Down with the imperialist regime of the French 5th Republic and Sarkozy’s government!
Out Thibault, Mailly and other union leaders who are the agents of the imperialists within the workers’ movement! Break with the CP, NPA, Collective for revolutionary tendency in NPA, Lutte Ouvriere, Groupe Bolshevique, representatives of the labour aristocracy who will do everything to isolate the struggles of the workers and prevent the working class from taking the road to seize power.
For factory committees at every workplace to get rid of the treacherous leaders and to make the struggle for the workers to seize power a reality!
For workers self defence committees to defend against the imperialist state and their armed bands!
For an international Congress of workers, students, poor peasants, immigrants, rank and file soldiers and unemployed delegates in France from Britain, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Romania, from the entire Europe, up to Russia and Ukraine, from all the French colonies and semi-colonies! For a general strike across Europe and in the colonies and semicolonies!
Expropriate all the imperialist banks, without compensation, placing them under workers control, to take back the pension funds they stole from the working class!
For the real independence of all the French colonies and semi-colonies, in the form of workers republics!
Do not let the treacherous leaders and fake ‘left’ groups betray the struggle of the workers to take power of France October 2010 as they did of the French May 1968!
For the defeat of Nato troops in Afghanistan! For workers to send weapons to the Palestinian resistance, and to block arms for the fascist Zionist state!

In October 2008 the handful of imperialist bandits got together to rob the state coffers from across Europe, including the pension funds, causing a bankruptcy of the states, to bail out the imperialist banks. They stole 2.7 trillion euros from the entire working class in Europe and in France they stole, 360 billion euros with the support of the party of Sarkozy as well as the Socialist Party and the Greens.
Imperialists decided to place the burden of the states’ bankruptcy on the working class; therefore their servants, the union bureaucracy and anticapitalist left play the role of dividing the workers resistance to it. In the task of dividing the working class resistance to these attacks the imperialists had the support of all the Stalinist parties, the trade union bureaucracies, the so called anti-capitalist parties, the fake Trotskyists. So the first attack in
Europe was launched on the masses in Greece by imperialism. Attacks were launched on Rumania and other ex-workers states in Eastern Europe. The left united in Greece to turn the masses’ anger into elections; the Social democratic Pasok came to government on their own and when the Pasok accelerated the attacks the left refused to fight for the overthrow of the Pasok regime and organised several one –day actions to tire out the masses, merely to pressure the regime. The left refused to organise a real Europe-wide resistance against the united imperialists attacks on the working class in Greece. They left the Greek masses isolated. When immigrants were dismissed en masse the trade unions organised no real resistance and left the immigrant workers to fight on their own.
When the working class rose in Guadeloupe and Martinique, the New Anti-Capitalist Party’s Besancenot went there to explain that the workers from Guadaloupe must ask for the 200 euros wage increase to be shared between their bosses and their state, since French taxpayers and the French state couldn’t afford to pay for all of it. The Lutte Ouvriere turned the mass struggle into a trade union negotiation and refused to organise factory committees and workers councils when the masses were ready to build a dual power in opposition to the French imperialist regime- they failed to even call for the defeat of the French troops on these islands. And when the revolution in Madagascar began, Lutte Ouvriere simply ignored it. Thus the NAP and the Lutte Ouvriere acted to contain the revolutionary actions of the masses and sustain the rule of French imperialism.
In May 2010 the anti-capitalist reformist left in Europe gathered in the Counter-summit in Madrid. At the time Greece was burning and the masses were ready to overthrow the Pasok regime the leaderships of the bureaucracies and anticapitalists prevented every attempt of setting up organisms of self-determination and direct democracy and stood in the way of the arming of the workers, preventing the organizing and launching of the insurrection. The cowardly ‘left’, raising cries of ‘for a Social Europe’ called for a Europe-wide ‘general strike’ on the 29th September, that is, four months later. In this time the imperialists were able to regroup their forces and contain the revolution in Greece. They were able to inflict heavy blows on the proletariat in Greece, but have not yet completely defeated the movement.
The core of the resistance was independent committees of Greek and immigrant workers, principally around the docks. The slogan of a ‘social’ Europe is nothing else but a begging bowl to the imperialists to continue to give crumbs to the proletariat to maintain their social benefits over the bones of super-exploitation of the immigrants and the working class in the semicolonies and colonies. It was a promise to the imperialists that they would keep the masses off the streets and keep struggles isolated and only organise symbolic actions for the masses to blow off steam. These ‘revolutionary’ anticapitalists kept their word to imperialism by organising symbolic pickets of handful of workers across Europe on the 29th September. Only the masses in Spain forced a general strike and announced to the imperialists that they would not give up their gains without a fight. The imperialists not only continued their attacks on the masses but have indeed accelerated them.
In Germany, Rumania and several other countries, workers have been forced to accept cuts in wages. In each case the worker leaders, the Stalinist parties, the world social forum and anti-capitalist left, kept their resistance on national terrain. The primeromarzo movement of the immigrants organised a Europewide general strike of immigrants on the 1st March, but they were kept isolated and separated from the rest of the working class.
