the public sector and the student-led movement in 2006 against a law severely attacking the rights of young workers. read more