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Hands Off Arrested Air France Strikers! No Layoffs! We print below a translation of an October 14 statement protesting the arrest of Air France workers, issued by the Comité de Défense Sociale. The arrests were made a week after two managers had their shirts torn off during a strike rally at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. The CDDS is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Ligue Trotskyste de France, French section of the International Communist League. Eleven more Air France workers have subsequently been slapped with bogus defacement of property charges. Seventeen have been vindictively suspended without pay. On October 22, at least 5,000 workers and their supporters demonstrated outside the French parliament against this outrageous prosecution. * * * The Comité de Défense Sociale condemns the arrest and charging of five Air France employees. We also protest the disciplinary procedures currently targeting around two dozen workers following the 5 October 2015 demonstration. On that day, thousands of Air France workers from all job categories protested against the threat of nearly 3,000 layoffs, which would be on top of 9,000 jobs already axed since 2012. The violence of the proposed cuts was matched by the Air France bosses’ contemptuous arrogance toward the workers who entered the room where the board meeting was scheduled. After infuriating the workers, the managers fled. The sight of the two bosses, shirtless, making a run for it was welcomed by not only the thousands of demonstrators who witnessed the scene, but also by millions of workers around the world who saw the pictures. Five workers from the cargo and maintenance divisions were arrested at their homes on Monday, October 12, at 6 a.m. and subjected to 30 hours in police custody, a spectacle that the government seeks to normalize with its racist “war against terrorism.” The workers are scheduled to appear before the court in Bobigny [a suburb of Paris] on December 2, charged with “gang assault,” and they face up to three years in prison and fines of 45,000 euros [$50,000]. Even the government’s media mouthpiece (Le Monde, 15 October) admits that the shirts could have been torn off by security guards during the crush. This did not prevent Prime Minister Manuel Valls from treating the protesters as “thugs.” As Miguel Fortea, the general secretary of the CGT Air France union, stated: “They are trying to criminalize trade-union action and the workers”—whose dignity and livelihoods they want to rip up. Later on October 5, there were victims of violence that deserves condemnation: a flight attendant and a pilot were beaten and injured by police during a demonstration at the airport terminal. But it is the Air France Five who face serious consequences for simply having dared to protest at a trade-union action against threatened layoffs! These criminal proceedings target the entire workers movement, which must be mobilized against the attacks by the Air France bosses and their government. Twelve trade unions at Air France have called to demonstrate on October 22. Like them, we demand: Drop all charges, without conditions, against the Air France Five! Stop the disciplinary proceedings against the Five and their co-workers now!
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