More or less parliamentary systems are threatened by the emergence of populist demagogues and of xenophobic or clerical parties that try to deflect popular anger against oppressed nationalities, religious minorities, political refugees, foreign workers and so on. Like the Le Pen family’s FN-RN, like Reconquête, the racist joint venture of Zemmour and of the capitalist Bolloré.
What has facilitated their rise is the crisis of leadership of the working class on a global scale. The restoration of capitalism by the bureaucracies of states which called themselves ‘socialist » (Russia, China…), the loyal management of capitalism by the « Labour », « Socialist » or « Communist » parties when they came to power (in France, the Mitterrand, Jospin and Hollande governments), the participation of union leaders in drawing up employer or government plans against the workers (in France, the whole interunion still sits in the Retirement Guidance Council), the co-management (boards of directors of capitalist companies, etc.), their refusal to call for a general strike against the reactionary measures (in France and Britain in 2023, in Argentina in 2024) lead to defeat after defeat.
Through their chauvinism, their subjection to this or that fraction of the bourgeoisie (voting for Macron in France, for Biden in the United States, for Massa in Argentina, for Sheinbaum in Mexico…), these political and trade union bureaucracies demoralise the proletariat, push the petty bourgeois classes into the arms of fascist and racist demagogues.
The RN’s « social » promises are nothing but hot air. The pay rise promised by the RN is of the same kind as that of the government, relying on the goodwill of employers and on additional exemptions from employers’ contributions that strangling Social Security. Before governing, Bardella and Ciotti explain that, because of the budgetary situation, it will be necessary to wait before cancelling Macron’s counter-reform of pensions, let alone return to retirement at 60. On the other hand, the exemptions from employers’ contributions or the budget for the army and the police inherited from Macron will not be cancelled.
Since the European elections and the dissolution of the Assembly, a majority of workers and some young people in training are rightly worried. A Le Pen-Bardella-Ciotti-Maréchal government would be even more supportive of Israel; it would persecute foreign workers even more; it would accentuate social selection in schools; it would stuff private clinics and drug companies, it would subjugate civil servants and make them more precarious, it would starve the unemployed; it would crack down more violently on strikes and the Kanaks; it would make it easier to poison the environment; it would restrict access to abortion; it would limit pluralism information and attack cultural creation… The fascist groups that are already attacking the labour movement and minorities would be strengthened.
However, the solution is not an electoral bloc with EELV, PP, LRDG, Engagement, etc. and even less in a second-round vote for LR, Renaissance, Horizons, MoDem, UDI, etc. The New Popular Front (involving LFI, PS and PCF, and supported by the leadership of the CGT and FSU) would have us believe, like the RN, that salvation lies in protectionism. Its « legislative contract » does not repeal the last law against our pensions, but only its implementing decrees. It does not include the slightest nationalisation. The NFP respects Macron’s military planning law and NATO membership. It renews Macron’s police budget, and it also wants to strengthen « community policing » and « intelligence ». Like Macron and the RN, the NFP wants to keep New Caledonia within the French imperialist state.
The working class (the majority who produce most of the wealth) has the capacity to sweep aside Macron and Le Pen-Bardella, to attract a large part of the intermediate classes (self-employed, management). What it lacks is a revolutionary workers’ international, a revolutionary workers’ party.
Workers’ united front! General assemblies called by trade unions and by workers’ parties in workplaces, in studying and life’s places, to get rid of Macron and to block the road to Le Pen!
Workers’ united front! Neither Republican Front, nor Popular Front: no votes, in either the first or second round, for the candidates of the bourgeois parties, be they racist, sovereigntist, Gaullist, ex-Macronist, ecologist…!
Workers’ united front! Expropriation of the capitalist groups, self-defence of the organisations, of the neighbourhoods and of the social struggles, free movement of students and workers, abolition of the presidency and of the Senate, independence for Kanaky, workers’ government, socialist United States of Europe!