Satisfactory! That is how Hollande dared qualify his presidency, before renouncing another bid, making way for Valls to run, with Valls replaced as prime minister by Cazeneuve.
Hollande, Valls: same track record
While Holland renounces, Valls accepts the results of five years of attacks against the working class on behalf of the richest. Extension of the number of working years required to reach full pension to 43, facilitation of redundancies and increased unemployment, frozen wages, abolition of trade union rights.
The list has only been lengthening, to reach a climax this year with the Work Act that we fought in the streets last spring. So many pro-bosses laws that support the profits of a few to better crush the many. Not to mention cowardly accepting the National Front propaganda, the shameful hunt for migrants, which seeks to divide the exploited by pointing at the most deprived as scapegoats.
The hunt for office
More anti-workers than Hollande, the candidates are elbowing right and left, to take over from the defeated president. Valls, for example, who sent his cops against the demonstrators last spring and ruled by decree, is now jostling for position. With Fillon the right goes one step further, saying it would eliminate 500,000 public sector jobs. But not in the police or the army. Where, then? In Education? Hospitals ? Where understaffing and job cuts have already had catastrophic effects? They would also attack permanent contracts by introducing new comprehensive dismissal clauses.
Our coming fights
Faced with this political wasteland where all the candidates jostle to please the bosses, we have nothing to expect from the next presidential election. It is only by mobilizing and getting ready to fight for our class that we can face the wave of attacks from the bosses and their government.
The program of Philippe Poutou, candidate for the NPA
Here is the program that Philippe Poutou, the candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, spokesman for workers’ combativeness and determination, will defend during this election campaign. This program, necessary for the protection of the working class, is summarized in a few essential points:
- A ban on layoffs and job cuts;
- Share the work without reducing wages;
- Wage increases of at least 300 euros per month for all, and a minimum wage of at least €1,700 monthly;
- Permanent recruitment of precarious workers (temporary workers, temporary contractors, service providers, etc.);
- Create tens of thousands of jobs to fulfill the needs in public services.
These demands are all realistic objectives in a context of generalization of struggles. To bring all mobilizations together, instead of leaving them scattered, and to push for all our struggles to converge, is the other part of the program defended by Philippe Poutou.
This program, that of all workers, does not rely on one providential individual. It is inspired by our recent and upcoming struggles and will be made of those multitudes of fights, brought together, to put the working class back on its feet. Because our lives are worth more than their profits!
