FRANCE - January 29 2020
1/29/2020: 8th day of national strike and demonstrations
With a fight that is already 56 days long and a historic strike
The working class has taken France over
The bourgeoisie has already taken us out too much ... Now we want everything back!Revolutionary General Strike until Macron falls!
The working class, the ruined middle classes, the youth and all the exploited in France, when fighting along 56 days with their methods of struggle against the retirement reform project that Macron wants to impose, have told the Fifth Republic government: Don't dare touch retirements! And with a phenomenal mass political general strike, they put their feet on the chest of the government of the French imperialist bourgeoisie, which had to withdraw a central point of its bill that aimed to raise the retirement age (for collecting 100% of the monthly sum) from 62 to 64 years. Now the government will keep it in 62 years until 2027. Not being able to raise this age will cost the French state about 12 billion euros.
Starting Dec 5, 2019 with national days of strike and demonstration, millions won the streets in many cities across the country in massive marches on December 5, 10 and 17 and January 9, 11, 16, 24 and 29, 2020. Several marches were headed by the Yellow Vests along with the Black Bloc of the combative youth, who systematically confronted the repressive forces, and set up barricades in the streets.
In transport (bus, subway and rail), the workers took the strike into their hands and paralyzed the entire country in the longest strike in its history, an indefinite strike that was imposed on the bureaucracy.
Refineries, ports, garbage processing and water sanitation plants were blocked. Schools and high schools were paralyzed and blocked by teachers, students and their respective families. There was strike in schools, hospitals, energy, gas, airport and all state services. Theaters, museums and monuments do not open their doors. Even the firemen went on strike.
This strike was conquered despite and against the union bureaucracies of all furs, such as the one that groups in the Intersindical, led by the CGT of Stalinist Martinez, which was forced to summon the strike. By stopping the transport, and with blockages of ports and refineries and roadblock pickets, in fact the workers paralyzed the economy of the country. And with these methods they even guaranteed the strike to a large extent wherever the Intersindical did not guarantee it.
Contrary to what the reformist left argues (that the strike is weak because the private sector is not on strike), the struggle for the retirement system belongs to the entire labor movement; that is why broad sectors of workers, youth, ruined middle classes, immigrants, etc., have entered the course of combat. What the reformists are denying is that with this mass political struggle all the workers have dug in before the imperialist bourgeoisie that had been hitting them hard and tearing their conquests away. That's because this combat is class against class; actually, it is them or us. This heroic struggle of the French proletariat that took over the entire France has called into question who rules the house.
Overcoming the union bureaucracy, the working class has taken the fight into their own hands
The the Fifth Republic bourgeoisie is obliged to deepen their offensive against the labor movement and the exploited to stay put in the commercial war with the other imperialist powers. In 2016, they managed to impose labor flexibility by eliminating collective agreements and the 35-hour work week. Now it was the turn of attacking pensions because France has to match its work productivity to Germany's. And for that reason it needs to bring the retirement age at least to 67 as it is in most European countries.
Macron could not concretize the attack today because he lost control of the exploited. The reason is the bureaucracy was overcome and it neither manages to push back the masses nor can it sit down to negotiate with the government as it did in 2016. Then the enormous onslaught of the working class against the Khomri law put the entire regime and Government of the Fifth Republic in suspense. At that time the union leaders ran to support the Hollande government and sold out the fight in defense of the 35 hours work-week.
The masses are now who guarantee the strikes since in these more than 7 weeks of struggle they have set up their self-determination bodies: general assemblies in numerous cities, strike pickets, barricades, fighting committees, a railroad and subway workers coordinator in the Paris region. Even on January 17, they entered the headquarters of the CFDT - a central trade union that collaborates with the government - warning the traitor bureaucracy that it cannot “negotiate on their name”. Also, on January 20, workers in the energy sector of the Paris region cut off the power to the CFDT headquarters.
