The following joint statement was issued by French revolutionary communists from the National Association of Communists (ANC), the Pole of Communist Renaissance in France (PRCF), the Communist Assembly (RC) and the Youth for Communist Renaissance in France (JRCF).
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If Emmanuel Macron imagined that he could put an end to the popular mobilisation by showing his contempt for the opponents of his counter-reform, he has totally failed.
When prime minister Elizabeth Borne activated article 49.3 [of the French constitution] to push through the pension reform without parliamentary approval, she showed that this government no longer even has a parliamentary majority, even after rallying supposedly ‘republican’ leaders to its side.
The democratic illegitimacy of the Macronist regime is now blatant, and shows that the current political crisis has the potential to lead to a crisis of the regime itself – or even to a deeper crisis, if we remember Lenin’s words: “A revolutionary crisis arises when those above are unable to govern as before, while those below are no longer willing to be goverened as before.” (May Day action by the revolutionary proletariat, 15 June 1913)
In the popular demonstrations taking place today, we see striking similarities, not only to the events of December 1995 and May 1968, but also to the revolution of 1789 and the capture of the Bastille. Our country, which has experienced great revolts and moments of great social progress – such as in 1945, when the social security fund was created – needs a new recognition of history.
The present crisis needs to bring onto the agenda an authentic popular and socialist revolution that will at last put “the world of work at the centre of national life”, as the National Council of the Resistance has already proposed.
Under these conditions, the ANC, the RC, the PRCF and the JRCF are together calling for the expansion of the deomnstrations in all their forms – in particular by supporting in every way possible the strikes and courageous blockades being carried out by electricians, gas workers, dockers, refinery workers, railway workers, binmen, and by all those who are strongly committing themselves to the fight against the regime’s denial of democracy.
We believe it really is possible to win the ongoing arm-wrestling by obtaining not only the withdrawal of the counter-reform, but by provoking a general counter-offensive of workers, precarious workers and youth, fighting not only to bring the retirement age back down to 60, as is called for by many trade unions, but also to improve wages and employment, in order to freeze and dismantly many of the other counter-reforms, inspired via the Maastricht process (SNCF, EDF), the reconstruction of national education, the banning of industrial offshoring and the safeguarding of production in France, the maintenance of social housing, unemployment benefits, etc.
In this tug of war, it is the responsibility of our communist organisations to blame head-on not only Macron and the MEDEF, but also the European Union, which has been orchestrating social breakdown on a continental scale for decades, and the stifling austerity of the euro, not to mention Nato, which, in close alliance with the EU, and with Macron’s slavish support, is day by day preparing the conditions for a potentially destructive global conflagration with Russia, and even with the People’s China.
Now, more than ever, we call for:
Money for wages, not for war!
Money for our pensions, not for the arms dealers
They break our gains, block their profits!
More than ever, in the face of devastating capitalism and its increasingly reactionary and fascistic tendencies, the Communist Renaissance Pole in France, the Communist Assembly and the National Association of Communists together reaffirm that the future belongs to the revolutionaries and to a new generation of socialism-communism.
