154i Based on a report from Paris,
Although miners at some pits, demonstrating their militancy, grumbled at the settlement, it appears that the majority consider they have won the strike after 34 days on the picket line,
So far as the demands raised at the beginning by the miners! unions are concerned, the struggle endod with oa. favourabla comprom ise. A wage boost of 6.5 % goes into offoct at onco, retrospective to April Ist. Further increase will go into effect until they reach 11 % Jamary Ist and 12,5 % by April lst 1964, An immediate payment cn account is granted, and the government, agreseq to another week's paid holiday. Against the back= ground of general class relations in France, both the objective reality and the prevailing mass sentiment, the struggle terminated in victory for both the working class and the unions,
The regime had counted on defeating the miners and the union through weariness, debt, material difficulties (important as finsnzial aid was, it is self-evident that solidarity contritmtions could never rise high enough to assure minimum subsistence for 200,000 strikers and thoir families), the irritation of the middle class over a succession of demonstrations upset— ting the daily routine (stoppages of alectricity, gas, transport, etc.) which accompanied the upsurge of demands during March,
Without overestimating the victory of the miners, it must never theless be underlined that it involves a serious loss of prestige for De Ganlle and his regime, both nationally and internationally. The great weakness was that the mass organisations, both parties and unions, while they supported the strike did not utilise the opportunity during the course of it to speak out strongly for a programme ( for a 40-hour wook, against De Gaulle's H-Bomb policy, etc.,) which would heve placed ths combat in proper relation to a perspective of further battles of great scope, reaching even to a struggle against the rogime itself.