This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

271805Z Mar 06

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001967 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/WE, DRL/IL, INR/EUC, EUR/ERA, EUR/PPD, 
AND EB 
DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA 
DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR PINR SOCI ECON
SUBJECT: FRANCE BRACES FOR ANOTHER DAY OF PROTESTS, AS 
SPECTRE OF UNDERCLASS VIOLENCE FUSING WITH LEFT/RIGHT 
SOCIAL PROTEST GROWS 
 
REF: A. (A) EMABSSY PARIS DAILY REPORT FOR MARCH 27 AND 
 
        PREVIOUS 
     ¶B. (B) EMBASSY PARIS DAILY REPORT FOR MARCH 24 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- HANDLE ACCORDINGLY 
 
SUMMARY 
-------- 
¶1.  (SBU) The weeks of protest (ref A) against the Villepin 
government's First Employment Contract (CPE) could well peak 
tomorrow, March 28.  Leftist student associations, backed by 
the full organizational weight of France's major trade union 
federations and the center left Socialist Party (PS), have 
called for a day of strikes and protests to force the 
government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to 
withdraw its controversial CPE labor reform law. As the 
protest movement has gathered momentum over past weeks, 
relatively peaceful student marches have been infiltrated by 
gangs of youths from France's poor immigrant suburbs -- the 
same violent and futureless underclass youths responsible for 
the weeks of car burnings and other civil unrest that beset 
France last Fall.  All implicated in tomorrow's protests -- 
from protest leaders and ordinary anti-CPE students to 
government ministers and crowd control police -- are tensely 
watchful, fearful that the marches tomorrow will also draw 
crowds of suburban hooligans, possibly sparking underclass 
violence with repercussions that go well beyond the 
left/right, ideological confrontation over Villepin's 
relatively minor labor reform.  END SUMMARY. 
 
DAY OF STUDENT, AND UNION AND OPPOSITION SUPPORTED, PROTESTS 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
¶2.  (SBU) Socialist Party (PS) firebrand (and one of the 
leaders of the left's campaign against the EU Constitution 
last fall) Jean-Luc Melanchon predicted that one and one-half 
million demonstrators would take to the streets tomorrow, and 
promised that "things will be different after that" in the 
attitude of the center-right government towards an energized 
and seemingly more united leftist opposition.  (Comment: It 
remains to be seen how many bona-fide demonstrators will in 
fact show up for March 28's nationwide demonstrations.  On 
the one hand, France's five major trade union federations, 
along with the center-left PS, have put their full 
organizational weight behind the protests, which should boost 
the number of participants.  On the other hand, the growing 
threat of violence from gangs of suburban youths joining the 
marches is reported to be turning away many students, who 
would otherwise participate.  On March 18, the most recent 
day of nationwide moblilization against the CPE, about 
500,000 participated.  End Comment.)  Marches and rallies 
have been called for all of France's major cities and 
university towns.  In addition, officials predict tomorrow,s 
strike will seriously hamper rail and air travel throughout 
the country.  In Paris, only half the metro and commuter 
trains are expected to run, while the state-owned SNCF 
railroad company suggests that two-thirds of trains will 
operate nationwide.  Most of Air France,s unions will also 
take part in the strike, likely resulting in multiple flight 
cancellations.  Teachers, public sector workers and retirees 
are also expected to participate. 
 
GROWING SPECTRE OF UNDERCLASS INFILTRATION AND VIOLENCE 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
¶3.  (SBU) The inflitration of student and other social 
protests by groups of young hooligans from the poor, 
predominantly immigrant suburbs that ring France's cities, is 
not something new.  Disturbances of this kind, particularly 
the mugging of peaceful demonstrators on the margins of 
protest activities, have been known to police since the late 
1980s.  The protests of 2004 against the education reforms 
proposed by then-education minister Francois Fillon saw a 
marked spike in this activity.  However, nothing quite on the 
scale of the hooligan violence of March 23 around the 
Esplanade of the Invalides in Paris had been seen before (ref 
B). 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Two major suburban train lines connect at the 
Invalides subway stop.  On the afternoon of Thursday, March 
23, students gathered for a demonstration targeted at the 
nearby education ministry found themselves fleeing pell-mell 
as they were assaulted and robbed by hundreds of hooligans 
who had been trickling out of the train station for most of 
the day.  Afterwards, these hooligans (or "casseurs" as they 
known in French) burned a number of cars and looted shops and 
restaurants along two side streets.  All concerned -- from 
protest leaders and ordinary anti-CPE students to government 
ministers and crowd control police -- are tensely watchful, 
fearful that the marches tomorrow will draw crowds of these 
suburban hooligans.  Police have been ordered by Interior 
Minister Sarkozy to indentify likely hooligans and arrest 
them pre-emptively. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) A confrontation with police that is sensed as 
overly-violent and motivated by racial prejudice could spark 
a new round of violence in France's suburbs -- a developement 
with repercussions that go well beyond the ideological and 
political confrontation over Villepin's relatively minor 
labor reform.  Francois Chereque, head of the moderate CFDT 
trade union federation, publicly acknowledged the danger of 
hooligan incited violence during tomorrow's protests as he 
told the press and public following a failed compromise 
meeting with the Prime Minister on March 24 that "we will do 
everything we can to  maintain order" during the protests 
planned for March 28. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
¶6.  (SBU) It remains to be seen whether or not this feared 
"fusion" -- the discontent among poor immigrant youth that 
fueled last Fall's weeks of car burnings and defiance of 
police "piggybacking" onto the garden variety left/right 
standoff over social reform -- will or will not significantly 
mark the strike and protest activities of March 28.  The most 
dire media and pundit commentatary excoriates both opposition 
and government for instransigence -- accusing them of 
consciously using the possiblity of this underclass violence 
to raise the stakes against each other.  The unions and the 
opposition Socialist Party, who seized on and abetted student 
opposition to the CPE to make it a rallying, showdown issue 
for a tentative and divided left, risk being discredited by 
an outbreak of violence, should the public blame them for 
irresponsibly pressing their advantage against the 
government.  Villepin and the center-right government, who 
have tried to defy opposition demands to withdraw the CPE 
(under the pressure of the "blackmail" of this threat of 
violence, according to some government supporters), also risk 
having their intransigence blamed, should tomorrow's strike 
lead to wider unrest.  Both sides however, seem willing to 
bet that the most damage will be done to the other side in 
the event that this redoubtable, but worst-case scenario, 
ensues.  END COMMENT. 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
 
Stapleton