France. In the face of the failure of the pacifist and legalist orientation of the collaborationist organizations, the solution is not isolated strikes or occasional blockades, but a general anti-capitalist class struggle!

Prises de position - Prese di posizione - Toma de posición - Statements

The organizations of the “Intersyndicale (a “cartel”, made up of the largest trade union federation), boasted that they had ensured that the mobilizations did not disturb the social peace: ritual demonstrations, occasional strikes, observance of school holidays, they organized everything so as not to disturb the established order, and moreover, they adapted the mobilizations to the calendar of the parliamentary circus. They have increased their activities addressed to parliament and deputies, they have made “solemn appeals” to Macron: with this they have made it clear that for them the proletarian mobilizations are only one of the means of pressure to restore “social dialogue”, to make the government “listen to the workers”. As if the government were not fully aware of what it was doing, as if it did not serve only the interests of the capitalists, and as if social dialogue, i.e. class collaboration, were not always at the detriment of the proletariat!

The facts have once again demonstrated the reality of bourgeois democracy: it is a system of deceit serving solely the power of the ruling class, which is able through it to create the belief that the emancipation of the proletariat can be achieved through elections; parliament, the supposed place where the “sovereign will of the people” is expressed over and above conflicting class interests, is a system created exclusively for the defense of bourgeois interests and equipped with well-established mechanisms for this purpose. The famous Article 49.3 of the French Fifth Republic (Cinquième République) has been used a hundred of times to fast-track the passage of bills decided in mainstream capitalist circles, such as the anti-labor El Khomry law (or “Loi travail” of 2016) of the socialist Valls government. The stubborn advocates of class collaboration, who make the outcome of the mobilization dependent on a vote in parliament, are in fact the adversaries of proletarian interests: these can only be defended by open struggle, in the streets and workplaces, a struggle that genuinely attacks capitalist exploitation and the interests of the ruling class. However, this is not the orientation of the trade union leadership; despite the failure of their line, they continue on the same course: in the communiqué of the Intersyndicale of 16 March they call for the “continuation of the mobilization”, but they are careful not to explain in any way how the “calm and decisive actions” that have failed to prevent the passage of the law in parliament could be the ones that bring victory. They are careful not to call for any generalization of the ongoing strike movements, instead letting them exhaust themselves. When the government requisitions striking garbage workers or sends the police against strike pickets, union leaders respond by “exploring” the eventualities of legal appeals! When some unions call for strikes during school-leaving exams, they are rebuffed by the leaders of the CGT and CFDT unions!

The attack on pensions is just one of many past and future attacks against the proletariat. In order to maintain or increase the rate of profit in times of crisis, in order to invest profitably, in order to finance the growing military expenditure, the ruling bourgeois circles are demanding constant cuts in social spending and welfare benefits, while at the same time intensifying capitalist exploitation. These attacks cannot be answered by methods of class collaboration, which on the contrary facilitate these attacks, but only by a genuine class struggle that unites all proletarians against the capitalists and their state.

To do this, however, it is necessary not to leave the conduct of the struggles to the pro-capitalist collaborationist organizations, which only plead “social dialogue” with the bosses and the bourgeois state: one does not dialogue with the class enemy, one fights it! The proletarians can win, but only if they finally wage the struggle on class terrain, with classist methods and means: unrestricted strikes with clear objectives and extended to other sectors and workplaces, and managed by strike committees elected by the strikers and coordinated among themselves, complete stoppage of production and operations with effective strike pickets and occupation of workplaces, active solidarity against police repression, rejection of the coercive decrees of official power, etc., refusal to be blackmailed by the good health of the enterprise or the national economy ... This perspective is the only solution, and it is towards it that we must step without delay!

Against the pension “reform” and against every bourgeois attack, class struggle at odds with the defeatist orientation of the trade unions and the politics of collaborationism!

Unity and solidarity in the struggle of all proletarians, in the public and private sectors, employed and unemployed, workers and pensioners, men and women, young and old, French and immigrants!

General increases in wages, unemployment benefits, pensions and all social minima!

For the revolutionary struggle against capitalism, against its war preparations and imperialist domination, in unity with the proletarians of the whole world!

International Communist Party

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