First, let’s start with a necessary reminder: A year ago, France held parliamentary elections. Although Le Pen’s “National Rally” received three million more votes (1), the “New Popular Front” (2) won the most seats in the second round. In fact, the New Popular Front lost two million votes between the first and second rounds, by withdrawing its own candidates in many regions and favouring the party of French President E. Macron. Consequently, Macron’s party avoided the resounding defeat predicted by the European election results (3).
Even before the elections, the formation of the “New Popular Front” was presented to the Greek social democratic forces as a model, on the basis that “since they were able to put their differences aside in France and unite against the danger of the far right, they can do the same in Greece to get rid of the Mitsotakis government”. As expected, the participation of the French Communist Party was used as an excuse to attack the KKE, with the familiar argument of “isolation”. Even less well known —since it refutes many different arguments— is the fact that Macron is currently governing with the support of Le Pen’s parliamentary group (4).
This proves three things: first, that the “front” of liberal and social democratic forces against the far right is unreliable; second, that the “anti-system” stance of the far-right forces themselves is fake; and third, that the role of Le Pen’s party has been strengthened after the parliamentary elections, despite the celebrations we mentioned. Conclusion: The parties that formed the “New Popular Front” under the pretext of preventing Le Pen ultimately gave Macron the kiss of life he was looking for and the opportunity to continue governing and implement the same harsh anti-labour and warmongering policies that had justifiably caused widespread popular discontent.
Moreover, he can now govern with the substantial support of Le Pen, who was the first to exploit the open field of opposition left to her by these parties for electoral gain, using plenty of demagoguery! It is truly astonishing that anyone could envy such a political stance, which could be described as political suicide were it not an intentional service to the system and its policy of stability.
The French “memorandum”
Let’s return to the present: On 13 July, E. Macron announced a massive increase in France’s military spending for the coming years, as part of broader military preparations, the EU’s transition to a war economy and NATO’s decision to increase each member state’s spending to 5% of GDP. The very next day, Prime Minister F. Bayrou, citing the large state deficit and the threat of public debt, announced an equally massive package of cuts in spending related to popular needs (health, education, social security, etc.), reducing the number of civil servants, and abolishing two public holidays a year to “boost the economy”, one of which is the anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Victory. It goes without saying that none of the parties, newspapers, or websites that celebrated the results of last year’s elections bothered to ask what “went wrong” once again...
Although Macron and Bayrou’s statements are two sides of the same coin, the pro-government press in Greece somewhat glossed over the former, but gave great emphasis to the latter, particularly highlighting Bayrou’s reference to the Greek “debt crisis”, which it used as a “bogeyman” against the French people to get them to accept the measures. The message conveyed to the Greek people is more or less “Look what’s happening in France, remember what we went through here, and count your blessings”. As if it were not the hundreds of laws implementing the memoranda, which are still in force today –along with the anti-people measures that were added later– that are creating the surpluses that the New Democracy government celebrates every so often.
The similarity between the arguments used today by the French government to blame the people and those used by the governments here during the memoranda period is striking. ‘We have learned to expect the state to pay for everything’, ‘We cannot borrow money to pay salaries and pensions’, ‘As a society, we consume too many medicines’ (!!!) are some of the arguments used today in France, and they certainly sound familiar. Obviously, they have no problem borrowing money to pay for missiles and tanks...
The truth is that in both Greece and France, the people are always called upon to pay out of their pockets, sometimes for the debts and deficits created by the policy of “expansion” in favour of capital, or to maintain the surpluses created by restrictive policies and, especially under the current circumstances, for war preparation and military engagement. It is worth remembering that during the period of the capitalist crisis in Greece, both the “pro-memorandum” and the once “anti-memorandum” camps repeatedly put forward the view that the huge deficits, high public debt, etc. were exclusively “Greek peculiarities”, attributing the crisis to these factors and often linking them to corruption, which they also presented, to a greater or lesser extent, as “Greek ills”. In this way, they exonerated the capitalist path of development, despite the fact that all of the above phenomena are part of its DNA and that its very normal functioning, rather than any kind of “deviation”, brings about economic crises.
The same is being done today, for example, in response to the agricultural funds scandal, which the government and the parties of the opposition serving the system are disconnecting from the womb that gives rise to it, i.e. the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which in recent years has brought farmers out onto the streets en masse in Greece and France. So, in the end, the same thing is happening, proportionally speaking, in the capitalist paradises that some people have in mind... Many of the measures announced by the French government are very similar to those being promoted simultaneously in our country and in other EU countries, and are also related to war preparations and the capital’s need for the people to kowtow under these conditions. At a time when French workers are being asked to work more and be paid less, in Greece the New Democracy government is preparing to introduce a bill on 13-hour working day, disciplinary measures for civil servants, repression measures in universities, etc.
A similar debate has been going on for months in Germany, while we remember Chancellor Merz publicly praising K. Mitsotakis for the law allowing a 6-day working week and stating that “we can really learn from Greece”. This sheds light to the nature of the much-vaunted “EU normality”, which is praised at every opportunity by PASOK, SYRIZA, the Course of Freedom, the New Left, etc., accusing the ND government of “steering the country away from it”, when the problem is that it is doing exactly the opposite: It is at the forefront of the pan-European anti-labour offensive, fanatically implementing the EU’s directives.
Hope lies in the struggle of the peoples!
France’s experience ultimately does indeed teach us a lesson, but not the one that some people claimed a year ago. It shows that the peoples’ hope does not lie with any “progressive” front of forces of the sinful social democracy, nor with those who present themselves as “anti-system” while being the system’s most fanatical supporters. The people have no interest in rushing to patch up the cracks in the bourgeois political system when they appear; on the contrary, they must seek to widen them until its final overthrow.
The experiences of both France and Greece emphasize that there is no common interest between the people and their exploiters, whether in conditions of capitalist crisis or capitalist growth, or, even more so, in conditions of war preparation. No matter what propaganda tricks are resorted to in order to convince the people otherwise and burden them with the costs, this remains true.
From the millions of strikers in France protesting against Macron’s anti-social security reforms, to the millions of strikers in Greece demonstrating against the crime of Tempe; from the dockworkers in Marseille to their colleagues in Piraeus, who are preventing the same war cargo from reaching the murderous state of Israel for use against the Palestinians, the power that the peoples have in their hands is clear. By harnessing this great power, the people can not only raise obstacles to this barbaric policy and organize the movement that will overthrow and clash with the system of exploitation and war. They can bring to the fore what is truly contemporary: the conquest of power by the working class and the construction of socialism–communism.
Notes
1. This is possible due to the reactionary electoral law in force in France. The country is divided into single-member constituencies, meaning that the votes for parties other than the one that wins the seat have no effect on the national distribution of seats. In the second round, the two candidates with the most votes in the first round as well as those who received at least 12.5% of the votes, go through.
2. An alliance of social democratic and opportunist forces with the participation of the “mutated” French Communist Party.
3. In the European elections on 9 June, 2024, Le Pen’s party came first with 31.4%, followed by Macron’s party with 14.6%. This result led to the dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of early parliamentary elections by Macron.
4. Since it was appointed by Macron in December, the Barnier government has faced eight motions of no confidence, none of which have been supported by the MPs of the “National Rally”.