The heroic struggle against the pension reform that is setting France on fire, a decisive fight for the French working class
To defeat this attack
Out with Macron and the Fifth Republic!
Let's bring back the Paris Commune!
For three months the French working class, the youth, the pensioners, the workers as a whole have won the streets of the imperialist Fifth Republic. With strikes, pickets, blockades, barricades, with general assemblies where they vote daily to go on strike, they are fighting against the pension reform and against the attack of their imperialist bourgeoisie. On April 13, the 12th national day of struggle took place as a continuation of the struggle they have been developing.
The Macron government imposed a pension reform to extend the working time by raising the retirement age from 62 years to 64 years and to raise the years of contribution to achieve a full retirement from 42 to 43 years. This reform also liquidates the "special regimes" of the sectors that do unhealthy, dangerous work and where life expectancy is lower. Moreover, foreseeing that parliament would not approve it, he used article 49.3 of the constitution, which allows him to enact the law without it being voted on by the legislative assembly. This has finally unleashed the fury of the masses.
The crisis of the capitalist system is really outstanding and the imperialist powers are tearing each other's eyes out for business and to stay competitive. By provoking Russia's invasion of Ukraine with its maneuvers in NATO, US imperialism has dealt a blow to the business of Maastricht Europe, leaving it reeling. It was indispensable for the US imperialism to prevent the Franco-German axis from "taking over" the juicy business of Russia and China. In order to get out of the brutal crisis that this rotten system has been dragging along since 2008, the race is on to colonize China and Russia in order to plunder their wealth and take over their markets.
This has created an enormous crisis in Maastricht Europe, where the dominant powers have been dislocated, lost juicy business deals and plunged into an energy crisis and inflation that in some countries had not been seen for decades. A crisis that today is also reflected in their broke states and major banks.
In France it is expressed by an official unemployment rate of 7.2% and above all by inflation, which is particularly high in foodstuffs, causing a decrease in the consumption of working class families, where about 42% of French people in a precarious situation have already cut out one meal.
To get out of this quagmire, the imperialist French Fifth Republic has been unloading an attack on the masses for a long time and now it needs to sharpen it. After robbing them of the 35-hour work week and smashing collective bargaining in 2016, the French bourgeoisie is now going after the pensions because it needs to wrest all historical gains from its own working class. It needs to lower the deficit, and get a more flexible working class; it is even discussing a revision of the labor law and a new law on immigrants that would allow it to give asylum to almost no more immigrants. Everything in order that the Fifth Republic is not left out of the race in the brutal inter-imperialist dispute that has been deepened by the war in Ukraine.
Thus, in this attack on pensions there is no turning back and after facing weeks of struggle of the exploited, the answer of the government is that this law will not be discussed.
From strikes and mobilization to mass political struggle: 3 months of enormous struggle of the exploited that has the bourgeoisie on tenterhooks
Since the end of last year, the exploited masses have been demonstrating with their heroic struggle that they are not willing to be robbed of their historical gains any longer. They have already had 12 national days of strikes and mass mobilizations in the streets all over France; with roadblocks and pickets; with indefinite strikes voted by the rank and file assemblies in sectors like the railways, air traffic controllers and other transport sectors like the metro, electricity workers, refinery workers, rubbish collectors, education, health and other state sectors; with the high school and university students mobilized and taking over high schools and colleges which they put at the disposal of the struggle; with barricades where the exploited, with the youth at their head, are fighting real pitched battles against the repressive forces, even pushing them back, as was seen in the Normandy refinery, when the police was trying to make them return to work so that the lack of fuel would not deepen.
On 16 March, faced with the application of the decree (article 49.3), with which the government imposed the reform, the masses broke out in spontaneous mobilizations, outside the action days called by the trade union centers. And from that day on to the present day they have been fighting barricades almost every day, in particular the youth, who every night burn tires, pallets, bins, attack banks, insurance companies, and even government houses and the headquarters of political parties such as the Republicans, Renaissance (Macron's party), and National Rally (Marine Le Pen's party) and confront both the riot police and the motorized police.