The working class has taken the fight into their own hands, surpassing their leaderships and demonstrating that they have all the strength to win. And that is the great strength of this fight. It has demonstrated that the government can be defeated.
To move forward and achieve the withdrawal of all pension reforms and recover what was stolen from us... we have to get rid of the union bureaucracy! Down with Martinez, Berger and all those wich sell out our struggles!
To do this, we must move forward to set up the factory committees. And to extend and coordinate at the local, regional and national level all the self-determination organizations of those who fight, unifying all the exploited, workers, both employed and unemployed, immigrants, the Black Vests, the paperless, the Yellow Vests, retirees, combative youth, ruined middle classes and organizations of the fighting masses. Let us vote for self-defense committees to defend ourselves against the brutal repression commanded by Macron. Stop repressing the people! Dissolution of the murderous police and all the repressive forces of the state! Freedom and aquittal for all fighters!
Let's set up a National Coordinator that centralizes all these organizations and votes a single list of demands! And from there we must conquer an independent mass action that transforms the 9th national day of struggle into an Indefinite Revolutionary General Strike until throwing down Macron and the infamous regime of the Fifth Republic!
The bourgeoisie already stole too much from us in recent years ... Now we want everything!
Retirement at 60! We have to recover the 35 hours/work-week and end up with work flexibility! Down with Al Khomri law! Wage increases! Free diesel! Down with the educational reforms! Stop deporting immigrants! For documents, full rights, housing, decent work under collective agreement for all sans-papiers (undocumented immigrants and refugees)!
We have to take the factories, refineries, ports and the entire industry and put them to produce under workers' control!
The transnationals and imperialist banks who exploit the working class and plunder and oppress the colonies and the semi-colonial world must be expropriated and nationalized without compensation and under workers' control!
The combat of the exploited of France is a bastion of the struggle of the European and world working class
The French working class shows the way to defeat the attack of the capitalists. That is why their struggle has become a stronghold of the working class around the world.
Macron's attack is the same as the whole of the working class is suffering throughout Europe. Therefore, for both the French and European working class, the success of this struggle, that it is not isolated, is a question of life and death, because if it is defeated it will fare very badly to the whole of our class all over the old continent.
The European working class fought fiercely in recent years against the imperialist attack across the continent, even opening the way to the Continental General Strike in 2009-2010. But the union centrals led by the CPs, the social democracy and the reformist leadership that sustained them sold out and betrayed that magnificent combat in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, England and throughout Europe. Thus the working class was left at the mercy of the imperialist attack country by country and with its ranks divided.
Therefore, in France a combat trench is kept alive against the imperialist Maastricht. Against those union bureaucracies and reformist leaderships that divide us country by country and kneel at the feet of the imperialist bourgeoisie: Unity of the working class of the entire continent! We have the same enemy and the same fight! For a revolutionary general strike across the old continent! Down with Maastricht!
Only by unifying themselves with the European working class and facing the pillage of French imperialism in the semi-colonial world will the workers of France be able to maintain their conquests. That is also why it is essential to unify our fight with our class siblings in Mali, an African nation decimated by French imperialism. There the exploited masses won the streets of the capital Bamako at the cry, Out with the French troops! against Macron's announcement that he is to send more troops there. And also with our Algerian class siblings who every Friday mobilize against the regime and the government, which they don't recognize. In France, being the most oppressed sector of the working class, they have also entered the course of combat.
A unified combat in the metropolis and in the colonies and semicolonies will put the Fifth Republic in check. That is the way to set the exploited from the colonies free and to bring our demands to victory. The enemy is at home! Out with the French imperialist troops and military bases throughout Africa!
To succeed, the proletariat must take the resolution of its problems in its own hands. Together with the destruction of the Fifth imperialist Republic we have to conquer the Paris Commune throughout France.
The power of those below must be set up!
Let the Paris Commune return!
Ana Negri and Luisa Campos
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