After the success of 7 March, towards the indefinite strike until Macron is overthrown!
The general strike of 7 March has been an impressive milestone. France has been virtually locked down, with millions flooding the streets in 500 mass demonstrations across the country. A leap in the mobilization that even the media of the bourgeoisie have not been able to hide, which now have to openly admit that the movement is stronger than ever.
The strike has completely paralyzed nuclear and power plants, refineries, ports, the railways, the Paris subway and many other transport, garbage collection, the media, colleges and universities, and even national monuments such as the Eiffel Tower or the Palace of Versailles; In sectors where until now it had been a minority, such as civil servants, or the private sector, the follow-up has been massive, especially highlighting the metallurgical industry, which includes decisive companies such as Airbus or Renault.
The youth are playing a leading role in this battle, blocking hundreds of colleges and dozens of universities, and facing a fierce repression by the police which has tried to prevent such blockades and occupations. They know that the youth is the flame of the revolution, and for this reason they criminalize it and forcefully attack it.
This formidable mass strike uprising shows that there is strength to definitively overthrow Macron and his policies and calls into question the pillars of French capitalism. The movement advances, spreads and strengthens, causing more and more terror in the Government and the ruling class.
Towards the renewable indefinite strike
The workers' fury has overwhelmed the union leaders themselves, raising from below, from the base committees and union activism, especially in the CGT, or from La France Insoumise, the need to take the fight much further by promoting renewable indefinite strikes whose continuation is voted daily. The objective: to completely paralyze and block the economy, showing who really is in charge in society; and show that the government and the bosses are alone and powerless against the organized working class in struggle.
Even the CFDT, one of the unions furthest to the right, has been dragged into this strategy, leaving its federations free to decide on the renewable indefinite strike, although now stressing, after the success of 7M, that they do not want to blockade the country . The strength of the movement from below is imposing union unity through the fight, without half measures, proposing a bottom-up strategy and making it difficult for the CFDT union bureaucracy to get off the hook and try to stop the movement.
Renewable indefinite strikes are multiplying. This has already happened with the refineries, by CGT, blocked from 6 March, putting at risk the supply of fuel throughout the country and, therefore, the operation of the entire economy. Five large federations of the CGT have already called renewable indefinite strikes since March 7: the chemical sector (refineries, plastics, pharmaceutical industry, etc.), mines and the energy sector, railways, ports and the ceramics federation and glass. So have the garbage collection workers and those of the delivery platforms (Just Eat, Glovo...).
In the case of transport in Paris or in the SNFC (National Railway Company), the Inter-union has had to call an indefinite strike from March 7. And the same is happening in the education sector, where in certain regions, such as Toulouse or Paris, an indefinite strike has also been considered unitarily. A wave that does not cease and to which more sectors will join in the coming days.
In the private sector, where strikes have so far been more limited, panic is also spreading. Airbus management sent a note stressing the need to closely monitor the activity of the strikers. The CGT Federation of Metalworkers, which affects key private industries such as Airbus or Renault, has also had to issue a statement proposing to strengthen and radicalize the strike movement on the 7 March, as was done "in 1936 [1 ] , in 1968 [2] and to a lesser extent in 1995”. A true intentions statement.
Organize the indefinite strike in a militant way
The atmosphere is such that the debate on the possible occupation of companies has arisen. As of the 7th, the workers are meeting in general assemblies in their workplaces to decide and vote every day to continue the strike. This strategy also means an important organizational leap, since it is the workers who organize themselves on a day-to-day basis to continue the battle, making it difficult for the union bureaucracy to deactivate it.
To guarantee the success of the renewable general strikes, it is essential to form fighting committees in each factory and workplace, in each institute and college, and promote the active occupation of all these spaces, from where to continue organizing the indefinite strikes.
Permanent pickets must be established to guarantee the exercise of the right to strike against threats from employers and against repression by the police. It is necessary to create powerful resistance funds by raising more funds for the strikers (the CGT has already raised more than 600,000 euros and La France Insoumise more than 250,000). We must extend self-organization in the neighbourhoods through permanent assemblies, from where demonstrations and mobilizations are promoted every day of the strike that demonstrate the enormous strength of the working class.
