March 10, 2025 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French.
On Wednesday, March 5, [France’s] President Macron raised the threat that Russian tanks could invade France at any moment and that the military budget must therefore be blown up. Really? Putin’s army, which has been attacking and fighting the Ukrainian people for three years at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, is trying to carve out a buffer zone around its borders, with no regard for the people: it is not about to turn up at the gates of Germany or France any time soon!
Under the pretext of strengthening “our” armies and increasing “our” military budgets, Macron has announced “new budgetary choices” for the coming days. Meaning: cutting health, education, and culture expenses with a chainsaw…
An army to support the Ukrainian people? It’s a Lie!
The French army defending the freedom of peoples? The peoples who have had to deal with it, particularly in the former colonies, before and after their independence, are witnesses to the brutality with which the French army has always defended their oppressors! Who can believe for a single moment that Macron, the supporter of the genocidal Netanyahu, the same who banned demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people, the same who violently repressed the Yellow Vests demonstrations [against inflation during the period 2018-2020], cares for a single moment about the “freedom of the Ukrainian people”? In reality, like Trump, he wants to ensure that French companies get their share of the pie in the plundering of Ukrainian mineral resources.
For the workers, social war
For the time being, the announced wartime economy means an intensification of the social war on the workers. The president of MEDEF (the largest French employer federation), Patrick Martin, even raises the possibility of increasing the retirement age from 64 to 70 in the long term to “finance defense.” The ones who pay the price are always the same: the workers, while the stock market prices of military companies such as Thalès and Dassault increase in value. Macron has no issue proposing to increase military spending from 2% to 3.5% of French GDP. Deficits are no longer a problem when it comes to financing the merchants of death.
And regarding the trade war launched by Trump, Macron warned: “This decision… will have consequences in certain sectors.” In other words: get ready for more layoffs and new price increases!
The border is with our bosses!
Following this speech, politicians from the [reformist] left as well as the far right expressed their satisfaction, explaining that it was necessary to produce more weapons to defend the borders. Well, no, the army of the French exploiters does not defend the workers. Our class has no country, the only border that matters is the one that separates us from our bosses and the government that serves them.
Fortunately, considering the great success of the demonstrations on March 8 last Saturday and the student demonstrations in the universities, we can see that there is a reaction to the austerity and other reactionary policies and that this illustrates the capacity to put a stop to this all-out war policy.
Neither here nor in Ukraine, nor in Russia, nor in the United States, do workers have anything to expect from decision-makers in the service of the capitalists. Faced with this headlong militarist rush, workers must fight against the only real “threat” to them: that of this capitalist society, which leads to ever more war and exploitation!
No to the increase in military spending!
No to the national unity behind Macron!
