The last few days have seen a lull in solidarity actions with the Lip workers, evicted from their watch factory in Besancon in eastern France by 3,000 armed police just over a fortnight ago. Sporadic demonstrations are, of course, continuing to take place, but the last co-ordinated activity took place on Thursday, 23 August. Then radio and TV employees struck for 24 hours, and there were numerous other stoppages in Paris - mainly of postal and printing workers, although even employees at the Stock Exchange stopped for 15 minutes. The day of action culminated in a mass rally attended by delegations from some 600 factories.
That there has been no decline in popular support for the Lip workers is clear; just last week another opinion poll in the magazine L'Express showed that only 31% of those interviewed disapproved of the methods used by the Lip workers in "illegally' taking over their factory, continuing to manufacture and sell watches, and paying themselves out of the proceeds.
The opinion polls confirm the impression given by the almost unprecedented wave of spontaneous sympathy strikes which followed the police take-over of the factory. Such actions are not a common form of struggle in France -indeed, they have not been seen in an industrial dis pute since the miners' strike in 1963. With the holiday period coming to an end, now is obviously the moment for decisive action in support of the Lip struggle.
But in place of such a plan for national action, the leaders of the main trade union federations, the CGT and the CFDT, and of the Communist and Socialist parties, continue to offer mere In France, as in Britain, increasing moves are being made to tighten up restrictions on immi-