Melenchon and La France Insoumise pledge on the fight in the streets
The other central aspect is that the union battle is one hundred percent political, against the right and the counter-reforms imposed by big capital. That is why it is a step forward that Mélenchon and La France Insoumise have proposed that not only must we fight for the withdrawal of the reform but also for the reduction of the retirement age to 60 years with 40 years of contribution (not 43 as it is up to now ). And to achieve this, the fundamental area is to occupy the streets until Macron and his government are subdued.
The extra-parliamentary struggle is the crucial factor in imposing such a favourable social correlation of forces. The fact that La France Insoumise has openly boycotted the parliamentary foolishness preventing the famous article 7 that extends the retirement age to 64 from being debated and voted on, is correct: it cannot be accepted that the Government’s argument is based on the supposed legitimacy of Parliament to vote reform that has the opposition of the majority of the population.
Mélenchon has pointed out that the parliamentary debate is a complete scam, and that public opinion has already spoken forcefully in the streets: the reform is rejected by 72% of the French and by more than 90% of workers. Macron's attempts to justify the reform, pointing out that it is necessary to make sacrifices, contrast with the tax cuts for large fortunes, with the record profits of large companies on the French Stock Exchange (CAC40), 140,000 million euros in 2022, or with a 30% increase, more than 100,000 million euros, in military spending to continue fuelling the adventures of French imperialism.
Mélenchon's strategy, which is helping to radicalize and politicize the movement, spreading it among student youth and precarious worker youth, building a strike fund for the strikers, and organizing demonstrations and rallies throughout France to ensure that from 7 March effectively blockaded the country, has stirred up furious hostility among the ruling class. Hence the hysterical campaign from all the bourgeois media accusing him of being irresponsible and endangering the institutions.
At the same time, the press has been full of praise for Le Pen and the extreme right, pointing out their exemplary role and responsible opposition to the reform but without being strident and, of course, without blocking parliamentary debate.
For a revolutionary alternative with a communist program!
This campaign of attacks against Mélenchon and La France Insoumise is being supported by a part of their allies in NUPES, both the dying Socialist Party and the ecologists or the Communist Party, as well as the bureaucracy of the CFDT and the CGT, which have joined the campaign against the parliamentary blockade strategy.
An impression of the magnitude that the movement has acquired, its growing radicalization and the terror of all these well-off bureaucrats faced with the prospect of a revolutionary crisis.
Mélenchon and La France Insoumise, together with the social movements and the combative left, must deepen this strategy, extending the movement, arming it politically, and confronting all those who are actively maneuvering to try to soothe the rebellion of the working class and redirect it to the calm waters of bourgeois parliamentarism and negotiation.
Undoubtedly, among thousands of union and youth activists, sympathies for Mélenchon and the rebels have multiplied. On this basis, a battle must be waged within the unions and the social movements to impose the militant indefinite strike and the occupations with two objectives: overthrow the pension reform and overthrow Macron. It is perfectly possible!
And to do so, it is necessary to raise a revolutionary political alternative that questions capitalism itself, that proposes that the only way to avoid these counter-reforms and the growing misery of the working class and youth, is to end the privileges and property of the capitalists, for nationalizing the banks and the big monopolies and using their enormous resources for the benefit of the majority of society.
This fight has the sympathy of millions of European workers who are suffering the same counter-reforms, the same inflation, the same misery, and the same imperialist war that is making the capitalists so rich. Today the English and French workers stand up, but tomorrow the workers of the rest of the continent will join.
As in 1936, and as in May 1968, the only alternative is and will be the socialist revolution.
Notes:
[1] They refer to the revolutionary uprising of June 1936, a wave of strikes with factory occupations that put French capitalism on the ropes.
[2] The famous May 68, the largest revolutionary general strike in the history of France, which was also about to put an end to the capitalist system.
