Since January a powerful mobilization, with strikes and demonstrations, have put millions of workers, men and women, toilers, youth, pensioners, in the streets of French cities. At the heart of that profound movement, there is the refusal of a new counter-reform of the pensions’ regime which intends to make work all types of workers two years more. «64 years, NO» have claimed demonstrators for weeks in the big cities but also in middle cities of all regions of the country.
Since the 19th of January, eight demonstrations, the biggest since 1995, have been called by an inter-union which is grouping all the trade union confederations. That unity which is also unique for years, is based on the refusal of the deferral of the legal age of pension to 64 years and the refusal of the related increase of years of contributions. That position has not changed since the beginning of the movement. That firmness of the leaderships of trade unions is firstly due to the pressure of workers, demonstrators and strikers which do not want to «work till the grave».
In a country where the rate of unionization is low, the unity between trade unions has facilitated the enlargement of the mobilization of the working class which is its backbone and which has dragged the masses behind her. Once more it has demonstrated its essential role in the society, because when it is mobilizing, striking, the whole system gets stuck. It is also the working class that is submitted to the over-exploitation resulting from that reform and it is also the mobilization of the working class that hits directly the capitalist profits.
The reform that is too much
The mobilization comes after a wave of strikes that began end of 2020 for the increase of salaries. It continues, because the raise of the prices is more and more affecting the real wages and the life conditions of the masses. In these strikes which concerned big monopolies (Total Energies, Sanofi…) as well as middle industries, sub contractors of monopolies, the workers have organized at the base the blockade of production, with picket lines and the support and solidarity of other workers and people.
Macron and its government have multiplied the attacks against the unemployed, the homeless, the youth more and more precarious, the women who are working in health-services, education, social attendance, aids for elderly… all sectors heavily impacted by the policy of liquidating public services and of cuts in social budgets. In all these sectors, resistances have developed and the big mobilization against the reform of pensions has crystallized the rages and resistances.
The 49.3*
The 16th of March, the Prime minister has used the «49.3» in order to force the adoption of the reform. Through that «legal» act of force, Macron presents his true nature: a combat president which is at the service of the bosses, the wealthy and weapons producers. A president serving the capitalist system, which uses all the mechanisms of the institutions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy to impose the diktat of oligarchy and its monopolies.
Indeed, that reform is made for the big shareholders, the monopolies that want to capture the billions taken from the pensions, the billions taken from the unemployed, the billions taken from the over-exploitation of workers, the billions put in the production of weapons, the militarization of society and the sending of weapons for the imperialist war in Ukraine.
The answer to that act of force has been immediate; spontaneous demonstrations, re-conduction of strikes in several sectors (energy, transport, waste treatment…) and a new appeal to strike and demonstrate the 23nd of March.
The development of class struggle is developing all over Europe and it is particularly strong in France
Around Europe thousands of workers are mobilizing against the budget cuts and anti-people measures taken by the present governments, and for higher wages decreased by inflation and energy prizes, aggravated by the impacts of the war in Ukraine.
The European working class confronts neoliberal measures that try to put the economic stagnation and the impacts of the war in Ukraine on the shoulders of the workers.
We, parties and organizations of Europe, members of the International conference of ML parties and organizations, bring our support and solidarity to the working class, to the workers, the youth, the masses who are mobilizing by millions in France.
This struggle is creating deep preoccupation among the bourgeoisies and great positive expectations among the workers, the youth in Europe;
We salute the courage and determination of that powerful movement to force to retreat Macron and its government at the service «of the bosses, the riches, the shareholders and the warmongers», as says our brother party, the Workers’ Communist Party of France. The PCOF works for the reinforcement of the workers and peoples movement and for increasing the consciousnesses of the necessity to put an end to the capitalist imperialist system.
We, the ml parties and organizations work hard to develop the class struggle in each of our country and internationally, in the revolutionary and internationalist spirit of our claim «workers of all the countries, unite»!
* The 49.3 is a “constitutional mechanism, in the hand of the government, to stop the parliamentary discussion.
19th, of March 2023
CIPOML European Parties and Organisations:
- Communist Party of Workers of Denmark – APK
- Workers’ Communist Party of France –PCOF
- Organization for the Construction of the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (Arbeit Zukunft)
- Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-1955 (Anasintaxi)
- Communist Platform of Italy
- Norway, ML-group Revolusjon
- Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) – PCE (m-l)
- The Labour Party (EMEP), Turkey
and Norway, ML Communist Platform