French artists strike
Paris, Jul 10 (IPS)-- In a summer of strikes and protests,
unionists are now bringing French culture to a halt.
A new crisis took center-stage after the French Movement of Enterprises
(MEDEF after its French name), an association of employers of artists
announced a reduction of unemployment benefits.
Culture workers will now have to produce evidence of working 64 days
in ten months to claim unemployment benefits. Earlier they had to produce
evidence of that much work in a year.
The employers association say they had to toughen the terms because
the system of private-public insurance for unemployed artists is crumbling
under a huge deficit.
The deficit between what has been paid, and the funds that are available
to pay it stands now at almost a billion dollars.
The changes will affect about 75,000 actors, musicians, dancers, and
technicians who work on a freelance basis at cultural events and festivals.
And it will affect the festivals themselves.
Several small unions have accepted the MEDEF proposals. But the largest
union, the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) has launched strikes
that look set to change the cultural face of the French summer.
About 20 major festivals have been cancelled already. These include
the well- known music festival Francopholies in the city of La Rochelle
on the Atlantic Coast, and Tombés de la Nuit at Rennes.
Other events cancelled inclued the dance festival of Montpellier, the
Jazz Days of Tours, and plays in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Albi, Perpignan,
and Lille.
The strike also led to cancellation of the opening ceremonies at the
festival of Avignon, and of several plays scheduled earlier this week.
If the strike continues, the Avignon festival which would normally continue
until the end of July, will certainly be cancelled.
Robert Abirached, professor of theatre history and cultural policies
at the University of Paris, told IPS that “the artists, who by
nature live in a fragile world, face an extremist right-wing government,
which has decided to let the market rule over culture.”
The strikes, he said, are “an institutional revenge for the social
crisis triggered by the government’s policies earlier in the year.”
Protests have been held over several months against moves to reform
the pension and health insurance systems.
Demonstrations are held daily now outside the offices of MEDEF and the
ministry of culture. One banner at a demonstration read: “We’re
the Spectacle, MEDAF is the Obstacle.”
Minister for culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon says the amendments to the
unemployment benefits are reasonable, and that the “protest is
thoughtless.” Some theater personalities agree with Aillagon, and
say the freelance artists will be the chief victims of their own protests.
“The freelancers are shooting themselves in the feet,” theatre
and film director Patrice Chéreau told the newspaper Le Monde.
“If the strike goes on, the festival of Avignon will be dead in
two years, and that would be bad news for all of us, including the freelance
artists.”
Local authorities in cities where the festivals have been suspended
say the strikes “will provoke an economic catastrophe.”
Patrick Mennucci, president of the regional tourism committee in the
southern region Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur says the strikes and
the cancellation of festivals are leading to “the destruction of
thousands of jobs and leading to losses of tens of millions of dollars.”
About 200,000 people attend the festival in Avignon, spending about
20 million dollars in the city. About 250 small festivals take place
in dozens of other cities in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region.
All of them are now in danger.
Union leaders say reform of unemployment benefits for freelance culture
workers should take into consideration the economic dimension of the
festivals.
“Freelance artists working for the festivals create this profit
for the cities,” Jean Voirin, director at the CGT told IPS. ”As
compensation, the cities should contribute to the funding of the unemployment
insurance.”
Abirached agrees. “France should dismantle the present culture
festival policy to create a new one, decentralised, and overtly paid
for by local authorities.”
But he pleaded also for liberty for the artists. “We should not
transform our artists into civil servants,” he says.
