This latest collapse is another twist in Paris’s downward spiral into terminal political crisis.
Proletarian writers
Thursday 19 December 2024
France’s ongoing political turmoil is mirrored in every imperialist country. At heart, it is the result of the combination of deepening economic crisis with the growing crisis of legitimacy. As the masses become more angry and cynical, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the ruling class to rule in the old way.
President Emmanuel Macron’s panic decision last summer to dissolve the French parliament (in the hope of resurrecting some pretence of a national consensus held together by ‘moderate’ centrist parties of left and right and with ‘extremist’ parties safely relegated to the fringes) only made matters worse for fans of centrism.
To the horror of ‘moderates’, in the first round of the parliamentary elections Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party initially emerged as the strongest force, connecting with the desperate anger and contempt in which most workers hold the whole political class.
Faced with rampant inflation, the intensifying cost of living crisis, economic blowback from anti-Russian sanctions and the expensive and dangerous support for the Kiev fascists in a war in which no French worker holds any stake, workers voted en masse to kick out the ‘moderates’ whose ‘moderation’ had delivered only corruption, austerity, poverty and war.
It looked for a while as if there might be a government led by Marine Le Pen, whose right-wing populist party came out on top in the first round of the elections. Come the second round of the election though, the forces of ‘moderation’ caught their collective breath and, by tactical voting, kept the forces of ‘darkness’ at bay, forcing the RN down to third place and preserving the ‘moderate’ tone of political discourse whilst also preserving the political elite’s sacred duty of unbroken service to imperialism.
Apparently feeling that the actual funding and arming of fascists in Ukraine and elsewhere by Macron and other French ‘moderates’ was of no account, the social-democratic and green ‘progressives’ clapped each other on the back at this supposed great ‘anti-fascist victory’. But for the increasingly impoverished poor workers, many of whom had been driven to vote for Le Pen in a gut reaction against the entire political class – and against poverty and war in particular – this outcome solved nothing.
Clearly, a maverick right-wing populist like Le Pen has nothing to offer workers other than more of the same xenophobia and empty promises as those of the liberal elite she affects to despise. But the cure for fascism is not liberalism, which is its direct facilitator. Nor will tactical voting aimed at restoring ‘stability’ to the crisis-ridden capitalist system do anything to restore the fortunes of the working poor. Their only salvation lies in the wakening of the masses to the fight for socialism.
Rebellion against deepening austerity
The collapse of the three-month-old government led by Michel Barnier will be welcomed by workers raging against his proposed poverty budget for 2025, which included tax rises of €60bn and cuts to social security and welfare totalling €40bn. Acting as the European Union’s hitman, Barnier declared that these cuts are essential to rein in a public deficit of 6.1 percent of GDP and bring France back towards alignment with the EU diktat of a 3 percent limit.
When it became clear that parliament would refuse to sanction this budget, Barnier reached for paragraph 3 of Article 49 of the French constitution, which proclaims that, “after deliberation by the Council of Ministers”, it is okay to force a bill through without a vote (as Macron himself did last year so as to force through a bill raising the pensionable age that was being steadfastly opposed by the masses of the people and the majority of parliamentarians).
This threat was countered by the so-called ‘New Popular Front’ tabling a motion of no confidence in the government, which was duly passed, assisted by the votes of RN.
At the time of writing (7 December), France, a key pillar of the EU, has neither a government nor a budget for 2025, and only a ‘caretaker’ prime minister in the sorry person of Barnier.
Such periods of instability, which are bound to multiply as the global capitalist crisis of overproduction deepens, should not be the occasion for lamentation. Rather, they need to be seized on as crucial opportunities for advancing the socialist consciousness and organisation of the working class.
https://thecommunists.org/2024/12/19/ne ... ier-falls/
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Medley Report: Europe's Descent, Oreshnik, and More
Simplicius
Dec 19, 2024
A new speech by Georgian pretender Salome Zourabichvili to the EU Parliament is a must-see. It is the very apotheosis of the Rules Based Order’s terminal decline, on which we’ve enlarged at length here. As things get down to the wire and the European ruling elite squander their mandate from the people, they have no avenue left but to ratchet up totalitarian policies to stay in power—and to keep the system, that interconnected grid of elite deep state power in control. As that occurs, their anti-democratic calls become increasingly naked, as they’re forced to say the quiet parts aloud: (Video at link.)
It is in the context of what recently happened in Romania and elsewhere that her speech is seen in its most egregious light. She essentially calls on European powers to intervene in her own country, to act against her own people and government, which she calls illegitimate; for the record she’s now called both the parliamentary and presidential elections illegitimate and has vowed to illegally stay past her deadline.
There are so many outright shockingly hypocritical and treasonous statements it would be too long to list them all. Right from the getgo she blames Russian “imperialistic tendencies” for wanting to influence Georgia, yet almost in the same breath declares that Georgia is a “strategic interest” for Europe, and that Europe should therefore move in to take control of it. Is that not imperialism by the same name?
She goes on along the tack of saying the unspoken by naming every strategic advantage that NATO and the EU would see with Georgia under their control, such as control of the Black Sea, Armenia, the Caucuses, amongst other things.
She hails the illegal nullification of the Romanian election, which is met with resounding applause by the corrupt unelected bureaucrats.1And this shows the flagrant corruption of the system—a dying empire seeks only absolute power and expansion at all costs, nothing else matters. Laws, rules, democratic principles are mere frivolities to be used as bargaining chips or talking points as means to an end.
This speech has particular significance because Zourabichvili’s term expires on December 29, when the newly elected ex-Dream Party president Mikheil Kavelashvili is set to take office. The treasonously mad madame has openly vowed she will not step down, which means a culminating point of unprecedented proportions is due in a week and a half’s time.
But the wise leaders of the Global South have hearkened to the misprisions of the West’s corrupt puppet satraps. One must but listen to how keenly they apprehend what is going on. At a time when Macron’s government is collapsing, Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote leading to early snap elections in February, Biden was virtually couped and replaced, Trudeau set to resign according to rumors, with the entire Western order in terminal crisis, wise leaders like Azerbaijan’s Aliyev understand everything. Here he observes Macron is turning France into a ‘failed state’: (Video at link.)
This comes just as alarm signals sound off on Germany’s coming economic failure:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... reversible
Well, what do you know?
The article goes on to describe the darkening malaise:
As living standards erode, voters cast around for someone to blame, and the social tensions drive away the foreign talent the country desperately needs. The toxic cocktail of caution and resentment would then ripple out across Europe.
“Everyone’s life, little by little, gets a little bit worse for the rest of their existence,” said Webb.
Meanwhile, in today’s big Q&A Putin actually pointed out something much-overlooked: that while inflation in Russia was 9%, Russian wages actually grew around ~9% over the same period, thus equalizing the inflation. Russia’s economic problems can be characterized more as: “too much of a good thing.” And this is a far better problem to have than what most of Europe is experiencing.
As a last general reflection: As the institutions which have governed the globe since the Cold War slowly become undone, the world begins entering an active ‘strongman’ phase. One governed by the likes of Netanyahu and Erdogan, who no longer fear for the brakes and baffles previously in place owing to the respected international institutional norms which the West has now ineptly eroded. Years upon years of total disregard for true Rule of Law by corrupt, coopted Western rulers has resulted in the complete discrediting of everything from the UN, ICC, OSCE, IAEA, and tens of other adjacent bulwarks against chaos.
(Much more at link.)
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/med ... t-oreshnik
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Ukraine Conflict Has a High Economic Impact on Europe: Orban
Ukrainian military in Kharkiv hunt people down on the streets and forcefully send them to the front. Nov. 2024. X/ @Megatron_ron
December 20, 2024 Hour: 9:44 am
The Hungarian leader stressed the importance of establishing a lasting security system once the conflict ends.
On Friday morning, Hungarian prime minister said that ending the conflict in Ukraine is of primary economic interest for Europe.
Speaking from Brussels, Orban said that “those farther away from the war can develop at a much greater pace than us Europeans, who are in the vicinity.”
He expressed his belief that European leaders “feel this too.” In Hungary, people “have had enough of this state of war, enough of the inflation, enough of the sanctions,” Orban said, adding that citizens want their national economies to return to the path of development.
The Hungarian prime minister stressed the importance of establishing a “lasting, predictable security system” once the Ukrainian conflict ends.
Ukraine is losing the war.
The war is unwinnable for Ukraine, and the West can’t keep supporting the Kiev regime indefinitely, says retired British Air Vice Marshal Sean Bell.
This is something the western mainstream media should be telling you.
But they won't…… pic.twitter.com/GqWo45RHUR
— Richard (@ricwe123) June 30, 2023
Orban highlighted the financial toll of the conflict in Ukraine, which has cost Europeans 310 billion euros (US$322.3 billion) to date, including the United States spendings.
This immense sum could have been invested in transformative projects, such as elevating the Western Balkans to European standards, fostering development in migration-source regions like the Sahel to curb migration, or strengthening Europe’s neglected military and defense capabilities, he said.
Orban expressed optimism that Europe is moving closer to achieving peace, particularly with a new U.S. president and a shift in transatlantic relations on the horizon.
He also proposed a symbolic Christmas ceasefire lasting two to three days, underscoring that peace is an attainable goal. Orban noted that he had convinced the Russian president to at least consider the ceasefire proposal.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/ukraine- ... ope-orban/
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The overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism remains the only real way out for the peoples of Europe. Speech at the European Communist Meeting in Brussels, Belgium
Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) 08.Dec.24 Communist and Workers' Parties
Today's event is also a resounding response to the wave of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism that is systematically fomented by the bourgeois media and their governments, by the European Union itself, which has made the unacceptable equation of fascism and communism its doctrine, as well as the identification without any historical basis of present-day capitalist Russia with the Soviet Union, and is spreading across the Old Continent a network of anti-communist persecutions, of falsification and distortion of History, of destruction of anti-fascist monuments.
Dear Comrades:
On behalf of the Central Committee of the KKE, I extend a warm comradely welcome to you at the European Communist Meeting organised by our delegation to the European Parliament here in Brussels, in the European Parliament building, within the framework of various activities that the KKE has carried out in 2024 in honour of the great revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the October Socialist Revolution, on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Today's event is also a resounding response to the wave of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism that is systematically fomented by the bourgeois media and their governments, by the European Union itself, which has made the unacceptable equation of fascism and communism its doctrine, as well as the identification without any historical basis of present-day capitalist Russia with the Soviet Union, and is spreading across the Old Continent a network of anti-communist persecutions, of falsification and distortion of History, of destruction of anti-fascist monuments.
The KKE has condemned all these events and expresses its solidarity with the communists who in several European countries are suffering from persecution, bans and restrictions on their activities. At the same time, we will continue to fight against the misinformation of the people and the distortion of history, without idealizing it, studying not only the achievements of socialism but also its weaknesses, errors and deviations, and drawing valuable conclusions for the future.
Such valuable conclusions can be drawn from Lenin's work "On the Slogan of the United States of Europe" in the context of the intensification of class exploitation and imperialist wars in Ukraine and the Middle East with the involvement of the imperialist European Union.
Lenin's statements in the conditions of the 20th century remain relevant in the 21st century as well. We believe that this work should be studied by communists, revolutionaries and people of good will, not only on our continent, Europe, but throughout the world, since interstate associations of capitalist states, such as the BRICS, etc., are being formed in various parts of the world today.
Studying Lenin in a creative spirit, in the light of the changes that took place in the world, we can examine the interstate agreements, the oldest and newest capitalist alliances, which seek to “establish order” in “international security”, in international trade, in the export of capital, without of course denying the scientific laws of capitalism.
Because no matter how many changes have occurred since this work was published, they have not altered its essence: the fundamental scientific laws that govern the capitalist economy; production based on surplus value, profit, competition and inequality; anarchy in production; injustice in distribution.
Lenin wrote: “Under capitalism, the even economic growth of each economy and each state is impossible. Under capitalism, the only possible means of restoring the broken equilibrium from time to time is crises in industry and wars in politics.”
Who is in a position to refute this Leninist assessment today, when uneven capitalist development gives rise to new strong capitalist powers, sharpens the competition for primacy in the world imperialist system between the USA and China, and intensifies the confrontation between the Euro-Atlantic axis and the emerging Eurasian axis?
Who does not see the “time bomb” that the international capitalist economy is sitting on, that is, the over-accumulation of capital that cannot find an outlet to be invested with satisfactory profit? They have promoted the “green and digital transition”, as well as the “old recipe” of war to which Lenin refers, but the impasses of the system continue.
Capitalist crisis and war are inherent to capitalism. A number of international economic indicators demonstrate that the crisis is born from the normal functioning of the capitalist system.
The EU economy is already in recession; see also the US debt surge which has gone beyond the “red line” of the institutional ceiling and continues to rise, or the real estate crisis in capitalist China, etc.
Imperialist interventions and wars offer a profitable outlet for over-accumulated capital. This is demonstrated by the profits of the US war industry and other major arms manufacturers since the start of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
It is no coincidence that the so-called “war economy” and the escalation of war are a high priority for NATO, the EU and other imperialist centres.
In particular, the EU, based on the Draghi report, plans to allocate 500 billion euros to the war industry, while the Niinistö report allocates, among others, 20% of its budget to the war economy, creating a dangerous connection between its military plans for civil protection and the “psychological preparation of people to live in conditions of danger and instability” by providing food for three days.
Moreover, the massive destruction caused by the imperialist war creates a new “gold mine” of profitable investments in the destroyed regions. The US, EU and Russia are already conducting special investment “programs” for the “reconstruction” of Ukraine.
Comrades:
The victory of Mr Trump in the US elections has revived talk of the imminent “prevalence of peace”, at least on the Ukrainian front. Lenin stressed that “temporary agreements between the capitalists and the powers are, of course, possible”, but at the same time stressed that these do not at all cancel the struggle for the “division of colonies”, writing this when three-quarters of the world were colonies.
Today, however, this position remains valid, since instead of competition for the “division of colonies”, there is competition for the distribution of raw materials, energy, transport routes, geopolitical support, market shares. And as he stressed: “Under capitalism there can be no other basis or principle of distribution than force. […] To preach a “fair” distribution of income on this basis is […] petty bourgeois and philistine folly. There can be no distribution except in proportion to force. And force changes in the course of economic development. […] There is no and cannot be any other means than war to test the true power of a capitalist state. War is not in contradiction with the foundations of private property, but is the direct and inevitable development of these foundations.”
Today it is necessary for the communist movement in Europe and in the world not to forget Lenin’s words, to take them into account in the light of current international events and to reject the opportunist perceptions that prevailed after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and in the ranks of the international communist movement, and promoted erroneous perceptions. Such were the perceptions that divided the imperialists into “hawks” and “doves,” into “war-mongers” and “pacifists,” suggesting that there could be a “peaceful imperialism,” a renunciation by the imperialists of violent and warlike means which, as Lenin stressed, are “the continuation of politics” by other means.
Unfortunately, even in the ranks of the international communist movement, especially after the Second World War, such erroneous perceptions prevailed, on which the Communist Parties based their assessments: that the war plans of the capitalists could supposedly be tamed by the so-called “European security system.”
Today, as a way to resolve the military conflict in Europe, some forces promote perceptions about the formation of a “new security architecture”, a NATO “without war plans or offensive weapons systems on its territories”, a “peaceful European Union” or a “peaceful multipolar world”, etc.
All these speculations have nothing to do with reality and act in a disorienting way for the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle, seeking to cultivate the perception of a supposed possibility of “abstention” of imperialism from the means of war. It is as if we were asking a carnivorous predatory animal from the jungle to transform itself into a herbivorous and even domestic animal.
However, the truth is that NATO and the EU, like any capitalist interstate union, have a profoundly reactionary character and cannot be favourable to the people. They will continue to act against the people and against workers' and popular rights.
Lenin was justified when he wrote that “a United States of Europe under capitalism is either impossible or reactionary.” The present European Union is an imperialist interstate economic, political and military union of monopolies, contrary to the interests of the working class and the popular strata.
It cannot be fixed with plaster solutions. Just like capitalism, it cannot be humanised! Because the European Union was not formed by the people and does not serve their interests – on the contrary!
The European Union is not and cannot be pro-people. Its objectives are the concentration and centralisation of capital, wars and imperialist interventions, the promotion of a strategy for the maximum strengthening of the exploitation of the working class, which leads to poverty, misery, scarcity, uprooting, brutal repression, recruitment and anti-communism. The scandals that are manifesting themselves, with the lobbies of corruption in the European Parliament, confirm its reactionary character as a union of capital at the expense of the people.
War ultimatums, anti-popular regulations and anti-labour directives are intended to serve the profits of monopolies and to crush the lives and rights of workers.
Today, the European Union is seeking to become the vanguard of wars and anti-popular policies. This is true regardless of the outcome of the antagonisms within it, between the bourgeois classes of its countries over greater military autonomy from the EU or greater membership of NATO, antagonisms that have been revived after Trump's election.
In order to serve the dominant interests of the bourgeois classes in Europe, the European Union, together with the United States, has become involved in the war in Ukraine, on the side of the section of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie which, by using fascist forces, moved towards a political overthrow in violation of the Constitution in 2014.
For similar reasons, the European Union supports the occupying state of Israel, which is massacring the heroic people of Palestine. We take this opportunity to express, from here, in the European Parliament, our full solidarity with the Palestinian people and to join our voice to the impressive and massive worker-popular demonstrations throughout the world in defence of their just struggle to get rid of the Israeli occupation.
Comrades:
Following the attack on Ukraine with long-range American and British weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation, followed by the change in Russia's nuclear doctrine and Putin's statement, it is more than obvious that the danger of a generalised imperialist war is growing, including the use of nuclear weapons.
Even if a temporary compromise were reached, no one can mitigate the inter-imperialist antagonisms that extend from the commercial and technological sectors to military armaments. This is true from the Arctic to Africa and the Indo-Pacific, and also in space.
The imperialist wars and interventions of the European Union and the allied imperialist bourgeois governments, in addition to the massacre of peoples, the economic burdens on peoples, the dismemberment of countries and the multitude of uprooted people, cause further destruction of the environment, which they hypocritically worry about in their so-called “green” declarations.
The KKE, like other Communist and Workers' Parties in Europe, rejecting all pretexts from various sides, demonstrates to the people the true causes of imperialist wars.
We are strengthening our fight against the involvement of our countries in them.
We fight for the closure of US and NATO bases in Greece and elsewhere, for the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe.
We express our solidarity with the peoples of Ukraine and Russia, who lived in peace and worked together during the years of socialism and are now shedding their blood for the big capitalist interests.
We fight against the growing militarisation of the EU through its so-called “strategic autonomy”, which poses great dangers for peoples; the creation of military formations, such as PESCO, and the Euro-army; and missions such as “Aspis” in the Red Sea.
We raise a front against fascism and any kind of racism, discrimination based on religion, colour, gender or sexual orientation and we reject the false “anti-fascism” and the various “anti-fascist fronts” used by bourgeois and opportunist political forces to trap working class and popular forces in bourgeois administration, disassociating fascism from the capitalist system that generates it and uses it when necessary.
Comrades:
The intensification of the exploitation of workers, of exhaustive flexible work with inhuman hours leading to employer crimes, of work without rights and without collective agreements, of the escalation of employer intimidation, of low wages combined with high prices and high taxes on the popular classes and wars, have led the peoples of Europe to the streets in struggle.
Ten days ago, on November 20, the streets and squares across Greece were flooded with strikers who caused a real earthquake with the slogan: “Money for wages - Health - Education, out of the slaughterhouses of war!”
Thanks to the militant action of workers' unions, such as the Piraeus port workers' union, a shipment of ammunition for Israel did not reach its destination; in other regions, the transport of NATO weapons and ammunition for the war in Ukraine was prevented.
We continue our struggle against the anti-people policies of the ND government and the other parties of the system; against NATO and the EU of capital; against class exploitation, monopolies and war.
For the disengagement of Greece from the imperialist slaughterhouse, from its plans and alliances, with the people being the owners of their land.
For a Europe of prosperity for the people, of peace, social justice and socialism.
We continue along our common path, that of revolutionary class struggle until the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism.
Because the path that was opened in October 1917 by the communists led by Lenin, “breaking the ice”, remains the only true way out for the peoples of our countries.
December 3, 2024
Texto completo en: https://elcomunista.nuevaradio.org/el-d ... ismo-y-la/
Google Translator
A video interview featuring Dr. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, the suspect in the Magdeburg Christmas market attack, has surfaced, sparking further questions about his motives.
From annulling elections to banning political parties, Europe is in a state of deep political malaise.
Russia has officially halted gas supplies to Austria, with possible cut of gas to the Czech Republic and Slovakia by the end of 2024.
Look how the tune has changed!