Thus, beginning to outstrip the leaderships that sought to contain the hatred of the masses in a pressure struggle, the exploited entered into an open political struggle against Macron and his government, agents of big capital, and against the regime as a whole that gives the president monarchical powers.
From there on, seeing that it was losing control of the exploited, the bourgeoisie deployed its armed wing unconditionally. Arrangements of thousands of police in front of the demonstrations, arbitrary arrests (in which not even the charges were reported), brutal repression of every action of the masses, tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets, dispersal grenades... all this arsenal used in a savage manner, aiming at the head and the eyes, etc. The ultimate expression was the repression of a demonstration of 30,000 farmers and environmental activists in Sainte-Soline against the construction of a dam, which left more than 400 injured, two of them in coma.
But this has not made the masses and the youth retreat, who, on the contrary, continue their confrontation, defending themselves with stones, acid, firecrackers, Molotov cocktails, trying to avenge the wounded and free the hundreds of prisoners.
France is experiencing a revolutionary situation because, as Lenin defined it in "The Collapse of the Second International" of 1915, " the lower classes do not want any more" and "the upper classes are unable" to go on living as they have been living; there is a worsening of the sufferings of the oppressed classes, a product of the attack faced by the exploited; and there is also a considerable intensification of the activity of the masses who in turbulent times are pushed towards an independent historical action, such as those we have been seeing for days now. And this is what the reformist leaderships keep quiet about, as we shall see below.
The trade union bureaucracies and the social-imperialist parties are a limit that tries to extinguish the revolutionary fire of the masses
The different trade union centers unified in the inter-union have been calling for months for mobilization days and staggered strikes every 10 days, and are keeping the strikes divided sector by sector. This is beginning to lead to the attrition and isolation of the most militant sectors of the working class which, despite the will of the leaderships, are voting to continue the strike.
The trade union centers, linked to the Socialist Party (CFDT) or led by the Communist Party (CGT) or by renegade currents of Trotskyism like Lambertism (FO) or the NPA (Solidaires) and the social-imperialist parties claimed that such an attack could be stopped in the puppet parliament of the Fifth Republic of the French imperialist transnationals. Thus, the trade union leaderships led the enormous forces deployed by the French working class and youth to put pressure on the parliament for it not to vote for the reform. Then, when the government passed over the parliament, they said that the government, which, on the contrary, showed more and more firmness, could be pushed back by being many on the streets.
Today, while the CFDT is calling for a negotiating table with the government, seeking a mediation, imploring for a truce, the CGT is talking about the need for a citizens' referendum to show Macron that the people are against reform.... As if all these months of struggle had not made it clear enough!
The PC and its allies in the inter-union do not want to lose control of the working class and that is why their policy is to wear down this struggle because they are bitter enemies of the masses setting up their organisms of self-determination and attacking the citadel of power. It is the same policy that Stalinism is pursuing in the whole of Europe, where it leads the majority of the trade union centers, thus dividing the struggle of the workers country by country.
The parties of the so-called "far" left in France like the NPA, LO, Permanent Revolution, among others, are proposing to organize the rank and file, to deepen the strike, even talking about an indefinite general strike. The NPA now raises the need for a constituent assembly. They are trying to re-direct the huge struggle against Macron, his government and his regime into a struggle of pressure in extremis. That is why none of them speak of the need to open up the revolution, nor do they clearly state that Macron must be overthrown, hiding the fact that a revolutionary situation has opened up, because they are enemies of the workers overthrowing the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie and imposing a government of the exploited.
When it has already been proved that this parasitic system seeks to overcome its crisis on the shoulders and blood of the workers. There is no room even for them to throw us a few crumbs to appease the fury unleashed among the exploited class. The only way to achieve even the smallest demands, such as preventing the pension system from being ripped away from us, is to fight for everything.
The parties that call themselves revolutionary, instead of explaining this to the workers and preparing the conditions to wrest power from the bourgeoisie, make us believe that we can achieve better living conditions within this bankrupt system. Or they want to make us settle for crumbs that, if we get them, we will lose them quickly unless we do advance to take power.
