After they closed down the Chausson factory in 1996, the town council of Montataire decided to take down the official portrait of President Chirac from where it traditionally hung in the council chambers. During the 1995 presidential campagne, Jacques Chirac had promised the workers of Chausson that if he was elected president, the factory would not be closed. Although there was some discussion amongst the town council, even members of the RPR, President Chirac's party, admitted that he had not kept his promise. So, when Nicolas Sarkozy became President, there was not even any discussion of whether or not to put up the presidential portrait. "At least," remarks the town mayor, Jean-Pierre Bosino, "since the town council hall has been redone, there are no longer the tell-tale traces on the wall of the President's missing portrait."
"Montataire is the symbol of industrial decline in this country," says Mr. Bosino, a former factory worker, union cadre and today mayor of this small town; (pop.12,652). "First the 5000 salaried workers of Chausson, then 3000 from Arcilor, at Goss International they were 600 at the beginning of the year and now they are only 300, and today Still-Saxby where 255 employees are threatened with closure of the plant!" Unemployment in Montataire is 22% and 50% amongst the under 25 year olds!
During the public meeting with Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former worker from Continental spoke about the ravages that their struggle against factory closure and redundancy was having on his co-workers. Many of them are under the illusion that the factory will come back but it's empty inside he says, "I know personally of at least one suicide and there are already 140 divorces."
The closure of Still-Saxby where elevator transporters are manufactured is the perfect example of worker lay-offs due to financial market logic rather than industrial logic. The company is making profits, work orders are plentiful, the workers are qualified and productivity is without fault, the brand is highly reputed. "The workers of Still accepted to work 38.5 hours but paid only for 35 hours," says Jean-Marc Coache, one of the union representatives, "but this is not an industrial problem, it is the financiers who are leading the dance." The factory is schedualed for closure in June 2012 and the activity of Still-Saxby will be transfered to Italy.
Last July, 120 employees from Still went to Paris to demonstrate in front of the offices of Goldman Sachs, one of the stock holders of Kion, a German company that owns Still-Saxby. Finally a small group of union representatives were allowed to meet with people from Goldman Sachs in order to express their concerns. What seemed to be a small workers' victory quickly became a source of anguish because the union representatives realized that Goldman Sachs didn't even know who they were nor anything about their plight. The French workers are anonymous victims of a decision made by American financial managers or German industrialists; collateral victims of a global economy.
The mayor of Montataire is frustrated and astonished that this problem seems to be ignored by government officials. He has tried to alert the competant ministerial authorities yet so far he has only had acces to low-level advisors. "Not even Francois Hollande (the Socialist Party presidential candidate) has been willing to commit himself," says the mayor.
Indeed, this is the kind of workers struggle that the Socialist Party traditionally would have been interested in but workers in France today feel that the Socialist Party (PS) has pretty much abandoned them. "A lot of words and not a lot of action." said Dominique Becart, a public service worker from Beauvais. She had come to Montataire to listen to Jean-Luc Mélenchon who is the presidential candidate for the "Front de gauche" party (Leftist Front). Mr. Mélenchon, a former Socialist cadre, was accompanied by Marie-George Buffet, the former head of the French Communist Party (PCF). They have joined forces to present a leftist platform (but not the farthest left in the French political spectrum). In a packed basement hall, Mr. Mélenchon explained that his program was to place the economy at the service of people rather than people at the service of the economy, as it seems to be today. He quotes one of the French Lefts' great thinkers and orators, Jean Jaures: "The French Revolution has left the people of France kings in their cities but serfs in their enterprises." "Well," declared Mr. Mélenchon, "we intend to abolish this servitude!"
This political meeting was particularly poignant because three days prior, José Montero, a union activist and long-time employee of Still died from a heart attack. He had been one of the main forces in the struggle to keep the factory from closing. A delegation visited his work station in the factory and later, after the political meeting, Mr. Melenchon and Mme. Buffet joined the workers of Still in front of the factory where a moving hommage to José Montero took place. The gravity of the occasion provided Mr. Melenchon with the appropriate tone that somehow evoked images of people rising up against oppression and servitude.