In the previous issue, we tried to show how the economic policies pursued by the Biden administration – “Bidenomics” – represented both the first steps in adapting the American production apparatus to the drive towards generalized imperialist war, and an economic, political and ideological attack on the proletariat. The following article, published on the Internationalist Communist Tendency website, highlights how the French bourgeoisie is also beginning to prepare for war on an economic and “social” level, i.e., to impose the sacrifices on the proletariat in France that are indispensable for this preparation. We call on all those who can, groups, circles and even isolated individuals, to expose this ongoing process in as many countries as possible.

Written a month earlier, the article could not have taken into account the “Europe Speech" given by French President Macron on April 25. [1] The speech set out the French bourgeoisie’s vision of Europe as a counterpart to “Bidenomics”, and an attempt to distance itself from the growing polarization between the USA and China precipitated by the war in Ukraine. It is trying to convince Europeans of the need for a “European strategic autonomy” in military defense, and hopes to take the lead, particularly in relation to Germany.

“There is an immense risk that we might be undermined or relegated. Because we are at an unprecedented time of global upheaval, and great transformations are accelerating. (…) We must be clear on the fact that our Europe, today, is mortal. It can die. It can die, and that depends entirely on our choices. But these choices must be made now. Because it is today that the question of peace and war on our continent is being answered, as is our ability or inability to ensure our own security. (...) But the outcome depends on us, as show some very simple observations to highlight how serious my words are. Firstly, we are not armed (…) in light of the widespread rearmament of the world and its acceleration. (…) The second observation is that economically, our [social] model as it is conceived today is no longer sustainable. (…) The third observation (...) is the cultural clash, the battle of imaginations, narratives and [democratic, he clarifies] values, which is increasingly sensitive.”

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the door to European strategic autonomy, a traditional policy of French imperialism since De Gaulle, had closed, with all European nations taking refuge under the American nuclear umbrella provided by Nato – to the extent that Finland and Sweden joined it in urgency. With Congress blocking US aid for six months and the possibility of Trump’s election, the risk of American military disengagement in Europe and the loss of its nuclear umbrella has come back to haunt the European bourgeoisies, especially as Russian military successes on the Ukrainian front are increasing. Faced with this, the door to European strategic autonomy, independent of the United States and specific to French imperialism, has reopened, or so France would like to believe, by promoting its military and nuclear capabilities:

“The era when Europe bought its energy and fertilizers from Russia, had its goods manufactured in China, and delegated its security to the United States of America, is over. (…) [It is time] to build a Europe which can show that it is never the vassal of the United States. (…) Nuclear deterrence is central to France’s defence strategy. It is therefore essentially a critical element of defence of the European continent. It is thanks to this credible defence that we will be able to build the security guarantees all our partners expect, throughout Europe, and that we will be able to build the common security framework, a security guarantee for each of us.”

We do not know to what extent the other European bourgeoisies will adhere to France’s ambitions, but there can be little doubt that they will unite on the fact that “the world’s most demanding social model that takes the most from the wealth it produces (…) is no longer sustainable” for all European capitalism. Macron’s speech confirms the title of the following article, which we support: “Social War is Declared.” And it is indeed the bourgeoisie that is declaring it, and is going to wage it and impose it on the proletariat, seeking to ensure that it takes place on the terrain and at the times it thinks it will have the best chance to prevail. This is also the meaning of Macron’s call for Europe to lead the cultural, i.e. ideological, battle, in order to divert the proletariat from the class struggle in the name of defending democracy and national unity. This is why we welcome and support this article. [2]

Austerity Plan in France: Social War Declared!

50 billion euros in savings by 2027: this is what Pierre Moscovici, President of the French Audit Office (Cour des Comptes) and a “Socialist”, is calling for to reduce the [French] public deficit in order to meet the European Commission’s targets, in a framework of sharply declining growth.

That is all it took for the French government to announce with great fanfare the target of 10 billion in savings for the year 2024, followed by 20 billion in 2025. It is highly likely that this austerity policy will continue until at least 2027 and intensify, as implied by Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, who wants to put an end to “the French-style welfare state.” All areas are concerned: environment, education, health, housing, social security, unemployment, social benefits... all except the army, which is safe and sound, much to the delight of the bourgeois arms industry, such as Dassault and others!

War Economy and Rearmament: Towards Generalized War

While the level of social spending will fall drastically over the next few years in an attempt to absorb the deficit, military spending will continue to rise, and even double by 2030. This is in line with Emmanuel Macron’s much-vaunted “war economy”, and France’s rearmament, with several billion euros (!) in military support for the Ukraine. [3] Similarly, for the first time, EDF’s Civaux power plant will be reserved for the military to produce tritium, the isotope fundamental to nuclear deterrence. France is clearly preparing for the possibility of a generalized inter-imperialist war, and is therefore seeking to increase its military budget in anticipation, as evidenced by President Macron’s recent statements on the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine (or elite corps or technician-instructors) to fight Russia. While the various Western leaders have (for the time being) opposed this, it has to be said that all NATO countries are now drastically increasing their military budgets and remilitarizing. [4] In this gloomy context of economic decline and forced remilitarization, all bourgeois governments are looking for resources to finance imperialist butchery while cutting their budgets: the poorest and working people are the first victims.

