France. Enough with demonstrations-promenades! Only the proletarian class struggle can win!

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

The “Intersyndicale” (the “cartel” made up of the largest trade union federations) has called another “day of action” against the pension reform; according to the new president of the CGT trade union confederation (the second largest), Sophie Binet, “the fight is not yet lost” (Le JDD, 4 June). In fact, the fight is lost once its fate is entrusted to those who do not want to fight! From the outset, the “Intersyndicale” considered the mobilization as nothing more than a means of coercion in order to open a dialogue with the government and to accompany the parliamentary farce; it proudly declared that it was “trying to maintain a peaceful, festive and popular mobilization” (Intersyndicale statement, 2/5/23), and for the day of the 6th May, it set itself no other objective than “to enable all the workers to make their voices heard before the deputies” (!); it announced that [the trade unions] “should meet everywhere with MPs and call on them to vote in favour of [a] draft law” (see the same statement), the author of which admitted that even if it were passed, it would lead to nothing… Parliamentary cretinism (as Marx called it) for the umpteenth time! Binet laments that if this proposed law is circumvented, “citizens may wonder whether our MPs are of any use at all” (Le JDD, ibid). In fact, the deputies, the parliament and the whole democratic system are of no use to the proletarians and their demands; on the contrary, they serve to divert them from the only way to achieve their fulfilment: namely, from open struggle, from strikes attacking capitalist profits and the smooth running of the state. The real struggle is not a merrymaking and festive party! By helping to disseminate in the most absurd way the belief in the virtues of parliamentary action, by shouting about the “democratic crisis” (referring to Article 49-3 of the Constitution allowing the government to enforce laws without a vote), by obscuring the fact that bourgeois democracy has an essentially anti-proletarian function, the “Intersyndicale” once again demonstrates its opposition to the real defence of proletarian interests.

Democracy is based on the lie that all citizens are equal and that all can equally express and achieve their aspirations through democratic institutions. But the reality is quite different: there are powerful capitalists who shape public opinion and the disempowered masses; citizens are divided into social classes with opposing interests, and the capitalist class, which owns all the wealth, has formed institutions, from parliament to the state, to defend its interests and its domination over society. In this context, the decisive bourgeois institution that concentrates all the power of the ruling class is the state, with parliament playing only an accessory role in this respect, the parliamentary circus serving primarily to fool the population.

To resort to bourgeois institutions is therefore a dangerous dead end for the proletarians, a veritable snare and a delusion. The only way to resist bourgeois attacks and win satisfaction is through open and determined struggle, as the female workers at Vert Baudet (Nord department) recently demonstrated after more than two months of striking and resisting intimidation and police attacks. But this is not the path indicated by the “Intersyndicale”: irrevocably attached to class collaboration and social dialogue, the trade union leaders rushed to meet the Prime Minister and are preparing not for a struggle but for “joint proposals” to be negotiated so that “the concerns of the workers are taken into account”. If the proletarians do not want their concerns to be given only cursory consideration, but want their fundamental demands on pensions and wages to be achieved, they can only do so through real struggle, not through democratic institutions or repeated demonstrations-promenades. And this struggle must be waged on class basis, independently of the supporters of the interclassism, using classist methods and means uniting all proletarians, young and old, French and immigrants, men and women, workers and pensioners, employed and unemployed, against the bosses and the bourgeois state. This is the key to victory in the coming struggles against the “reforms” and anti-worker laws promised by the government in a situation where inflation continues to reduce living standards, making the struggle for wages necessary.

For the resumption of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism in unity with proletarians of all countries!

International Communist Party

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