The overwhelming majority of French people are against the so-called pension reform of the Sarkozy government. This was made abundantly clear in yesterday’s mass demonstrations. But what can be done to transform this opposition into an all-out movement to stop the government?

The New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) was set up in France, supposedly as an alternative to both the Communist and Socialist parties. The leaders of these two parties had shifted more and more towards market orientated policies. In reality the leadership of the NPA also suffer from the same illness, in that they believe that in order to be successful on the electoral front they must tone down the Communist and revolutionary content of this new party. That is not what many genuine revolutionary militants were expecting from the NPA.

Sarkozy lost his glossy image some time ago. But now he is exposed in the eyes of all. After all his bragging about his own extravagant lifestyle, he is attacking the living standards of pensioners, workers, students and the unemployed. The mood in France is an angry one. If the leaders of the left and the trade unions were to mobilise the workers, this government could be brought down relatively easy.

Last week in France around two million workers came out onto the streets to express their anger at the latest government attacks on pensions. The union leaders hope to hold the movement at this level, i.e. of formal protest but no strike movement. But the workers are looking for more than this, as the growing discontent in the ranks of the labour movement clearly indicates.

On January 30^th a successful meeting was held in Paris to launch a network of PCF members who want to struggle to bring back the ideas of Marxism into the French Communist Party. Lessons of the past were discussed and conclusions drawn on what are now the next steps that need taking. Speaking at the meeting was also Alan Woods, editor of Marxist.com and a comrade representing the Marxists in the Italian PRC.

We are pleased to announce that the opposition text of our French comrades of La Riposte, "Renforcer le PCF, renouer avec le marxisme", has collected more than the required number of signatures. It has therefore been approved by the PCF (French Communist Party), and will be sent out to over 100,000 members of the party.

Alan Woods went to Paris in May 1968 seeking contact with revolutionary workers and youth. He describes here what he encountered, the mood, and the discussions with workers and students. He explains how the workers were looking for leadership but never found it, neither in the ultra-left groups, nor in the Stalinist leadership that betrayed them.

May 1968 was the greatest revolutionary general strike in history. This mighty movement took place at the height of the post-war economic upswing in capitalism. Then, as now, the bourgeois and their apologists were congratulating themselves that revolutions and class struggle were things of the past. Then came the French events of 1968, which seemed to drop like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. They took most of the Left completely by surprise, because, they had all written off the European working class as a revolutionary force.