The only brake we have to prevent us from winning all our demands are the bureaucratic leaderships of the workers' centrals and reformist parties, the Communist party and the renegades of Trotskyism who want us to put pressure on the imperialist bourgeoisie instead of attacking the citadel of power with all our might. These leaderships, with their politics, do not allow the power of the bourgeoisie to be questioned, as if we were in the thriving epoch of capitalism and the exploiters were going to distribute among us some of what they rob from us, when we the workers are the only producers of the wealth that they usurp from us. We are in an epoch of crises, wars and revolutions, which together with the current crisis pushes the proletariat to raise the question of power, to defeat this rotten capitalist system. And "If a workers' party is incapable of leading the proletariat to the conquest of power, the life of society will necessarily continue on a capitalist basis, until a new crisis or a new war, until the complete collapse of European civilization". (How does one arrive at a revolutionary situation? in Whither France?. L. Trotsky). That is why for decades they have been telling the workers that they have to fight only for minimum demands on the way to, some day, conquer "socialism", though it has become clear that the only way to conquer even the smallest demand is to fight every day for the socialist revolution.
The fact is that those at the top are obliged to attack, we at the bottom are not ready to surrender even one more conquest and we have more than proved our enormous readiness to fight. France is on fire every day. But the situation is as revolutionary as it can be within the non-revolutionary politics of the trade unions and the parties that speak in the name of the working class. However, the independent mass actions show that it is possible to break the corset of the reformist leaderships, and to advance in opening the road to revolution.
It is only the proletarian revolution that can defeat this system that can no longer even feed its slaves. Because “revolution arises only out of a situation in which the above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective change, namely, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never "falls for itself" not even in a period of crisis, if it is not toppled over.” (The Bankruptcy of the Second International. V. I. Lenin May-June 1915)
The way forward is set by May '68: Open the revolution! Down with Macron! Bring back the Paris Commune!
For the French working class it is already clear that to defeat the reform it is necessary to defeat Macron, his government and the regime of the Fifth Republic. And so it is heard on the streets of France: "Macron, resign"! The conditions for the opening of the revolution are already here.
The French bosses said that they will not negotiate anything... We, the workers, have nothing to negotiate either! The imperialist transnationals and bandits only give something when they see that they are about to lose everything. And "everything" is their ownership of the means of production, with which they exploit the workers and plunder the world.
So, let's fight for everything! Down with the reforms! Take back what was taken from us! Out with Macron! We must expropriate the expropriators of the people, the banks, and the transnationals and take the means of production into our own hands, putting all the factories and establishments under workers' control. There is the money for having decent pensions and for work, health, and housing for all, first of all for the immigrants who do the worst jobs.
For that, we need bodies that are fit for this fight. We have to develop the organisms of self-determination and power of the working class, the militant youth, the pensioners, the immigrants, the people without papers, the committees per factory, which the local, regional trade unions must join, so that the exploited majority of the population, who are struggling, have the power to decide about their struggle. These bodies already exist! In every place of work and study, in the occupied schools, in the grassroots assemblies of the factories where they vote day by day on the future of the strike imposing workers' democracy, in the interprofessional assemblies, in the roadblocks, and in every barricade. Where all of us who fight and carry out these actions, we meet, we recognize each other in Lyon, Rouen, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, and in the working class districts of Paris, let's coordinate with direct democracy, let's set up coordinators of struggle by neighborhood, city, region, let's vote delegates and let's send them to a National Congress of struggle, a body that centralizes and coordinates, at national level, all the actions that sweep away the government of Macron and his regime. And from there let's set fire to the whole of France.
The trade union centers led by the Communist Party and the Socialist Party and other lackeys of the Fifth Republic should at the very least call for a General Insurrectionary Strike! or will they continue to seek a negotiation with the French Fifth Republic to surrender our struggle?
To defend ourselves from the attacks of the state, the police and their repressive forces, we must set up, from all the trade unions and from the blockades, the factory pickets, from the assemblies, from the barricades, armed self-defense organizations. Raising the cry that thunders in the streets of "everybody hates the police!", to disarm the murderers and to impose the Dissolution of the police and all repressive forces!
DOWN WITH THE 5TH REPUBLIC OF THE IMPERIALIST BUTCHERS!