Anti-worker Attacks around the World

France is not the only country undergoing a terrible social purge to satisfy the interests of the bourgeoisie: Argentina, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, Cuba, Pakistan, Egypt, Great Britain, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Venezuela and Sweden have recently implemented particularly ferocious austerity policies against the proletariat, in the hope of emerging from the economic crisis shaking the globe. Everywhere, it is these very conditions of existence that are under attack, while social struggles are multiplying around the world to confront them, as in Cuba, where, far from the American imperialists and the pseudo-communist Cuban bourgeoisie, the working class is self-organizing to demand an improvement in its living conditions. [5]

The Historic Crisis of Capital over the Past 50 Years

In reality, these austerity policies are taking place against the backdrop of capital’s historic economic crisis since 1973. Since the two oil shocks of the 1970s, the capitalist world has no longer experienced phases of generalized prosperity, quite the contrary: every 10 years or so, economic crises of varying severity (1973-1979; 1980-1982; 1990-1992; 1997-2002; 2007-2011; 2020-2022 and since the war in Ukraine in 2022) impact the international economic system, leading to a continuous decline in economic growth over the past 50 years. [6] Just as we had never really emerged from the “Great Recession” of 2008 [7], the Covid crisis and then the war in Ukraine plunged the world back into economic depression and “stagflation”. Since 2020, global economic growth has been relatively weak, except in the United States, due to its protectionist and interventionist policies.

Capitalism regularly undergoes economic cycles, characterized by phases of economic expansion, followed by depression, when it must find new outlets to start a new cycle, as Marx explains in The Capital:

“One may assume that in the essential branches of modern industry this life-cycle now averages ten years. However we are not concerned here with the exact figure. This much is evident: the cycle of interconnected turnovers embracing a number of years, in which capital is held fast by its fixed constituent part, furnishes a material basis for the periodic crises. During this cycle business undergoes successive periods of depression, medium activity, precipitancy, crisis. True, periods in which capital is invested differ greatly and far from coincide in time. But a crisis always forms the starting-point of large new investments. Therefore, from the point of view of society as a whole, more or less, a new material basis for the next turnover cycle.” [8]

Today, for the bourgeoisie, this “way out of the crisis” means squeezing the proletariat even harder. This policy of austerity is nothing new: under all successive French governments, right and left, austerity policies against the working class have been applied (under Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1976, François Mitterrand in 1983, Jacques Chirac in 1995, Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010 and François Hollande in 2014), with no success in reviving the economy.

The current austerity policy is directly linked to this global reflux in economic growth, attributable to geopolitical conflicts and the energy crisis, which is preventing the State from generating sufficient revenue, and which is therefore leading governments to attack public spending in the hope of reducing budget deficits and public debt. All this is done with the obvious aim of reassuring supranational institutions (World Bank, IMF or the European Commission) and, above all, financial markets and rating agencies, so as not to be declared insolvent like Southern Europe was after the 2008 crisis, and to continue attracting foreign investors. But this policy of austerity can only get worse, as there is no prospect of growth in the years ahead, and it creates a vicious circle: less growth due to the international context, so less revenue, so less public spending, which leads to no revival of economic activity, and therefore ever more recession and budget cuts. But the fundamental reason for the current situation lies in the fact that capital, in this last production cycle over the past 50 years, is no longer able to cope with the falling rate of profit that characterizes the capitalist system. This is why we are witnessing the multiplication of attacks on the proletariat, and the march to war, the ultimate solution for capitalism to regenerate itself and restart a new production cycle through the destruction of constant and variable capital.

The Need to Self-Organize and Break out of the Reformist Straitjacket

In the face of these ever-increasing attacks, which will only intensify as a result of the march to war and the economic crisis, our class must seek to self-organize against the bourgeoisie and its allies, through its international vanguard party, which it unfortunately still lacks. It can trust neither the trade unions nor the institutional left, for it is they who, in Cuba as in Venezuela, in Portugal as in Spain, in Germany as in South Africa, are driving these policies of social purge against the working masses. It cannot and must not simply put forward a defensive program to withdraw the counter-reforms imposed by the state and employers, but also an offensive program to raise wages, improve living and working conditions, lower the retirement age and reduce working hours, without worrying about its financial feasibility in the capitalist system, because it will be forced to do so. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said in 1850, in the “Address of the Central Committee to the League of Communists”:

“[The workers] must drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme (the democrats will in any case act in a reformist and not a revolutionary manner) and transform these proposals into direct attacks on private property. (…) If the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy. The demands of the workers will thus have to be adjusted according to the measures and concessions of the democrats. (…) But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat.”

Only through class struggle, organized and guided by its international Communist Party, will the proletariat realize that communist revolution is the only solution to a decadent, unstable system in perpetual crisis. Otherwise, “But for those workers who allow themselves to be amused by ridiculous strolls in the street, by the planting of liberty trees, by the mellifluous phrases of lawyers, there will first be holy water, then insults, and, finally, grapeshot. And destitution forever.” (Auguste Blanqui, Warning to the People – “The London Toast” , February 25, 1851 [9])