The workers are breaking with the capitalists and want to go up to the end in the fight against them in France but the leaders of the CP, the union bureaucracy, the Lutte Ouvriere, the NPA, the World Social Forum, the collective for a revolutionary tendency, are all preparing to betray every attempt of the workers to take the road for the seizure of power.
While the Greek masses organised 6 general strikes within 8 months, the French masses have forced the union leaders to call 4 general strikes in 5 weeks. The latest general strike was on the 19th October 2010 when more than 3 million workers and students took to the streets. If there were so many people supporting the struggle, why did the leaders not occupy parliament as the masses did in Kyrgyzstan? The truth is the leaders deliberately held back the masses from taking over parliament and the imperialist banks.
For weeks the trade union bureaucracy has opposed strike action by the French masses. Thibault, the leader of the CGT, called those who called for a general strike ‘stupid’ while the leader of the FO called for negotiations instead.
The masses are breaking from the treacherous leaders; already the workers in Ardenne, including the metalworkers at Peugeot, have called for an indefinite general strike. The railway, petroleum, port, airport workers and now the municipal workers, have embarked on an indefinite strike, with the petroleum workers leading the way by demanding that the retirement age be 55 as opposed to the government plan to raise the 65 year retirement age to 67. This raising of the retirement age means that the state has allowed the imperialist banks to steal workers pensions and that workers will be paying more to the capitalists and receiving reduced pensions. Students are starting to enter the struggle with hundreds of schools closing or being blockaded on the 19th October. The masses want to go on the offensive but the leadership limits the struggle to a defensive one, a struggle on the economic terrain and shielding the state from the masses’ willingness to overthrow it. The chief enemy of the revolution advancing are the treacherous leaders within the workers movement. We need to kick out these traitors.
The state is preparing a counter-revolutionary blow against the masses. Already some key refineries were forced open with workers being threatened with 5 year jail sentences if they refuse to work; students have been threatened with 3 year jail sentences if they take part in a blockade with the working class. The imperialists know that if the youth unite with the workers, then the revolution will be unstoppable.
Not a single tendency, whether they carry the label Trotskyist or Socialist or Communist in France has raised the slogan: ‘down with the Sarkozy imperialist regime’; in fact all their slogans raised call for ‘pressure’ on the regime for it to back down on the plans. Thus their slogans are deliberately crafted to limit the working class from struggling to take political power by its own methods. They want the struggle to remain on the economic terrain, the trade union level, the electoral level, that is, within the capitalist framework.
The New Anti-Capitalist Party, the Collective for a Revolutionary Tendency within the New Anti-Capitalist Party (section of the FT-CI) call for an indefinite general strike, while the Lutte Ouvriere calls for an extension and broadening of the current strikes. But for all these tendencies a ‘general strike’ is really a general ‘stayaway’ where workers leave their workplaces and form pickets outside. In other words, they want to generalise the current format of the strikes, which are in the stalinist tradition of stayaways and work stoppages and against factory occupations. This is a deliberate policy of Stalinism to pressure the capitalists but, crucially, to prevent organs of workers power developing within the factories. The most ‘left’ of all these groupings (and the most dangerous) is the FT-CI (the Collective for a Revolutionary Tendency) which calls for committees of struggle and general strike committees, but fails to make the call for workers to occupy the workplaces.
This is directly linked with all these groups failing to make the call for factory committees to be set up. Factory committees are those which unite all workers at the workplace, irrespective if they are unionised or not, or whether they are permanent or casual, French or immigrant. The call of these tendencies for a ‘general strike’ is limited to the chauvinist policy of not involving casual, temporary and immigrant workers. At best, the role of immigrant workers feature in their programme as a side issue of ‘the right to documentation’, not as a crucial part of the struggle for the working class to take political power. It is factory committees and delegates from these structures that will lay the basis for workers’ councils (soviets) to emerge. This will mean that the existing intersindical structures which exist would be able to break free from their union limits and develop from pre-soviet structures to soviets. The first task of the factory committees must be to combat and kick out the treacherous leaders. Without this key step, the fate of a general strike and of the struggle for power will still be in the hands of the class traitors.
The failure to call for factory committees to prepare to occupy the workplaces has another consequence: when militant workers try on their own to occupy their workplaces, these tendencies have left them isolated. It is easy for the state to attack these vanguard workers and thus contain the most advanced elements of the revolution.
The fight to set up soviets or equivalent structures and break free from the chains of the union bureaucracy can only have meaning if the first task is posed of expelling the treacherous trade union leaders from the unions. Otherwise, in the final analysis the intersindical (or inter-union) structures will be chained to the very agents of imperialism within the workers movement, the union bureaucracy. Not a single of the tendencies in France make the call for the immediate removal of this main obstacle of organising a decisive battle to overthrow the imperialist regime.
