May 2003 saw millions of French workers take to the streets over the issue of pensions, in mobilisations that the financial press presented as a peculiarly French summer ritual (Graham, 2003). Yet a look behind the news shows that the fight over pensions marks an important phase in a fierce and protracted class struggle over the restructuring of the welfare state—a struggle occurring across Europe. Pension reform precipitated a general strike in Greece in 2001, and in 2003 it provoked the first national strike in Austria since 1950. Even staff at the European Commission staged a walkout in May 2003, to protest against cuts in pension entitlement.
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