Rowan, Place de la Republique
French elections : Antifascist victory and deep political crisis
By John Mullen (Posted Jul 11, 2024)
Originally published: The Left Berlin on July 9, 2024 (more by The Left Berlin) |
Many thousands of antifascists celebrated all night in rallies around the country on Sunday evening, as the news came through of the second round election results in France.
It had been widely feared that the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, would be forming a government this week. Instead they were beaten back into third place, with 143 MPs (including their close allies). The left electoral alliance, named the New Popular Front, came first with 182 MPs (and they can count on the 13 “other Lefts” to vote with them). Macron’s group got 168. A parliamentary majority is 289.
Millions of people are feeling tremendous relief. It is not only the results which are important, but how they were won—through the most dynamic left campaign in many decades, involving tens of thousands of new activists, large sections of civil society, widespread door to door work, hundreds of rallies and marches, and a dizzying variety of events, initiatives and appeals to vote for radical change and against fascism. The whole country has heard the arguments about how it is possible to tax the rich, rebuild our hospitals and schools, and fight against sexist violence and against racism, antisemitism and islamophobia.
And the radical section of the NPF—the France Insoumise (France in Revolt)—obtained very high scores in multiethnic working class areas, resulting in the election of many fine MPs: class fighters who are light years away from some of the grey apparatchiks we are used to. These include Raphaël Arnault, co-founder of The Young Guard, a dynamic antifascist organization that was set up a few years ago. There is also Sebastien Delogu, a taxi driver who led the campaign against the uberisation of the profession as well as Aly Diouara, originally from The Gambia, who is very active as a town councillor in the working class suburbs of Paris and a local leader of the campaign against the genocide in Gaza. Alma Dufour is also worth mentioning, who is known as a leader of direct action campaigns against Amazon.
Deep crisis
But with this election, France has been plunged into a deep political crisis which will last for some time. The situation contains many dangers, but also many opportunities. Every political configuration is fragile and every tactic and strategy contested. There will be swings and turns and turncoats (motivated by panic or worse) and some will act better politically than we thought they would. We must concentrate on the key elements, not on details of tactics, in order to understand what is new and what is possible.
The electoral alliance, the New Popular Front, encouraged by huge pressure from below, has brilliantly succeeded in stopping a fascist government. This was done through unity and through the inspiration provided by a radical programme. This result justifies the alliance, and the compromises it required, however fragile the NPF may be in the future.
The Rassemblement national activists are demoralized and depressed this week, as they gained only half the MPs they were hoping for. But they still have fifty five more than at the last parliamentary elections. The present relative setback for the far right must be used as a jumping off point to push the fascists back. The hundreds of thousands involved these last three weeks must remain mobilized.
What happens now?
No grouping has a majority in parliament, and the Constitution forbids new parliamentary elections for 12 months. There appear to be three possibilities: a minority left government, a right-left coalition or a government of appointed experts.
Left leaders have declared their desire to form a minority government. This might have difficulty passing laws, but some NPF policies, such as reining in police violence, increasing the minimum wage, and price freezes on basic necessities do not require new legislation. Of course, the pressure from bosses and the media will be unprecedented and the mobilization of workers to ensure our interests are defended is essential. Many NPF supporters understand that a left government must not be given carte blanche. There are, this week, attempts to establish networks of local Popular Front committees to maintain radical engagement of large numbers of people.
Most of the right, aided by a strong media campaign, would prefer a coalition “national union” government, including parts of left and right: including everyone, indeed, except for the France Insoumise and the Rassemblement national. Fear of chaos and disorganization is being used to try to persuade people that this is a reasonable project.
Several leading Macronists are pushing for this idea, and some leaders from the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Greens are saying it should be considered. They may be joined by a small number of France Insoumise MPs led by François Ruffin who are breaking away from the FI, looking for a more “moderate” less left wing option. “We need to calm things down” said Ruffin. This group are pretending that the problem is Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s personality and are joining in the vast smear campaigns against him.
A left-right coalition government would be a disaster for working people. Abandoning the radical measures which people need to reduce misery and improve our schools, hospitals and working conditions, such a government would bring rapid and deep disappointment, and practically guarantee a far-right government in a few years’ time. The France Insoumise has refused this option, and all honest sections of the Left must do so, too. For the moment, Olivier Faure, leader of the Socialist Party, has ruled out such a coalition. Marine Tondelier, head of the Greens, is less clear.
Other commentators are speaking of the nomination of a government of bourgeois “experts” (in Italy at one point they appointed the director of the national bank). This will be presented as a common-sense decision, justified since “foolish politicians” cannot reach a consensus, and because not having a government is “unimaginable”. But how can we imagine that such a government would be on the side of working people?
The crisis is only just beginning. We need to remain mobilized and create structures of vigilance to involve as many as possible of those very large numbers of activists who campaigned for the New Popular Front. These structures must aim at pushing the far right back through mass education, and through mass harassment of all RN events and initiatives.
Do some people have illusions as to what a NPF government can quickly change? Of course they do, this is inevitable. But the way forward is to mobilize against neoliberalism and support a Left government, if one is formed, every time it introduces reforms in our interests, but oppose it immediately if it gives in to the pressure of the dictatorship of profit.
https://mronline.org/2024/07/11/french-elections/
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Italy’s Antisemitism Scandal Should Have Raised Alarms in US
ARI PAUL
Reuters (6/27/24) noted that Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party “traces its roots to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed in 1946 as a direct heir of Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement that ruled Italy for more than 20 years.”
An antisemitism scandal has rocked one of Europe’s major far-right political leaders: Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy. It’s been major news in the European press. But the story is being mishandled by major US corporate media, and that fact says a lot about how poorly antisemitism is covered in the United States.
Reuters (6/27/24) reported:
A reporter from online newspaper Fanpage [6/14/24] infiltrated Gioventu Nazionale, Meloni’s rightist Brothers of Italy youth movement, and recorded videos in which members declared themselves fascists and shouted the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil.”… The investigation also showed a Gioventu Nazionale member mocking Brothers of Italy senator Ester Mieli for her Jewish origin, and revealed chats on messaging platforms where militants took aim at ethnic minorities.
Meloni’s political opponents used this footage against her (Guardian, 6/27/24). She eventually condemned the antisemites (Euronews, 6/29/24). Haaretz (6/30/24) said:
This 12-minute video showed National Youth activists, including two senior figures, singing a celebratory song in honor of the disgraced dictator Benito Mussolini, chanting “Sieg Heil!” and glorifying the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei)—a neofascist terrorist group that was active in Italy in the late 1970s and early ’80s, committing over 100 murders.
Neofascist roots
Fanpage (6/14/24) led off its report on Italy’s National Youth by noting that Meloni refers to them as “marvelous young people,” and they are defined as “the soul and the driving force” of her party.
This shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Italian politics. The nation’s small but vibrant Jewish population has been skeptical of Meloni’s ascendence and that of her party, Brothers of Italy. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (9/30/22) explained two years ago:
Meloni’s first stop in politics was in the youth movement of the Italian Social Movement, known as MSI, a neofascist party founded in 1946 by people who had worked with Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist leader from 1922 to 1943. Brothers of Italy is closely tied to the group, even housing its office in the same building where MSI operated and using an identical logo, a tricolor flame.
With Meloni at the helm of one of Europe’s biggest economies, she is not a minor player; in fact, at the last G7 conference, she stood out as a confident leader (AP, 10/18/23; Wall Street Journal, 6/13/24) over a flock of feeble, vulnerable centrists and conservatives.
One of those was Rishi Sunak, who has since lost his job as British prime minister and Conservative Party leader (Guardian, 7/5/24). Another is President Joe Biden, who is being pressured to drop out of the US presidential race due to concerns regarding his cognitive health (New York Times, 6/28/24). And French President Emmanuel Macron has been weakened by the poor performance of his party in snap parliamentary elections (Reuters, 7/7/24).
The summit took place after Meloni’s party increased its share of the popular vote in the European Union election, and she is now “poised to play a critical role shaping the future direction of EU policy in Brussels” (Politico, 6/13/24).
Late to the story—or absent
The New York Times (7/2/24) led with Meloni “urg[ing] leaders of her political party on Tuesday to reject antisemitism, racism and nostalgia for totalitarian regimes.”
The New York Times (6/11/24) has positively portrayed Meloni as a “critical player” as the host of the G7 conference, and has been upbeat about her rising stature generally. (Her anti-Russian politicking “sealed her credibility as someone who could play an influential role in the top tier of European leaders”—2/7/24.) The Times (7/2/24) came late to the Brother of Italy story , leading with the news of her public relations drive to denounce the racist content. The Washington Post, which also had previously normalized her as a European politician (6/6/24), covered the story in a similar fashion with AP copy (7/3/24).
NPR missed the story. So did CNN. The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board had said she was “governing with some success” (6/13/24), and whose news coverage has portrayed her as a pragmatist (6/13/24), wasn’t interested in the scandal either.
This lackluster coverage, which at best focused on Meloni’s self-interested damage control rather than the dark ideology at the center of her movement, is confounding. Western media have been rightfully fretting about the far right’s impressive showing in recent EU parliamentary elections (New York Times, 6/9/24). Meloni’s reputation as a strong leader among ailing centrist European leaders is bolstered by other far-right parties making impressive gains.
All of these parties, known for their anti-immigration and anti-multicultural positions, also have tinges of right-wing antisemitism, including Britain’s Reform Party (Haaretz, 6/23/24), Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (Deutsche Welle, 8/5/23) and France’s National Rally (AP, 7/3/24). In the US, Donald Trump has been careful not to criticize the overt antisemites in the MAGA movement, including the “very fine people” who chanted “Jews will not replace us” at Charlottesville (Politico, 12/7/22). The Washington Post (10/17/22) noted that Trump has long employed antisemitic tropes in his rhetoric.
A danger signal ignored
And so the Fanpage revelations should have been a blaring danger signal, as they were for the European press. The New York Times has been raising alarms (10/31/23, 12/16/23) about a rise of antisemitism since the October 7 attacks in Israel, painting the problem as one that plagues the left and the right. But as FAIR (12/12/23, 12/15/23) has talked about, corporate media are quick to cast legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism to discredit pro-Palestine points of view, wrongfully equating opposition to genocide with the racist antisemitism of the right.
Regardless of the reason for US corporate media’s oversight, the impact is clear. The press can talk about antisemitism more openly when they can attach it to human rights protesters, but are less eager to describe antisemitism as it actually is: a bigotry that is interwoven with the anti-Islamic and xenophobic platforms of the powerful far right.
https://fair.org/home/italys-antisemiti ... rms-in-us/
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Squaring circles for peace and war: Berlin Bulletin No. 224, July 11, 2024
By Victor Grossman (Posted Jul 11, 2024)
So much has been happening in recent weeks! Not so much in the USA, where everyone is waiting for that shoe to drop, the old one with the worn, troubled sole—or missing soul! (The other shoe never claimed to have a soul)
But in Europe! On July 7th came a huge surprise which few pundits had even dared predict. No, it wasn’t the LePen/Bardella crowd they had fearfully awaited, and certainly not the Macron sad sacks! It was La Gauche—the Left—which showed what can be won if you put up a fight—this time with joined hands and clever tactics! And against racism and nationalism!
In the European Parliament elections on June 9th a few leftist parties had pointed the way, with small but welcome gains in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece. But the general trend was to the right. Even in Britain, no longer in the EU, while the incredibly corrupt Tories were finally swept out, the victorious Labour Party replacing them was hardly less adept in the art of selling out to the highest bidders. But here and there the London fog was dispersed by new, courageous voices—most gloriously by good old Jeremy Corbyn as an Independent, now hopefully with the spunk to fight back; those hopeful voices will still be facing a tough time against the fog, with the phonies still shouting their pro-Netanyahu misuse of “anti-Semitism” charges—much like those in the USA and Germany.
The French leftists have also been facing that tactic, of course, with charges of anti-Semitism, at times genuine but mostly exaggerated, invented and stressed so as to split the left and weaken the fight against militarism, internationalism—and for socialism. In France La Gauche is much stronger but, lacking a majority, will also face a foggy Brumaire. On many key issues I expect the Macron crowd will prefer cuddling up to LePen & Co.—a well-established tradition. And the left is a very mixed bunch, of course. Nothing is certain! But nothing can diminish my happiness at seeing the billionaire bunch not just taking in giant profits but also a rare, hard blow to the solar plexus! Vive la Gauche!
In Germany, the fighting ring looks different; it rather recalls Ringling Brothers, the famous circus a German family founded 140 years ago, now newly revived. The three-ring, three party coalition in Berlin finally fought out a rickety budget, just in time for the summer vacation, but the fragile tent will hardly survive the windy gusts of autumn. Every cabinet minister insists on more money in what is already a sadly sagging economy. Yes, it’s still the wealthiest in Europe, featuring lucky trapeze artists flying high up there, like Armin Papperger of Rheinmetall (Panther tanks), with an annual wage envelope of €3.6m, or Oliver Blume of VW with a fat €9.7 m. But those down below, setting up props, clearing messy sawdust or other hard jobs now face the lowest growth rates on the continent, with many groceries out of reach, soaring rents, evictions increasing, poor kids disadvantaged, doctors and teachers far too few and more pensioners dependent on free food pantries.
Some problems are remnants of the Covid misery, but a main reason for the bleak picture is the big fuel cost increase, with the Russian pipeline shut down (and, not so mysteriously, blown up), forcing reliance on liquefied fracking gas shipped expensively from the U.S. Gulf Coast, the Arab Gulf states, or Russian oil repurchased from India. Another major cause: the huge sums spent for a military build-up, for fearsome measures looking increasingly like preparations for war, with the chosen adversary constantly accused of aggressive aims—while more and more German weapons and troops are stationed closer and closer to Russian heartland targets and seaways.
Wherever one looks In the coalition cabinet the ministers of the three parties are constantly at odds, one against the other, somehow recalling that worldwide game “Hammer-Scissors-Paper.” The smallest of the three, the Free Democrats (FDP), relentlessly pro-business, insists that there be no tax increases for the wealthy (disguised under the heading “productive middle class”). Such generosity to the high flyers, already astonishingly undertaxed, requires tough stinginess, with at best the most modest improvements, for single parents, children, the elderly and the jobless. But the FDP, balancing along the 5% line needed to remain in the Bundestag, is constantly blackmailing its two partners. If it should quit then the government would collapse, a special election would be required, and since all three parties stand so low in the polls, having ended miserably in the EU elections, they would immediately face political disaster.
The Greens, heading to the top of the party pile less than three years ago, look very sad today, and are probably most disliked. While failing attempts to preserve their mainstay, ecological chastity, they have often crept under warm covers with Christian rightists, accepting compromises on the environment but striving for vanguard position in bellicose demands to hit out against Russia, now in Ukraine—also economically. “Ruin Russia!” was the call of Green Foreign Minister Annelina Baerbock. It often seems that the Greens have the closest bonds and kowtow most deeply to U.S. capital interests (and German ones as well), and are torn between their martial foreign policy and a worsening reputation with home-owners fearing higher costs to isolate and warm their homes and with farmers angered by regulations against herbicides and stricter protection for animals—forced on them, as many see it, by a bunch of rich bio-vegans!
Even the Social Democrats (SPD), the trio leaders, are polling at about 15%, only half that of their traditional (but also diminished) Christian (CDU-CSU) rivals. Frightened by losses among working people, the SPD must display social consciousness, at least verbally. But although its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has called for a €15 hourly minimum wage, he also insisted on an extra hundred billion euros for militarization, then even more, all at the cost of working people. And while still dragging his feet about sending Zelenskyy the Taurus missiles, capable of wrecking both Moscow’s subway system and all its military bunkers, he is okaying every other kind of military hardware for Kyiv, as well as continuing support for a genocidal Netanyahu & Co. in Gaza. While a few Social Democrats—very few—have dared to call for negotiations and peace in both wars, the loudest bellicose crusader in Germany is Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who calls himself a Social Democrat. He is now in Alaska, helping to establish another German outpost in a far distant area, but not too far to angrily denounce a small cut in the immense German military budget. It’s all needed, of course for “defense.” Not long ago he was busy setting up a permanent German outpost in Lithuania. And it is Pistorius who has called for a rebirth of military conscription, which had been basically shut down in 2011. When this trial balloon was punctured for sailing too far and too fast he sent up a smaller balloon; no drafting but a questionnaire for draft age Germans, compulsory for males, voluntary for females, setting them up for drafting “when necessary.” That balloon is still afloat. To make things clear, he demanded “Kriegstüchtigkeit” (war fitness), elating those hoping for conflict but frightening most of the others. Here are his words:
Once again we must get used to the idea that there could be a danger of war in Europe. And that means: We must become fit for war, we must be able to defend ourselves and position the Bundeswehr and society for it.
These words of Pistorius revolve around Ukraine, where they really mean a demand to “fight to the finish” by NATO, led by the USA (or, if need be with Trump, by Germany) and thus inching ever closer to the nuclear precipice. Denmark, Holland, Norway and Belgium plan to send F-16 fighter jets; Denmark and Holland said there would be no restrictions on Kyiv striking targets in Russia. F-16s can carry nuclear weapons, and Russia has said the planes will be considered a nuclear threat. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg states that 500,000 troops are at “high readiness,” and in the next five years NATO will “acquire thousands of air defense and artillery systems, 850 modern aircraft, mostly fifth-generation F-35s,and many other high-end capabilities.”
NATO is now celebrating 75 years of opposing the USSR and Russia; Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas will probably succeed Stoltenberg as secretary general; she is equally bellicose, if not more so, and the Scholz government enthusiastically joins the celebrations while welcoming U.S. long-range missile launchers in Germany. The hooded figure with the scythe can well rub his bony fingers.
Who opposes these deadly dangers? First of all, a fair section of the German population, most notably in its eastern states, where older generations were immersed at every occasion in an official GDR stress on “Peace” and where many visited the USSR as students, workers, allied soldiers or tourists and found that Russians, despite their funny alphabet, were human beings with neither spiked tails nor horns.
Surprisingly perhaps, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) opposes military support for Ukraine. This is hardly the result of any pacifist feelings among its leaders, who praise NATO, praise a German armaments buildup, support a military draft and praise Israel’s war against Gaza even more vigorously than the government parties which teeter between very faint “concern” for civilians and continuing full support for Netanyahu. But for Ukraine the AfD calls for peace—and tends to support Putin. One can speculate about the reasons, but this position may well have helped gain amazing popularity in the Eastern states; it is now in first place in Thuringia (29%), in Brandenburg (25%) and Saxony (30%) and all three face important state elections in September.
More important for AfD strength is no doubt a widespread dissatisfaction with the economy. Although Germany is still near the top in exports and average living standards, many face great uncertainty with the general decline, making the future look bleaker for offspring generations. This is strongest among East Germans, who often feel cheated and condemned to second class status despite all the promises of 1990. The AfD, nationally in second place, lays the blame above all on “all those refugees and immigrants, mostly illegally here to get handouts, pushing down wage scales and far too often criminals and rapists”—an almost literal translation of voices in the USA. It is widespread racist prejudice, and worries about failure and war, which have given the AfD its big lead.
But what about the LINKE (Left), always proud to call itself the “Party of Peace”? It was often alone in opposing military involvement in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Mali, the waters off Lebanon and Somalia, and now even in Pacific regions. It opposed armament programs and the entire return to modernized Prussian-type militarism in all its spheres.
But then came Ukraine. And then came Gaza! And the Left split again, as elsewhere, as so often. Some, without refraining from condemnation of the Russian march into Ukraine, blamed NATO’s relentless steamroller expansion eastward for genuine angst in Moscow and condemned Washington’s very explicit goal of world hegemony, which it called a “rules-based international order”—despite its defiance of so many rules, from depleted uranium and white phosphorus bombing to its horrendous regime changes in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia—and so many others.
But others, in LINKE leadership, chose to appease NATO, to accept increasing weapons shipments to Kyiv (and even to Netanyahu) and to reject dramatic appeals and rallies demanding negotiations and peace, largely using the pathetically weak alibi that AfD and other rightists were not being sufficiently barred from such rallies. It was such positions and decisions, which indicated the desire of some LINKE leaders to gain acceptance through compromises, and maybe win a ministerial armchair or two in a national cabinet, which caused the breakaway of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), headed by the popular, attractive, master debater who gave it her name. Within less than seven months and only rudimentary organization it has risen to 7% (sometimes 9%) in the national polls and to third place in eastern Germany, mostly at the cost of the LINKE, which (except for a few urban strongholds), is fighting for survival, now with only 2-3% nationally and with quickly diminishing poll percentage in the East. (In Thuringia BSW 20, LINKE 14, Saxony BSW 15, LINKE 3, Brandeburg BSW 8, LINKE 2)
With the LINKE already slipping badly, many clearly hoped—and hope—that a fighting new party might revive a genuine opposition in Germany. And Sahra’s party, like Sahra herself, took a strong position against the mass murder and devastation in Gaza and, while joining in condemning the Russian attack, supporting “not weapons shipments but demands for a cease-fire, negotiations and peace in Ukraine” and moves to a lasting détente between the EU and Russia, and China too.
But some on the left now have questions about this surprisingly strong new party. Sahra moves close to the AfD on immigration questions, supporting stricter controls, accepting only “genuine asylum-seekers” not economic immigrants, the quick ejection of miscreants—slogans especially popular in the East but disturbingly close to slogans of the AfD (and increasingly in all other parties, except the LINKE). Nor has Sahra defined any militant economic demands for working people, other than “fair wages,” while urging more or less a return to the prospering West German “normalcy” of the 1950s and 1960s! Her goals and motivation are unclear; so is the question of how much influence some very good people will have, like Sevim Dagdelen, who actively joined the fight to free Assange and made a moving speech on peace lst week in New York.
There are some leftists, basically Marxists, who opposed the split from the LINKE and still hope, at its party congress in October, to save the original, hopeful party from its fatal opportunism, corruption—and its looming oblivion
So much is up in the air; above all, who will head the governments in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony after September. Only three parties are showing strength, the AfD, the Christians, and the Wagenknecht BSW. But none are close to the needed majority and, as it now stands, not one is willing to join with either of the other two. A situation not unlike France since July 7th!
In conclusion unusual news again, perhaps most important of all, involving sparks of genuine hope. Hungary has now taken up its six month turn as head of the European union and the first move of Viktor Orbán, hitherto the autocratic pariah of the outfit, was to visit Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the cause of peace in Ukraine, perhaps on a basis resembling plans worked out early in the war in Minsk, then Ankara, but skuttled under pressure from Britain’s Boris Johnson and Washington. One can hate or admire any of the gentlemen now involved; I would endorse Satan himself if he could help end this God-awful war and move towards the urgently-needed peace in the area—and elsewhere. Perhaps, with the help of Orbán and maybe a new leadership in France, this may finally become possible. If you are pious it’s worth praying for. If you are human, it’s worth fighting for! In Berlin, Washington, Paris, also in Budapest, Moscow and everywhere else!
https://mronline.org/2024/07/11/squarin ... y-11-2024/
Unexpected result of French election bars a neofascist victory, constituting a moral as well as a political victory for the Left
By Kevin B. Anderson (Posted Jul 12, 2024)
Originally published: The International Marxist-Humanist on July 8, 2024 (more by The International Marxist-Humanist)
Summary: The July 2024 parliamentary elections were a political and moral victory for the left, and not just in France—Editors
As French parliamentary elections pushed the leftist New Popular Front into first place, a pleasant sort of shock greeted revolutionary and progressive-minded people in France and around the world who had feared the triumph of the neofascist National Rally party. To be sure, recent elections in India and Turkey have seen the authoritarian right lose some support, while in Poland, Spain, and the UK, moderates defeated conservatives and reactionaries. But this was different.
Not only had one of the world’s oldest democratic republics been faced with the potential of a neofascist government for the first time since the Vichy Regime during the Nazi Occupation. But equally surprising was the fact that the dam that stopped the right was forged more from the left than from the supposed “center.” After the National Rally placed first in the June 9 European Parliament elections, rightward-moving “centrist” President Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections for June 30/July 7. He implied, with the arrogance that has won him the sobriquet “Jupiter,” that he wanted to give the French people an opportunity to “correct” their erroneous vote of June 9, presumably by voting in greater numbers for his Together bloc. Some thought he really wanted the neofascists to gain power so they could discredit themselves, in a centrist version of the old Stalinist strategy of the worse the better, repackaged today sometimes as “accelerationism.” (In the French political system, the president serves for six years but the prime minister is elected by the National Assembly and can be from a rival political bloc.)
Macron and almost all other factions of the dominant classes wrote off the left, which had seen its promising 2022 coalition, the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES), founder over Palestine after October 7, 2023. NUPES had united the leftwing France Unbowed, by far its largest component in terms of electoral support, with the shrinking and rather moderate Socialist and Communist parties, and Europe Ecology-the Greens. But to the surprise of many, in June 2024 they did not double down on their divisions. These had been stoked in recent months by center-left media like Le Monde, which demonized France Unbowed’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon as an antisemite, an authoritarian, and an irresponsible critic of the police. Instead, under pressure from their rank-file members and other social forces, the four main leftist parties reunified themselves into another electoral bloc, the New Popular Front, within a matter of days after Macron’s reckless call for a snap election. The New Popular Front’s June 2024 program featured stronger support for Palestine than the Socialists had been espousing, but also more robust support for Ukraine than France Unbowed had expressed up to then. It united more easily around a strong pro-environment platform and on repudiation of Macron’s unpopular increase of the retirement age from 62 to 64, which had touched off mass strikes in 2023 and that he rammed through under France’s semi-authoritarian Gaullist constitution without even a vote in the National Assembly. The New Popular Front also took strong stances in support of immigrant rights, in contrast to Macron’s viciously anti-immigrant policies, which were increasingly echoing those of the neo-fascists. There was little mention of women’s rights, however, as feminists noted, and none of police racism and brutality of the kind that sparked the June 2023 uprising of marginalized youth.
Over the past several years, the National Rally has continued to sanitize its image under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, who rejected her father’s open expressions of fascist sympathies and antisemitism, even joining the large “antisemitism” march last year that was aimed equally or more so at supporters of Palestine. The National Rally put forth the telegenic 28-year-old Jordan Bardella as its prime minister-designate. In addition to their threats to deport immigrants en masse, Bardella and his coterie stated openly that they planned to deny “important” state positions to dual citizens. It was widely pointed out that this was also the first decree of the Vichy Regime, soon followed by measures against the Left and the Jewish community. As to their at least verbal opposition to Macron’s austerity and his raising of the retirement age, this seemed to fade as they courted big capital. National Rally’s attacks on the environmental movement also increased, as seen in their slogans targeting an allegedly “punitive ecology.”
In the first round of the parliamentary elections on June 30, the National Rally placed first (34% of the vote), with the New Popular Front second (28%), and Macron’s party a humiliating third (21%). With the prospect of a neofascist victory now at hand, not in the relatively powerless European Parliament, but at the helm of the French state, with the prime minister almost coequal in power to the president, public opinion and various progressive organizations and spokespersons sprang into action. Leftist parties, mainstream media like Le Monde, intellectuals, trade unions, and other associations demanded that in three or four-way races where the National Rally was a contender, candidates who supported the democratic republic (1) pull out (désiste) in favor of another supporter of democracy who had scored higher in the first round, and (2) call upon their supporters to back the other democratic candidate against the neofascists. From day one, the New Popular Front adhered to this policy almost everywhere, which included backing distasteful figures like Gérald Darmanin, Macron’s minister of the interior, who had orchestrated repression against workers, students, and ecologists. (He won against the National Rally.)
Macron’s centrists and a few rightwing socialist leaders hemmed and hawed, with some saying they would have to oppose “both extremes,” and, in particular, that they could not support a France Unbowed candidate even against the National Rally. They complained that France Unbowed had strongly attacked Israel, had condemned police brutality and Islamophobia, and attacked capitalism as well. Since France Unbowed is the largest party of the left nowadays, that was very problematic indeed. But such views were largely refuted, with people like Jacques Toubon, a veteran conservative who served in several important ministerial positions in the 1990s, telling reporters, “We need to erect a global republican front, including with France Unbowed.” Toubon praised Mélenchon’s party in particular for its democratic discipline, in contrast to the dilatory stance of the people around Macron (“’Il faut ériger un front republican global, y compris avec LFI,” Jacques Toubon interview with Thébaud Metais and Laurent Telo, Le Monde, July 3, 2024). This kind of pressure pulled the centrists into line, though not as completely as the left. In this sense, the parliamentary victory of July 7 for the New Popular Front was not only a political but also type moral victory for the left. Once again, the socialist and working-class left has shown itself the strongest defender of democracy.
The specific results were as follows, in a National Assembly of 577 members that require 289 votes for a majority: New Popular Front (182), Macron’s Together (168), National Rally (143), with the mainstream conservative party The Republicans at 45 seats and other leftists now holding 13. Within the New Popular Front itself, France Unbowed won the largest number of seats (74), followed by the Socialist Party (59), the Ecologists (28) and the Communist Party (9).
On the evening of July 7, as election results were announced, somber and youthful crowds that had gathered to launch the fight against the neofascists were they to come to power, or at least obtain first place, exploded into joyful celebration. In the Place de la République in Paris, a giant French flag went up, with the slogan “immigrants are the fabric of society” written across the white part of it, while pro-Palestine and anti-genocide banners waved underneath and to the side. A young delivery worker exulted about the repudiation of racism he saw in the vote: He told a reporter that contra the dominant narrative, the election proved that “the majority of the French people want us, the Arabs, to stay in France!” (Christoph Ayad et al., “La joie et l’amertume, les deux France du 7 juillet,” Le Monde, July 9, 2024). In Marseille, another delivery worker celebrating the victory recounted that, as the National Rally seemed to be surging during the week between the first and second rounds of the election, so were open expressions of racism: “A customer said to me that he was voting for the National Rally so that people like me would leave [the country]” (Benoit Floc’h et al., “Forte mobilization: ‘people are very concerned’,” Le Monde, July 9, 2024). Elsewhere, Black and Arab workers reported being called the n-word in public places for the first time in years during the electoral campaigns or being told they would have to leave France once the neofascists won. LGBTQ people also reported verbal and physical attacks by homophobes, who warned them of further and escalating attacks once Bardella won the election.
As was also pointed out during the heady celebrations of July 7, the National Rally has not disappeared and will continue to fight for its reactionary, fascist policies. Nor is the victory of the left one that is strong enough to allow it to actually implement its program. That will take popular mobilization on a sustained basis, at the very least. But the left is on the move in France in 2024, blocking the neofascists and fighting for a positive program. This is a big step forward, and not just for France.
If I may be permitted, I would like to conclude this essay with a quote from my new book, A Political Sociology of Twenty-First Century Revolutions and Resistances: From the Arab World to Iran to Africa, Ukraine, and France, due out in August:
The principle Marx articulated back in 1882 still holds, that a revolution in a less developed part of the world can achieve full victory if it can combine with similar movements in the more industrialized regions. France, which remains part of the latter, stands out for having experienced the most numerous and most persistent radical movements in the recent period. Three very large social movements and upheavals have convulsed France in the past five years: the rural Yellow Vests of 2018—19, the 2023 mass strikes of the urban working class, and the 2023 uprising of the urban poor and oppressed minorities.
To this list can now be added the electoral contests of 2024, which barred the way to neofascism, at least for now.
https://mronline.org/2024/07/12/unexpec ... -the-left/
******
Without Evidence Serb “Genocide” at Srebrenica Has Been Invoked by Western Leaders to Justify “Humanitarian” Intervention
By George Pumphrey - July 11, 2024 1
[Source: fidh.org]
Lack of evidence can never be acknowledged, because it would undercut the rationale for military intervention.
[This article is published on the 29th anniversary of the so-called Srebrenica massacre, whose context has been distorted by Western media and governments with the purpose of supporting renewed military interventions allegedly undertaken to stop human rights abuses and genocide.—Editors]
In June 2021, the Biden White House issued a statement approving the decision of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague to affirm its conviction of Serb General Ratko Mladic for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia, where Serb forces purportedly massacred 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims.
Claiming that the United States had helped lead the international effort to end the atrocities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and bring perpetrators like Mladic to justice, the White House statement proclaimed: “This historic judgment shows that those who commit horrific crimes will be held accountable. It also reinforces our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world.”
Former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic enters the courtroom prior to the pronouncement of his appeal judgment at The Hague on June 8, 2021. [Source: businesslive.co.za]
On May 23, 2024, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution officially designating July 11 as “International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide of 1995.”
That resolution, as shown by the voting results, was highly contested. Unlike the two other UNGA genocide resolutions – Rwanda in 2003 and the Holocaust in 2005 – which both passed by consensus, this resolution showed a highly polarized General Assembly. Of the UNGA’s 193 members, only 84 voted in favor, while 19 against, 68 abstained, and 22 did not participate in the voting. This amounts to a passage of only 84 in favor to 109.
The underlying purpose of this resolution was to have that body officially declare the alleged Bosnian Serb “massacre” in Srebrenica a “genocide” and to make any refutation of this still-contested allegation illegal.
Of course, Germany’s motivation is not altruistic. This resolution – especially at this time, when the German government is providing military, legal, and political support to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza – is not because the German government has suddenly become opposed to the crime of genocide. Its official policy throughout history shows the contrary to be the case. The reason would lie closer to Germany’s past and current political objectives.
The German government is ill-placed to accuse anyone of genocide, given the fact that it has never acknowledged that its own crimes committed during World War II had amounted to “genocide” – hiding behind the fact that the term “genocide” was only coined in the aftermath of World War II to describe the horrendous crimes its forces had committed throughout the war.
The German government currently in power refuses to legally recognize that its colonial forces had committed genocide on the Herero and Nama peoples of German Southwest Africa, today’s Namibia, at the beginning of the previous century. Using various tricks, it persists in refusing to pay reparations to the descendants of its victims. (endnote to be added[1])
No German or West German government has ever recognized the legality of the verdicts handed down by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Also to hide this blemish, the German government was an ardent supporter of the U.S.-initiated kangaroo court set up in The Hague—the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)—for the purpose of providing a bogus judicial image of legality of U.S.-German support of the right-wing extremist governments in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in their campaign against the Serbs.
Had it not been for the German government’s unilateral recognition of Slovenia and its former World War II fascist ally, Croatia, there may not have been a break-up of Yugoslavia, or at least not one accompanied by the ethnic-motivated violence that ensued.
At this moment, charges are being brought by Nicaragua at the International Court of Justice against the German government for its complicity in genocide, on the basis of Germany’s steadfast political, military and propagandistic support for the genocide being committed by the Israeli regime on the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip.
But most importantly, Germany is seeking to achieve official declaratory international “confirmation” of allegations it cannot prove. On the contrary, not being able to provide the evidence of the alleged massacre of up to 8,000 males, several belligerent countries have been applying pressure on governments in the United Nations to sign on to what amounts to a goose in a sack.
In NATO countries—the EU and Canada among others—efforts are being made to outlaw discussion of Srebrenica, particularly discussion of whether the presumed “mass execution” was ever committed, as well as whether an alleged “mass execution” solely of males, constitutes “genocide”—when the women, children and elderly of the enclave had been orderly evacuated to safety behind Muslim lines.[1]
For nearly 30 years, Srebrenica has provided justification for “humanitarian interventions,” the idea that the U.S. and West have a “right”—even an “obligation”—to prevent massacres and genocide from ever reoccurring by attacking a sovereign country and overthrowing its government.
Site with mass graves commemorating alleged genocide at Srebrenica. [Source: getyourguide.com]
A factual recapitulation of what occurred in Srebrenica casts doubt on the official narrative.
The Truth Is Buried
Journalist and author Diana Johnstone,[2] who has been closely following the developments in the Balkans for decades, noted in an article published in The Nation:
[Source: nachdenkseiten.de]
“When, in the early months of the war, which raged across Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo, seconded by Croatian agencies in Zagreb, presented Western media with reports indicating that the Serbs were pursuing a deliberate policy of genocide, a basic principle of caution, essential to justice was rapidly abandoned. That is the principle that the more serious the accusation, the greater the need for proof, since otherwise accusations will become an instrument of the lynch mob.”[3]
In the case of Srebrenica, the lynch mob was ready to turn on anyone who questioned the official narrative of Serb genocide—even though that narrative was built upon unproven reports and disinformation advanced by secret services and public relations agencies.
Sorting Fact from Fiction
One thing should be made clear—contrary to what the mass media would have everyone believe—the Serb troops, who walked into Srebrenica, on July 11, were not an “invading force.”
“Before his death in a road accident in Bosnia, U.S. envoy Robert C. Frasure worked on a diplomatic solution that would have traded the putative safe areas, Srebrenica, Žepa and Gorazde for the Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo. But the same hardline U.S. faction that arranged illegal arms for Muslim forces, helped kill Frasure’s diplomatic solution in the spring of 1995.”[4]
Robert C. Frasure [Source: en.wikipedia.org]
The Serb forces’ entry into the enclave was the agreed coordinated territorial exchanges in preparation for the Dayton Agreements. The Muslim troops that had been operating out of Srebrenica attacking the surrounding Serb villages had already withdrawn the day before the Serb contingent’s entry.
Srebrenica first became associated with a large-scale summary execution one month after Serb forces had taken over the administration of the enclave. On August 10, 1995, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright hijacked the agenda of a closed session of the UN Security Council preparing to open discussions on Croatia’s “Operation Storm.” Croatia’s “Operation Storm” ethnically cleansed the Krajina Serb population—the largest ethnic cleansing operation of the Yugoslav breakup. It had been executed with official U.S. and mercenary assistance.
Croatian Brigadier General Krešimir Ćosić and U.S. Army Lieutenant General Wesley Clark discussing the Siege of Bihać on November 29, 1994, as part of Operation Storm. [Source: en.wikipedia.org]
Albright showed aerial surveillance photos purporting to show that Bosnian Serb troops “committed wide-scale atrocities against Muslim civilians” in the aftermath of the July 12 takeover of Srebrenica. She was not more precise than to say “wide-scale atrocities against Muslim civilians.”
When The New York Times, the following day, reported on Albright’s peep-show, the journal noted: “Ms. Albright’s presentation today came as thousands of Serb refugees fled their homes after a Croatian military offensive, carried out with tacit American approval, overran an area of Croatia previously held by rebel Serbs.”[5]
While making her presentation to the Security Council, Albright was already preparing political and public opinion for the fact that there would be no evidence to back up her claims. She warned: “We will keep watching to see if the Bosnian Serbs try to erase the evidence of what they have done.”[6] The question today is, where is all that evidence that Albright was keeping an eye on?
Madeleine Albright speaking before the UN Security Council in May 1994. [Source: cbc.ca]
On September 13, 1995, three months after Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published a press statement that stated:
“The ICRC’s head of operations for Western Europe, Angelo Gnaedinger, visited Pale and Belgrade from 2 to 7 September to obtain information from the Bosnian Serb authorities about the 3,000 persons from Srebrenica whom witnesses say were arrested by Bosnian Serb forces. The ICRC has asked for access as soon as possible to all those arrested (so far it has been able to visit only about 200 detainees), and for details of any deaths. The ICRC has also approached the Bosnia-Herzegovina authorities seeking information on some 5,000 individuals who fled Srebrenica, some of whom reached central Bosnia.”[7]
The Associated Press (AP) had obviously fanned out its field reporters to interview various less-informed ICRC employees, on details in Gnaedinger’s press statement. Spin doctors then transformed the answers they gave into what became the AP article published by The New York Times on September 15:
“About 8,000 Muslims are missing from Srebrenica, the first of two United Nations-designated ‘safe areas’ overrun by Bosnian Serb troops in July, the Red Cross said today…Among the missing, were 3,000, mostly men, who were seen being arrested by Serbs. After the collapse of Srebrenica, the Red Cross collected 10,000 names of missing people, said Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman. In addition to those arrested, about 5,000 ‘have simply disappeared,’ she said.”[8]
Back in the 1970s, the International Herald Tribune carried a series of articles on the scandal over the discovery of the CIA having manipulated the media into spreading its grey[9] and black[10] propaganda. In one of the articles, The New York Times quoted “an Agency [CIA] official [who had] said that the CIA had in the past used paid agents in the foreign bureaus of the Associated Press and United Press International to slip agency-prepared dispatches onto the news wire.”[11] The fact that the “flagship” New York Times carried this grey propaganda gives more credibility to the story.
Eyewitnesses
However, even the original accounting provided by the Red Cross had itself been false. Gnaedinger used the numbers of “3,000 persons” from Srebrenica, whom “witnesses say” were arrested. Who were those witnesses he was referring to?
They were none other than the Dutch Battalion (“Dutchbat”) UN Protection Force stationed in Srebrenica. They were eyewitnesses to the flight of the Muslim soldiers prior to the entry of Serb forces, to the evacuation of the women, children and elderly to Tuzla by the Bosnian Serb military, as well as to the arrests of the men of military age, who had remained in the enclave. However, the Dutchbat had given a different estimate of how many had been arrested.
Dutchbat soldiers. [Source: wikipedia.org]
During the course of their evacuation from Srebrenica back home to the Netherlands, journalists asked Dutchbat soldiers about the Serb troops’ behavior. Their answers gave quite a different impression, than what the media have been reporting since then.
The New York Times reported on July 24, 1995, that the “Dutch peacekeeping troops evacuated from Srebrenica…say that Bosnian Serb invaders…abducted from 150‑300 men aged 16‑60.”[12]
This would mean that the 300 “abducted” Muslim men arrested as prisoners of war by Serb troops, witnessed by the Dutchbat in Srebrenica, had in the meantime been multiplied by ten to become the “3,000” that “witnesses” had supposedly reported in the Red Cross’s press statement.
The 200 prisoners the Red Cross had visited in custody, would come much closer to the Dutchbat’s imprecise estimate of “from 150‑300 men.”
The Dutchbat had also, in fact, been eyewitnesses to summary executions in Srebrenica. According to The New York Times, “Dutch peacekeeping troops evacuated from Srebrenica…say that Bosnian Serb invaders executed at least 10 Muslim defenders” and explain, “in one incident, Bosnian Serb invaders had taken a Muslim man, placed him against a wall and shot him in the back of the head. In another, nine men had been executed in a house, shot in the back in the same room.”[13]
Summary executions are war crimes. But ten executions would not fit, by any stretch of the imagination, a narrative of “genocide” that Bosnian Muslim authorities and their Western allies have been trying to pin on Serb forces.
Video showing Bosnian Serb soldiers allegedly executing Muslim prisoners in Srebrenica. [Source: islamweb.net]
The New York Times reports that “the accounts of the Dutch,…given during a series of interviews and news conferences, suggested that the killing they had seen had been more limited than refugees had described.”[14]
However, in order to limit the impact of their testimony, the Dutchbat had to be discredited. This process had already begun during their preparations to return home. The Dutch Minister of Defense, Joris Voorhoeve at the time, had arrived in Zagreb not only to accompany his troops on their homeward journey, but also to begin to discredit them as eyewitnesses. Over the next decades their eyewitness testimony was largely ignored and discredited, while institutions in the Netherlands compiled voluminous “reports” supporting the unproven narrative of the pro-NATO ICTY.
“We don’t know what happened, where we didn’t have eyes and ears,” Voorhoeve is quoted to have said, and he “insisted that the officers’ version [of what they had seen – GP] did not minimize the possibility that atrocities had been committed.…If only two-thirds of the refugee accounts are true, this adds up to horrible events,” he told reporters. “What we do know is that several thousand men and boys are missing” since the city fell, he said. He stated this even after several journals had reported that thousands of the “missing” had already made it to safety behind Muslim lines.
Dutchbat Commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Thom Karremans and Defense Minister Joris Voorhoeve in Zagreb days before the “Srebrenica massacre” in July 1995. [Source: wikipedia.org]
This is clearly an effort to discredit the Dutch eyewitnesses to what had been—and had not been—happening on the ground in Srebrenica, while he was sitting in his office nearly 2,000 miles away in The Hague.
(Much more at link.)
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/0 ... ervention/
PM #Orbán actively exploited to ridicule & troll the EU & spread instability, I would like to remind that it would be still possible to deprive him the #CouncilPresidency & move on with an extended #Polish one.