This parasitic system can give us neither a plate of food, nor work, or housing, or health, or education, or a decent retirement, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants die drowned in the seas or overcrowded and shot at the borders of the imperialist countries. Rotten capitalism deserves to die. It's them or us. Against the 1% of parasites of bankers and transnationals let's stand up the power of the immense majority of workers and laborers who produce all the wealth and get the country in motion. LET'S BRING BACK THE PARIS COMMUNE!
The international tasks of the French working class: liberate the French colonies and raise up their brothers in Europe to defeat Maastricht
By throwing down Macron, we will be in a better position to liberate our class brothers and sisters in the colonies and semi-colonies oppressed by the 5th Republic, which in Africa plunders all the wealth and minerals for its arms, energy, and space industries, and with TotalEnergy steals all the gas and oil. The exploited people of Mali and Burkina Faso are making their hatred felt against French imperialism, which in Mali imposed a massacre on the people to steal lithium and cobalt. And recently Macron's visit to Gabon, Angola, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, was repudiated in these former French colonies. The working class of the imperialist countries that do not liberate their class brothers and sisters in the colonies will never be able to liberate itself.
Out with French imperialism from its colonies and overseas territories! Out with French military bases in Africa!
In this Europe in crisis our allies are the working class fighting in the UK, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Germany. It is the same struggle, we have the same enemy: the imperialist Maastricht which is unloading a ferocious attack on the working class and the exploited masses. Let the fight of the European working class be extended and centralized! The fate of the working class of the continent is at stake in the fights in France, it is life and death for them to succeed. For a day of rage throughout Europe to defeat the imperialist Maastricht.
The European working class has a big task pending ahead of it: it cannot let its class brothers and sisters in the warring Ukraine, who are defending their nation against the Russian invasion, be massacred. The European working class holds in its hands the keys to stop it and liberate the Ukrainian people by confronting the NATO governments that make juicy business out of this war. In France, in Portugal, in Spain, in Greece, in the UK, in all Europe, the working class fights against the robbery of its gains, it is imperative to win the unity with the Ukrainian working class to stop the massacre of our siblings in Ukraine.
Long live the unity of the Ukrainian working class and the whole of Europe! This is the way to crush the invasion of the butcher Putin and to defeat the governments and regimes of NATO and the imperialist Maastricht!
Let the European workers' organizations raise the motion to donate each worker a day's wage to send these funds to the Ukrainian resistance to supply them with everything they need, weapons, supplies, medicines, and as was the tradition in the 1930s in the Spanish Revolution, let us send international brigades to fight together against the Russian invader!
DOWN WITH NATO! OUT WITH THE IMPERIALIST MILITARY BASES FROM THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES! Out with the european imperialist military bases in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America! DOWN WITH MAASTRICHT! For the working class to live, this system must die!
BREAKING NEWS
April 14, 2023
The Constitutional Council has approved the pension reform
In order to get the masses out of the combat in the streets, the reformist leaderships of the trade union centrals and the social imperialist currents of the French Fifth Republic called to pressure the Constitutional Council for it not to validate the pension reform law….
The Macron law of the pension reform and the imperialist Fifth Republic must be defeated in the streets….
Out with Macron!
Down with the imperialist Fifth Republic and all its institutions at the service of the French Big Bosses!
The masses do not abandon the streets nor their struggle!
To defeat the law and conquer the demands of the workers and the people: Open the road to the Paris Commune!
Enfrentamientos con las fuerzas represivas en la Plaza de la Bastilla de París
Masiva manifestación en París
Bloqueo en la refinería de Feyzin, Lyon
Bloque del Periférico de Caen, en uno de los cientos de bloqueos del 13-4
Paris: cientos de manifestantes, con los ferroviarios en huelga a la cabeza, invaden la sede de LVMH, cuyo dueño es el millonario número 1 del mundo
Combate contra la odiada policía
Enorme despliegue policial para reprimir a los manifestantes
Ataque al Banco de Francia en Paris
Piquete de ruta en la entrada de la ciudad de Brest
Bloqueo frente al consejo Constitucional que el 14/04 debe expedirse sobre si la reforma jubilatoria es conforme a la constitución