Mass Protests in France Call Us to Build the International Communist Workers’ Party
Yellow vest protests in Belgium: “No to Fascism!”
December 9 — Hundreds of thousands of “gilets jaunes” (“yellow vests”) have been rebelling in the streets of France since November 19. They are enraged with French president Macron, his government, and the French ruling class.
“It is like a volcano,” commented an MTA bus operator in Los Angeles. “The pressure just built up until it exploded.”
On December 1, demonstrations in Paris erupted into militant protests. A huge army of gilets jaunes chased the police away from Napoleon’s Triumphal Arch. They tagged it with slogans like “Down with wars among the people – No more peace among the classes.”
Some trashed the gift shop for good measure. On the Champs Elysées, playground of the rich, they attacked banks and luxury boutiques and put up burning barricades. All the politicians were horrified by this violence.
“It’s also violent when at the end of the month there’s no food in the fridge to feed your kids,” said a mother, a gilet jaune.
On December 8, masses of police kept demonstrators away from the Arch. They simply spread out, both in Paris and outside the capital. A few days later Macron announced some concessions, like raising the minimum wage. Most of it turned out to be smoke and mirrors. The upraising continues.
The movement started as a mass protest against higher gas taxes, organized through social media. Its emblem is the yellow safety vest every driver in France must keep in their car.
It quickly expanded around the theme of “purchasing power.” Most French people have difficulty just making ends meet at the end of the month. Over 14% live below the poverty line. In largely immigrant suburbs of Paris, the rate jumps to almost 40%. France’s social “safety net” is full of holes. Over two-thirds of unemployed workers who qualify for benefits don’t actually receive them.
French capitalists export more agricultural food products than any other EU nation but French children go hungry!
This would all be unthinkable in a communist society. Everyone’s needs will be met, as far as possible, throughout each month. No hungry kids. No need for money. No one scraping by while others live in luxury.
Macron’s Not-So-Fresh Ideas: Make Workers Pay for Capitalism’s Crisis
Macron was billed as an “innovator” with “fresh ideas.” First, he handed over billions of Euros to the wealthy, in the form of tax breaks. Then he cut subsidies for low income renters. Next came austerity measures that reduced pensions, raised gas prices, and cut municipal public services.
Not to forget tearing up the labor code, ending rail workers’ benefits, persecuting the unemployed, turning away refugees, mistreating immigrants, favoring supermarkets over farmers, and on and on.
This is the same old same-old we have seen around the world as capitalism’s global crisis of overproduction has intensified and competition among capitalists has sharpened. Their solution is always to make the workers pay.
Also on November 19, amid massive street protests in Argentina, the Argentine government approved an austerity budget for 2019 that cuts social spending and raises debt payments to satisfy the International Monetary Fund. Hundreds of thousands marched in Buenos Aires against capitalism to protest the “G20” imperialist summit on November 30.
In Iran, sugar refinery workers have disrupted Friday prayers with chants of “Death to the oppressor!” and “A huge army is here, for the love of labor!” Steelworkers and their families have marched for a month to protest unpaid wages and economic hardship, chanting “Our enemy is right here!”
Enough was enough.
For many in France, a difficult life had become nearly impossible.
The gilets jaunes slowed down and blocked traffic. They moved to shopping malls and refineries. They held out with massive public support. Drivers, especially truckers, honked in approval. People pulled over with donations of food and money.
This movement has, intentionally, no public figureheads. Too many people have seen too many leaders and parties sell out too many times. In particular, most have no use for the fascist Marine Le Pen.
In all loosely-organized populist movements, however, there is a struggle over political ideas. Without a clear internationalist communist working-class line, capitalist ideas pose a real danger. For example, during the Great Depression in France, as in Germany, mass movements of both fascists and anti-fascists grew and fought in the streets.
In France today, as in May 1968, a revolutionary situation would be taking shape if there were a revolutionary party capable of leading masses to communism. But there isn’t.
All the ‘leftist’ organizations in France are saying the same thing: let’s fight even harder for even better reforms. One gilet jaune said, “They’re offering us crumbs, we want a meal.” A meal? Surely, we want the whole kitchen!
Masses in Motion Anywhere Create Communist Opportunities Everywhere
Our International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) does not yet have an on-the-ground presence in France. If we did, we would be raising massively the need to mobilize directly for communism, not for reforms. If we were strong enough, we’d lead armed struggle for communist workers’ power.
Meanwhile, we need to take advantage of this situation so that we come out a little closer to communism – and the end of barely making ends meet.
In Seattle (USA) comrades in Boeing are watching videos of the French uprising and talking about communism (see page 1).
In Los Angeles (USA) the ICWP garment club watched the videos, cheering the masses who fought the cops. They discussed how to build the Party in Mexico, El Salvador and elsewhere, as well as Los Angeles.
The communist slogan “Workers of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” has never been more to the point. Together we have a communist world to win.
Paris: “The real vandals are the heads of state”