Gaza Genocide: French Dockers Take A Stand

By George Binette

Dockworkers in the southern French port of Fos-sur-Mer, less than 30 miles from Marseille, refused on Thursday (6th June) to handle a container destined for the Israeli port of Haifa. The container holds 19 pallets of parts for machine guns allegedly used by IDF troops in the prosecuting Israel’s endless war on the people of Gaza. The parts in question, manufactured by Eurolinks SIPR Defence, serve to accelerate rapid bursts of fire from the weapons.

The dockers organised in a union under the umbrella of the CGT, France’s largest union federation, issued a statement declaring: “The port of Marseille-Fos must not be used to supply the Israeli army… dockworkers and port employees at the Gulf of Fos will not be complicit in the ongoing genocide orchestrated by the Israeli government.”

The dockers had last month prevented another ship bound for Israel from docking at their port, while members of the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union imposed a limited embargo this past winter on weapons shipments to Israel. This action appears to have triggered the sacking of Eric Helgeson, one of the union’s leading representatives at the port Gothenburg. Elsewhere, Moroccan and Spanish workers have also intervened to halt or at least delay vessels bound for Israel in recent months.

The vessel that was due to carry the shipment from France, operated by the Israeli-based ZIM shipping line, apparently set sail without the machine gun parts, heading for the Italian port of Genoa. Dockers there belonging to the Unione di Sindicale Base have mounted a picket line with the aim of ensuring the ship did not dock at Genoa’s harbour.

The CGT’s secretary general, Sophie Binet, told reporters at a press conference in Strasbourg:  “We are very proud of this action led by our comrades, and which is part of the CGT’s long internationalist tradition for peace.” She added: “It is unacceptable that CGT dockers should be the ones forced to uphold the fundamental principles of international law and French values. The government must immediately block all arms deliveries to the State of Israel.”

Meanwhile, politicians from La France Insoumise, including party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the head of France’s Parti Socialiste, praised the dockers’ action. While officials in the Macron government have tried to suggest that the parts exported by Eurolinks SIPR Defence are not actually used by the IDF in Gaza, the company’s own representatives have so far remained silent.

In England, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called for a day of protests on Tuesday 17th June at three sites, which provide parts for F-35 fighter jets. The factories are located near Havant, Hampshire, Rochester, Kent and Sheffield. Of course, this poses the question of when dockers or other transport workers in Britain might follow the lead of their French, Italian and other international counterparts.

George Binette, a Massachusetts native, is a retired union activist, vice-chair of Camden Trades Council and former Trade Union Liaison Officer of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP.