Anger of the French people at Macron's pension reform is far from extinguished, despite moves by the Inter-Union bureaucracy which weakened the movement.

Our French comrades and members of our sister site and organization Révolution Permanente respond to a debate published in Contretemps and translated to English and published in Jacobin.

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked considerable discussion about what a consistent anti-imperialist policy should look like today. It is a debate of tremendous importance.

There is no country in the world beyond Russia and Ukraine where the recent Russian invasion has had more immediate repercussions than Germany. However, its recent historic shift in military spending is currently colliding with the imperatives of preserving social peace. This fragile balance will be unsustainable in the new volatile era inaugurated by the war in Ukraine.

In the days leading up to the G20 summit that began today, France threatened the United Kingdom with “reprisals” if it does not issue licenses to French fishing boats. It is a reactionary conflict playing out against the background of growing tensions between the two countries in the wake of Brexit.

The U.S. has agreed to export nuclear submarines to Australia. The move is a huge blow to France, which will lose a huge contract signed in 2016, and is a yet another provocative step against China.

The question of China’s place in the international order is central to characterizing where the world capitalist system is heading. This article is part of an ongoing and as yet unconcluded process of elaboration and discussion on the topic within the Trotskyist Fraction–Fourth International (as part of which we have been publishing a variety of contributions). The positions taken below are the author’s own and do not reflect those of the Trotskyist Fraction as a whole.

On the geopolitical significance of the humiliation of Chinese millionaire Jack Ma.

In the early hours of July 21, leaders of the European Union agreed to what the New York Times called a “landmark spending package to rescue their economies from the ravages of the pandemic.” This article is a thoroughgoing political economy analysis of the effort to save the European Union from the pandemic and the economic crisis that had already been forecast before the virus struck, originally published in French in May.

The many repressive and secretive measures taken by France’s government to combat the pandemic have only exacerbated the social and political crisis that saw the rise of the Yellow Vests in 2018 and the general strike against pension reforms in 2019. The ruling class’s inability to respond to the present crisis opens a door for workers and oppressed people in France to seize upon their rage and put forward their own solutions.

The success of the December 5 national strike and its continuation, as well as the renewal of the strike in several strategic sectors such as transportation, show a qualitative leap in the class struggle in France and perhaps even globally.

The spontaneous uprising of the “Gilets Jaunes” (Yellow Vests) shows that we are facing a transitional situation. Cracks are opening at the top, allowing the anger of the mass movement to enter the scene and creating a prerevolutionary situation in France

Mobilizations across France by railway workers and students gain momentum in the fight against Macron’s attempts to liberalize the economy.

On June 14, the United States Senate overwhelming approved an extension of U.S. sanctions against Russia, which the Senate believes, has contributed to the destabilization of Syria and Ukraine and has interfered in the elections of other nations.

Photo: AFP/Joel Saget Left Voice’s second issue, “Women on the Front Lines”, is now available for purchase. For every magazine sold, we will donate a dollar to a worker controlled factory in Argentina. The unusual nature of the 2017 French presidential election is the culmination of a larger organic crisis currently facing French capitalism. The […]

"It’s like watching a Quentin Tarantino movie". This is how two editors from Le Monde began an article describing the series of unprecedented events and the high level of uncertainty in the French presidential elections.

Before the elections we pointed out the deep divide within the US ruling class. A bitter split emerged among the elites, with the majority supporting Hillary Clinton, the favorite of the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around Donald Trump’s candidacy.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 is, so to speak, a “forgotten revolution.” Erased and banished from popular memory, it was a thorny subject for Soviet authorities and remains one for Western capitalists today. What made this revolution so subversive?

The Deutsche Bank crisis shows that the contradictions which led to the crisis of 2007/8 are not over, and instead have become interlinked with the geopolitical tensions of the great powers.

While the full impact of the Brexit on the EU and NATO remains to be seen, it is certain that it will result in a decline of British influence.

'What if the French soccer team went on strike?' So went the June 10 editorial of pro-business French newspaper, Les Echos, giving away the writer’s confusion and shock at the persistence and continuity of protests against the labor law.

After two and a half months of mobilization led by university and high school students, the last few weeks of strikes and roadblocks mark a forceful return of the labor movement in France.

On top of the fear and emotion produced by the brutal attacks in Paris and near the Stadium of France on November 13, we are seeing a rollout of anti-terrorist operations in Saint-Denis and Hollande's “law and order” clampdown – taking domestic measures and Bush-style military actions abroad. It is hard to see anything but doom and gloom. But if we analyze the situation more deeply, the possibility of an emergent movement for democratic liberties that fights against imperialist wars lies in the DNA of a newly-opened political period.

The demonstrations that have shaken various South African universities have taken the African National Congress (ANC) by surprise. For the first time, the ANC saw itself obliged to desist, but without succeeding to pacify the rebellion. The students have revealed the fictive nature of the transformation of the regime and of South African capitalism after the end of apartheid.

French version from Révolution Permanente, July 16, 2015. The agreement imposed upon Greece by European leaders, after an intense campaign of economic terrorism orchestrated by the European Central Bank and the threat of the country’s possible exit from the Eurozone, highlights as never before the most monstrous face of capitalist Europe. The merciless attitude adopted […]

The future of the relationship with Germany, the rise of the xenophobic right wing, the policy of the reformist Front of the Left and the campaign of the "far left"

In the middle of the historic crisis of capitalism at an international level, the different European bourgeoisies have led Europe to a new dead end. The bourgeois states are totally powerless, seeking to save themselves by themselves alone, and some, to the detriment of others. Their choices of a solution can only worsen the crisis, […]

After a last-minute agreement between Merkel and Sarkozy, after seven tense hours of meeting up to the night of July 20, on the following day, the people in charge of the euro zone, gathered in an emergency summit in Brussels, reached an agreement on a new “bailout” plan for Greece, acknowledging for the first time […]

The massive attacks against the WTC and the Pentagon back on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath -particularly, the growing interventionism and “unilateralism” of the US’s foreign policy- has raised an intense debate among the intellectuals and all the strands of politics worldwide. Many old (and not so old) ideas are being put to the […]