Famous faces back up picket lines
French celebrities have joined the picket lines of over 6,000 migrant workers who have been downing tools and occupying workplaces for the last three months against their lack of working rights and victimisation as sans papiers.
Football legend Lilian Thuram, actress Josiane Balasko, star of Chocolat Juliet Binoche, comedian Guy Bedos and Antoine de Caunes – known in Britain as the presenter of Channel 4’s Eurotrash – were among those sharing a ‘cake of kings’ in solidarity with the strikers on 6th January.
They are among a growing number of national celebrities who have voiced their support for the migrants’ cause, despite a near total blackout of information in the mainstream French media.
Speaking to the left-wing l’Humanite newspaper, comic Josiana Balasko said:
“We thought it would be nice to share this symbolic cake of kings with these undocumented workers. They have been in France for years, they work here and pay taxes yet their situation is unbelievable! Nobody talks about them.”
Director Phillipe Lioret said: “These undocumented workers have been in France for years, their children are educated here. They do not take advantage of the system, it is the system that benefits from them, so it is normal that they should have accompanying rights, such as freedom of movement, without having to hug the walls like shadows.
“I am very concerned that the policy of this government instills xenophobic tensions. This populism sickens me…”
The strikes started in October after the French government responded to years of campaigning over the precarious and unfair working conditions undocumented migrants workers live in with what were derided as ‘tokenistic concessions’.
The ruling UMP offered a structure for ‘regularising’, or making official, the status of migrant workers, but with restrictions so harsh that the vast majority were left no better off than before.
Without official recognition, migrants have few workplace rights and face constant attacks on their conditions with little redress.
Following the government’s announcement, militants across France were outraged both by the poor offer and by the response of conservatives in the massive CGT labour union, who attempted to present it as a victory.
A wave of stoppages resulted, spreading outwards from Paris into the rest of country, and temp agencies across the nation were invaded by workers demanding full rights. It is thought that up to 1,800 workplaces have been affected by the strikes so far, mainly in Paris, Oise and Orleans, and 30 workplaces occupied.
The government has responded by threatening to begin the closure of workplaces which employ sans-papier workers.
