FRENCH workers’ nationwide mobilisation in defence of public services and employment rights, with the promise of much more to come, deserves the unqualified solidarity of their comrades in Britain.

They are showing through their action that, unlike too many self-deceiving trade unionists here, they understand that the European Union is no Shangri-La for workers’ rights.

President Emmanuel Macron’s assault on hard-won employment conditions, especially for railway workers, and on workplace organisation mimics Margaret Thatcher’s anti-working-class campaigns in the 1980s and subsequent developments under the John Major and Tony Blair governments.