France. After Far Right RN Electoral Success and New Elections. It's not an Electoral Popular Front that Can Oppose Bourgeois Attacks, but the Anti-Capitalist Class Struggle!

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It's not an Electoral Popular Front that Can Oppose Bourgeois Attacks, but the Anti-Capitalist Class Struggle!

In the wake of the RN's electoral success and the government list's poor showing in the European elections, President Macron has decided to dissolve parliament and call for early legislative elections; for his part, the campaign will be waged in the name of rejecting "extremes" and defending the "values of the Republic".

On the left, the parties that had been at each other's throats the day before were back together in the blink of an eye, not only to defend their seats in parliament, but also to oppose the threat of the far right and defend "democracy". They chose the name "Front populaire (Popular Front)" to baptize this alliance, not only because the appellation "Union de la Gauche (Union of the Left)" would have been too reminiscent of the latter's action in the service of the bourgeois order, but above all because it evoked vague memories of the anti-fascist struggle of the thirties - whereas the Popular Front had essentially served to contain the gigantic strike wave of 1936.

This new Popular Front saw the implicit or explicit rallying of most trade unions (CGT, CFDT, Solidaires, FSU, UNSA) and so-called "far left" groups.

Once again, as has been the case for decades, a supposed fascist danger embodied by the FN (National Front) or its current heir the RN, is being stirred up to mobilize the population in general and proletarians in particular in support of the established order and the institutions of the bourgeois republic allegedly under threat.

The RN is undoubtedly a fundamentally reactionary and anti-proletarian political force, despite its demagogic propaganda, and its coming to power could only be synonymous with redoubled capitalist attacks. But we all know that these attacks have not waited for the RN's victory: following in the footsteps of the « Socialist » Hollande government, the Macron government has continued over the years to multiply anti-worker measures (most recently the law toughening measures against the unemployed) and step up repression against the most diverse social struggles and protests. Its immigration law was even voted through by the RN at the end of last year! This policy corresponds to the needs of capitalism in a more difficult period for it, and the governments in power are merely its more or less effective agents; the rise of the far-right in France, as elsewhere in Europe, reflects capitalism's need to increase exploitation, oppression and repression, including by modifying existing political balances. It does not herald the arrival of a form of fascism, as democracy allows this deterioration in the economic and social conditions of proletarians, while diverting the inevitable discontent towards the harmless electoral terrain.

An electoral victory for the left-wing reformist parties, which have always been the zealous servants of capitalism, with the support of the unions that have sabotaged all the major struggles of recent years, would be incapable of leading to any opposition to capitalist attacks.

Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming elections, proletarians can only rely on their own strength, on their own struggles to defend themselves: that's what they need to prepare for, without letting themselves be fooled by the illusionists of a new Popular Front as reprehensible as the old one.

For the union of proletarians of every nationality, age and sex, unemployed or working!

For the resumption of independent class struggle against capitalism and imperialism!

Il comunista - le prolétaire - el proletario - proletarian - programme communiste - el programa comunista - Communist Program