France: Bayrou declares war on the working class

The measures recently announced by François Bayrou constitute a reactionary offensive on a massive scale: the abolition of two public holidays, a ‘blank year’ (freezing pensions, social benefits, etc.), the elimination of thousands of civil service jobs, cuts to local authority funding, a €5 billion cut to public health spending – and so on, for an estimated total saving of €43.8 billion.

[Originally published in French at marxiste.org]

The logic behind these announcements is very clear: the government wants to massively tax young people, workers, the middle classes and pensioners – i.e. the overwhelming majority of the population – in order to reduce the public deficit while at the same time significantly increasing military spending and defending the competitiveness of the French economy, i.e. the profits of the big bourgeoisie.

As for the vague “solidarity contribution” that will be demanded from the “most fortunate” households, these are empty words aimed solely at making the austerity pill easier to swallow.

On the one hand, it is precisely the richest who will benefit (directly or indirectly) from the austerity measures hitting the overwhelming majority of the population. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie has an army of advisors and tax lawyers who enable it to evade taxes in a thousand legal and illegal ways. Bayrou implicitly acknowledged this when he declared his “will” – totally abstract and fictitious – to “fight against the abusive optimisation of non-productive assets.”

Basically, what Bayrou and his ministers have announced is a good preview of the type of policy that the French big bourgeoisie urgently needs – except that, in reality, it needs even more reactionary policies. At stake is the competitiveness of French capitalism, which has been in relative decline for several decades, particularly in relation to Germany and China. Over the past three years, this decline has been spectacularly evident in Africa, where French troops have been driven out of a whole series of countries – to the benefit of other powers, including China and Russia.

The enthusiasm of the media for Bayrou’s announcement reflected this urgent need for the French bourgeoisie to brutally attack the masses, even as the INSEE (the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) published a detailed report highlighting that poverty in France is reaching record levels.

The central problem for the bourgeoisie is obvious: young people and workers will not allow themselves to be robbed without reacting, at some stage, in the form of massive and explosive struggles.

It is true that the leaders of the trade union confederations are doing everything they can to contain the class struggle within limits that allow the ruling class to implement their reactionary policies. For the moment, they have succeeded.

But this is the country of June 1936, May 1968 and the gilets jaunes. They will not be able to confine the class struggle to the failed strategy of successive, harmless ‘days of action’ indefinitely. Sooner or later, all the accumulated social anger will provoke explosive mobilisations that will largely escape the control of the trade union confederation leaders.

Between now and the vote on the budget, more or less discreet negotiations will therefore take place between the government on the one hand and the leaders of the PS and RN on the other / Image: European Union, Wikimedia Commons

The second problem for the bourgeoisie is more immediate: the situation in the National Assembly, where Bayrou does not have an absolute majority. Faced with the scale of the offensive announced last week, even the leaders of the Socialist Party (PS) and the National Rally (RN) are threatening to censure the government.

Not that the leaders of the RN and PS are hostile to austerity policies, of course: as ‘responsible’, pro-capitalist politicians, they are even very much in favour of them. But if they approve an offensive as brutal as the one announced last week, they would risk paying a heavy price in electoral terms.

Bayrou, who is well aware of this, was careful to point out that he was open to discussion with the “parliamentary opposition”. Between now and the vote on the budget, more or less discreet negotiations will therefore take place between the government on the one hand and the leaders of the PS and RN on the other.

We will not venture to predict the outcome, nor to assess the chances of survival of the Bayrou government this autumn. It is a complex equation, involving various contradictory and shifting calculations at the top of the RN and PS.

But above all, from our class perspective, the essential issue lies elsewhere: regardless of the parliamentary manoeuvring in the coming months, the leaders of the labour movement should develop and popularise a solid battle plan to mobilise the mass of workers against all austerity policies, whatever they may be, including those that would suit the RN or the PS.

Such a battle plan must emphasise the need to build a large movement of renewable strikes, i.e. to paralyse the country's economy. A broad campaign of agitation must be launched to this end. Given their place and weight within the labour movement, it is up to the leaders of the CGT and La France Insoumise (FI) to commit to this path and call on all workers' organisations – trade unions, political parties and associations – to join them.

Finally, they must do so on the basis of a radical programme, a programme of breaking with all austerity policies. We must put an end to the ‘government of the rich’ and replace it with a government of the workers, who will know how to manage the economy for the benefit of the many – and no longer for a handful of wealthy parasites.