Today, big French workers and students’ strike against Sarkozy

This is a video from Rennes, Brittany, in France, of an anti Sarkozy demonstration there. Music: a mixture of traditional Breton music, rock, and Italian song Bella Ciao.

By Antoine Lerougetel:

France: Vast mobilisation expected November 20 against Sarkozy’s policies

20 November 2007

General assemblies of railway workers all over France voted by 96 percent on Monday to continue their strike against the dismantling of the “régimes spéciaux” pension schemes and participate in Tuesday’s mobilisation of public service workers against the policies of Gaullist President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The unions have called for some three million public service workers to carry out a one day-strike combined with mass demonstrations.

Also joining Tuesday’s protests will be students opposing the university autonomy law, which will open up the universities to private enterprise, limit access to high-quality education to the most privileged social layers, and diminish educational standards for the majority. Already, student strikes and blockades are affecting half of France’s 85 universities. The protesters have been subjected to police violence at several campuses.

See also here.

Report 21 November: here; on students: here. And here.

Photos of the strikes in France: here.

A French striking train driver speaks: here.

France: drumhead tribunals and threats of police state repression: here.

French President Sarkozy visits Afghanistan, here.

Report documents growth of social inequality in France: here.

Detained immigrants on hunger strike in France: “We refuse to be treated as sub-humans”.