Analysis of the political crisis in France and the positions of the French left

A surprise victory for the left-wing New Popular Front will intensify the political instability in the country.

The new popular front is no barrier to the rise of the far right

On 19 December the French parliament adopted yet another immigration law.

27 June, Nanterre (a banlieue of Paris): two policemen stop a car, one shouting, ‘Open or I put a bullet in your head!’. Seconds later, a shot. 17-year-old Nahel M is dead.

Protests over pensions have become a battle for democracy

A credible refoundation of the NPA necessarily must start with a thorough balance sheet of the class struggle in France.

The cost of living crisis is prompting the biggest strikes in years. But trade union leaders are holding back a general strike.

By Marc Lassalle “FRENCH PEOPLE IF you want it, with your ballots you can satisfy many essential demands”. “On June 12th and 19th, if you so decide, by electing the MP of NUPES, that day will blossom the spring of the people, echoing the spring of nature.” The message delivered by the New Popular, Ecological […]

THIS SUNDAY’S second round of the French presidential election pits the incumbent, authoritarian neoliberal Emmanuel Macron, against veteran far right racist Marine Le Pen. Immediately after the results of the first round were announced, a series of demonstrations, thousands strong, took place across France, composed largely of young people, students in universities and lycées, against […]

By Marc Lassalle In June, President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of France’s eight year military operations against Islamist insurgents in Mali.  Codenamed Operation Barkhane, its initial objective was to prevent the fall of its capital Bamako to these forces, and to bolster the other former French colonies of the Sahel region, Burkina Faso, Chad, […]

The Revolutionary Communist Current claims it has been expelled from the New Anticapitalist Party in France. What's really going on?

150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.

New law is an attack on France's Muslim population.

By Marc Lassalle – PARIS The second wave of the pandemic, combined with a second month-long lockdown, are certainly far from the best conditions to organise a fight back against President Emmanuel Macron’s draconian new global security law. However, his government is suddenly being confronted with major resistance: more than one hundred thousand marched on […]

ON FRIDAY 10 January, workers across France walked out for the 37th day of strikes and demonstrations against the Macron government’s attempt to raise the retirement age and introduce massive cuts to public sector pensions. The frontal attack on the public sector pension provision aims to introduce a single points-based system that would sweep away […]

Socialists and trade unionists picket the French Embassy in London in solidarity with the resistance to the Macron government’s attack on pension rights.

ONE AND A HALF MILLION on more than 200 demonstrations across France. Nine out of ten trains cancelled: the Paris metro paralysed: two thirds of teachers on strike, together with air traffic controllers, health workers, electricity workers (EDF), firefighters, and students … On December 5, France was at a standstill. This could swiftly become the […]

Paris – a prolonged strike in Accident and Emergency departments throughout the country, a successful strike on the Paris metro on September 13, with an indefinite stoppage forecast for December, a national day of action on 24 September by the CGT: this accumulation of actions shows that there is a growing polarisation in French society and that the working class is again taking the road of resistance against the attacks of President Emmanuel Macron

The current situation in France is characterised by a turn to the right, a severe weakening of working class consciousness and the rise of “classless” populism, all in conditions of greatly increased social and political instability.

By Marc Lassalle PARIS – WE ARE witnessing another of France’s powerful social movements. This time it is directed against the increasingly unpopular President Emmanuel Macron and his supposed eco-tax on petroleum products, which has seen the price of diesel jump 16 per cent in the last eight months. On November 17, more than 2,000 […]

By Marc Lassalle PARIS – ON 4 NOVEMBER, 174,154 voters, from a population of 268,000, in Kanaky voted on the question: “Do you want Nouvelle Calédonie (New Caledonia) to access full sovereignty and become independent?” Kanaky, better known by the name New Caledonia given by James Cook to several islands (the largest is called Grande […]

By Marc Lassalle – PARIS WITH a successful day of action on October 9, the major trade unions, CGT, FO, Solidaires, FSU, which organise the most combative sectors of the French working class, have shown that they are still a force to be reckoned with. In Paris, the demonstration was tens of thousands strong, with […]

By Marc Lassalle PARIS – After a month of militant but inconclusive strikes and occupations by railway workers and students, activists are organising to relaunch the mobilisation against the government attacks, with a national day of action in the first week of May. At the beginning of April workers on the state rail network, the […]

PARIS – Strikes and demonstrations have taken place across France in a day of action called by a united front of most public sector unions. The action has been called in response to a new law which targets the rights of railway workers, as a precursor to a general offensive against the 5.3 million strong public […]

PARIS – The new French President, Emmanuel Macron, speaking at a business start-up event

WITH 32 PER CENT of the votes in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections, Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République en Marche

DURING THE weeks between the first and second round of the French presidential elections, some on the French left called for a vote for Emmanuel Macron to stop Marine Le Pen of the Front National (FN) winning.

Emmanuel Macron, former investment banker and economy minister, easily won the second round of France’s presidential elections

“Since 1965 I have never lived through a presidential election like this. There are no more axes, no more rules”, says Socialist Party, PS, first secretary, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. “Nothing is stable anymore. It is a great chamboule-tout (coconut shy),” adds PS MP Jean-Marie Le Guen. Indeed, nothing has been going according to expectations for the […]