June 24, 2024 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French
This coming Sunday, we are once again called to the polls. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity to make our voices heard and say what we think, by voting for workers like us, who know as we do that it is through our struggles that we can put an end to the anti-worker policies we’ve been suffering for years: higher retirement age, low wages, unemployment, layoffs…
These are the policies that have encouraged the development of the far right. It was [French President] Macron who paved the way for them, in particular with his immigration law directly inspired by the RN, and who, with this election, is rolling out the red carpet for Bardella, who already sees himself as “cohabitation” Prime Minister.
Down with Le Pen, leader of a racist party [National Rally]
The National Rally (RN) party claims to embody Macron’s hatred, but spares the employers, whom Bardella hastened to reassure at Medef headquarters, promising exemptions from social charges and lower production taxes. The RN’s anti-worker program, with its unabashed racism, its sexism and homophobia, presents a serious danger, not only for those concerned, but also for the divisions it creates among the working classes. All to the benefit of employers, who can redouble their attacks. The RN is a mortal danger for us workers, and for society as a whole. The RN can’t be tried, it has to be fought. But how?
Neither in Matignon nor in the Palais Bourbon will we get satisfaction
All the leaders of the left, including former ministers, who have been thrown back together in a hurry, would like us to count on their unity at the ballot box to get rid of Le Pen and Macron and their policies in the service of big business. How can we believe that a ballot will suffice? All the more so as the New Popular Front is proposing 267 nominations from the PS (Socialist Party) and EELV [the ecologists’ party], parties that have supported and participated in [former Socialist president] François Hollande’s government: “labor law”, violent repression of demonstrators under Manuel Valls (former prime minister under Hollande), the hunt for migrants already… Hollande himself is running, supported by the Popular Front. And how can we believe that, with Aurelien Rousseau, Macron’s former Minister of Health, on their list, [health care] will be saved?
This New Popular Front certainly makes a few promises to workers. But how can we wrest anything from the bosses without getting into the battle ourselves, both during the campaign and after the elections, whatever the results? The anti-system demagoguery of the [extreme right] has been nourished for 40 years by the disillusionment sown by [former Socialist Party president] Mitterrand, [former right-wing prime minister] Jospin, Hollande… who made people believe in change, but reneged on their promises as soon as they took charge of a state tailor-made to defend the interests of employers.
It’s 40 years of so-called roadblocks, 40 years of anti-social and racist policies from both left and right, which largely explain the 40% vote for the extreme right.
Focus on our struggles and our organization
To put a stop to this vicious circle,… we need to rely on ourselves alone, and regain confidence in our own strength to confront the economic system that today feeds the most reactionary ideas.
Yes, in the face of the threat of the extreme right, we need to make a stand, but through our struggles and our collective strength. We have the strength to organize in the workplaces and the working-class neighborhoods, with the help of the militant teams of trade unions and associations who will make up their minds to do so. We make the whole society run, we can also stop everything: the strength of wage-workers is the strike! Workers, let us save ourselves!
That’s what the NPA-Révolutionnaires candidates stand for.
This Sunday, June 30, vote for the NPA-Révolutionnaires candidates wherever they stand, and for the Lutte Ouvrière [Workers’ Struggle] candidates in the other constituencies.
