Closing Remarks by the Communist Revolutionary Party of France

 

Comrades,

On behalf of our party PCRF, I would like to welcome again the representatives of the ECA parties. This is the first time that a conference of the ECA and even of the former defunct ECI has been held in France. We owe a special debt of gratitude to KKE, which, in conjunction with the ECA secretariat, supported all the logistics of this event. The conference was held on the important subject of “since the mass strikes rallies in France, conclusions and prospects for the labor movement in Europe”.

In France, Macron made his 2025 wishes in the context of a peak political crisis since the summer of 2024. He has recycled an old politician as Prime Minister in order to gain time and make his policies, drawn up with the roadmap of the boards of directors of the French monopolies, last as long as possible. This period of weakening of the Fifth Republic is a manifestation of the crisis of imperialism, and therefore has economic causes. Until 2024, Macron was able to rely on the economic results praised by the boards of directors of the monopolies. He was even able (of course formally and partially) to remove the issue of employment from the political arena, and to boast of reindustrialization.

However, this economic map is crumbling under the weight of ever-increasing international competition, which is currently more unfavorable to French capitalism. France's main economic partner, for example, is Germany, whose recession for the second year running (with two falls in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) is having a negative impact on French corporate profits. Under the Macron mandates, French monopolies have steadily gained economic positions abroad on all continents, but competition from monopolies in every country continues unabated. So, positions gained can be lost, and developments slowed down. The Chinese monopolies, for example, are exporting their capital, goods and raw materials at unprecedentedly low prices. Against this backdrop, French monopolies in general are accentuating the social pressure on workers and the ruin of small producers. 

For years, the French bourgeois state has been seeking to support its capitalism and its need for capital for armaments, green and technological strategies by means of reinforced and improved wage exploitation, and by means of taxes and debt to be paid by the working people. The pension reform in France is part of this monopoly strategy, and has shown a high level of anger and fightback. However, in the absence of a trade union strategy, plan and coordination of struggles to block monopoly profits, wage earners suffered yet another defeat.

All the unions in France are dominated by the labor aristocracy and bureaucracies. This does not prevent us from supporting everything that goes in the direction of the unity of the trade union struggle on the basis of demands and with the compass of the balance of power in the strike and the occupation of workplaces. As we have seen from your speeches, the Communist Party's task is always to propose slogans and strategies for the economic struggle. We also do this on a daily basis in the direction of workers' struggles, under the particular impetus of our Worker and Enterprises Commission.

In France, the domination of trade unionism based on accompaniment, non-confrontation, partnership or collaboration is rooted in the strength and maturity of French imperialism, the history of the workers' movement and marxism, and the structure of the social classes. Today, the absence of a genuine central union with class positions is also linked to the absence of a genuine communist Party recognized by the working class.

During the struggle to defend pensions, the CGT, which in the past took a class stance, never ceased to appeal “body and soul” to the “wisdom of the members of the Constitutional Council” of the French Republic, or to the “reason of parliamentarians”, and ended up concluding the struggle with the slogan, I quote : “With this struggle, nothing will ever be the same again”. And nothing more.
On the other hand, the CGT confederation never took stock of the struggle, and even today, the strategy is never discussed or debated, not even at local or departmental congresses which are now taking place or with very few exceptions. The meeting of all CGT federations in February 2023, at a time when the balance of power was rising in defense of pension, will be remembered as an unforgettable moment in the history of sinecure trade unionism. 

No strategic or tactical assessment has been made by the union confederations, even though the current political crisis has led to a proposal from the new government to discuss pension reform again until June. All the trade union organizations have accepted this bad timetable for so-called concertation’s, with no plan for struggle apart from participation in the March 8 and pensioner demonstrations on March 20 and May 1... the headline of a March CGT newsletter on the most austere State budget since 2025 was, I quote : “OUR social pact is weakened with the 2025 budget”. No comment.

Yet at the same time, the anti-popular strategies of the french government and the state were well and truly confirmed. In January, for example, by the Minister for the Armed Forces declared that the 3.3 billion increases in the military budget by 2025 and the 413 billion military programming law up to 2027 were non-negotiable, even in the current budgetary and political context. And at the start of this year, by Macron has once again put pressure on Europe for a “European preference” in armaments, with the aim of taking advantage of the leadership of the French armament’s monopolies in this field. Macron has even spoken of the need to increase spending to 5% of GDP in the event of the US withdrawing from NATO funding. 

Against factory closures, for jobs, wages or pensions, the solution always lies in raising the correlation of power to a higher level than the class adversary. In France, this can only be achieved if the trade union confederations are also outflanked by the workers and their class sections. Our party will do its utmost in all these battles, and to raise awareness of the fact that the cause of all evils lies in private property and the bourgeois state: this is the aim of our broad-based general campaign “Let's Accuse Capitalism”.

Isn't the theoretical work to find general laws for particular situations of our country ? I believe that today we have started this work on the important subject of the day. 

We,  in our parties, must work hard and better in the trade unions at the same time as our independent and different communist work in the workplaces, in the working class.  

 

Dear ECA comrades,

you have seen that, while struggles have been strong in France recently, confirming the spontaneity and qualification of Marx and Engels as the “classic country of class struggles”, they cannot be idealized. No solution is to be found in parliament, dialogue or social partnership.  Reformist forces, who do not want to change society, play their part in bringing capital and labor together. Yet it is always in struggles directed against the bourgeoisie, its parties and its state that the popular alternative can find its way to put an end to this old world by means of a revolution. In ninety forty five 1945, eighty years ago, socialism-communism saved humanity with the victory of the USSR and the armed struggle of the resistance against fascism. Every day shows how much of humanity's hope still lies in a new communist society. 

Long live the ECA and the work of its parties within the working class !