The Solidaires union, the alliance partner of the South American Conlutas, raises the call for a general strike but only for its ranks. This policy of selfisolation and not challenging the bureaucracy of the leading unions, is divisive, especially at a time when the working class needs to unite against the imperialist regime. Objectively their policy of dividing the vanguard workers, assists the imperialists in these pre-revolutionary days. The NAP calls for ‘unity’ under these conditions and limits criticisms of the union bureaucracy as they do not to ‘divide’ the strike movement. The NAP defends the union bureaucracy, saying they are not sellouts (timoratas) thus doing a good service for imperialism to tie the masses to these class traitors. The NAP now calls for a French May 1968, but in the absence of a fight to expel the treacherous leaders, the fight for working class power will remain in the hands of those who betrayed the fight for power in May 1968. The
Collective for a Revolutionary Tendency (FT-CI) criticises the union bureaucracy but calls for a national meeting of class fighters to become an alternate pole to the bureaucracy, but they too fail to call for the removal of the class traitors, the ones who call workers ‘stupid’ if they want a decisive fight with the imperialists. The FT-CI thus has a similar position as the Solidaires of self-isolation and dividing the vanguard in times of revolution. The Lutte
Ouvriere does not call to even pressure the union bureaucracy (perhaps they are even part of this bureaucracy?). They call for a threat of a general strike to pressure the Sarkozy regime and are thus one of the main obstacles for a real general strike to be organised and in the final analysis stand against the revolution. On the 19th October 2010, when millions of workers and students took to the streets, the Lutte Ouvriere was more interested in preparing the ground for their new electoral face, Natalie Arthaud, who proclaimed rather vaguely that if Sarkozy is inflexible the masses would make him back down not only over pensions but also on other matters. What is implied is that the masses should support Lutte Ouvriere in the 2012 elections. The Lutte Ouvriere are the most treacherous of all the tendencies as they stand in the name of the Fourth International and Trotsky and argue on the pension reform that the capitalists have the money for pensions from the gains on past increases in productivity and on future increases in productivity. This means that the Lutte Ouvriere is saying to the imperialists: ‘don’t worry, there is enough money for pensions, we as Lutte Ouvriere will encourage workers to work harder to make up for any shortfall that there currently is.’ Most of thetendencies make no call for the expropriation of the imperialist banks without compensation and to be placed under workers control, nor even as a direct measure to take back the money which was stolen by the imperialists in 2008, not only in France, but across Europe and indeed from the world working class. The Lutte Ouvriere and FT-CI make mention of expropriation of the banks, but without raising the call for the expulsion of the treacherous union leaders, the fight for this demand remains in the hands of the class traitors.
They do not call for the defeat of their own imperialist in Afghanistan. Not a single tendency in France makes a call for workers self-defence to be organised. The police are shooting protestors eyes and brains out, they send attack groups to break through picket lines but not a single tendency is bold enough to raise the question of a workers’ militia. If they take no measures to defend the isolated strikes that a breaking out now, how can they be taken seriously with their calls for broadening the strikes or for an ‘indefinite’ general strike? These are just words to still keep some respectability in the eyes of the masses so they can play their counter-revolutionary role of containing them now as they did in May 1968.
The policy of all these tendencies is nationalist, at the very time that the imperialist bourgeoisie is co-ordinating their forces across Europe, bringing in petroleum and other supplies from Belgium, Germany, etc to break the back of the strike. French banks, who were bailed out in October 2008, are interconnected with banks in other parts of Europe and the colonies and semicolonies, yet the tendencies limit the fight against these parasites to France.
The very ‘revolutionary’ phrase-mongers that called for the one day all-europe general strike for the 29th September, have scattered like rats from a sinking ship. At the very time they should be raising a call and organizing an –all-Europe general strike to stop the broad offensive of the imperialists across Europe, they are hiding under the table. But there is a more sinister side to the nationalism of these tendencies. Today worker leaders from the heroic workers struggles in Guadaloupe are being tried and persecuted in French courts for refusing to give a sample of their DNA to the imperialist regime and for criticising the lackeys of the French imperialists. Not a single of these French tendencies have raised the call for the real independence of the French colonies and semi-colonies, which can only take the form of the workers in these countries expropriating all imperialist assets and banks and placing them under workers control. Lenin wrote on the Paris Commune of 1871 that one of the main lessons for the world proletariat was that imperialism was not ‘patriotic’, when there was a threat to the entire system of capitalism, the imperialists would unite against the working class. The attacks by imperialism on the pension gains of the French proletariat is part of the same attack on the working class in Guadaloupe, Martinique, Ivory Coast, DRC, Madagascar, etc. Lutte Ouvriere has a presence in several of the French colonies and semi-colonies, yet they and the other tendencies do not even make the minimal call for equal pay for equal work and for the working class in the colonies to seize the moment when French imperialism is weak and to organise to expropriate all French imperialist assets, the only basis on which real independence from imperialism can start. In short, all these tendencies are social imperialist, opposing their own imperialist in words but siding with them in practice. Now that the working class in the French colonies are wanting to take to the streets in a general strike against French imperialist, the fake left, including Lutte Ouvriere, which also organises in Guadaloupe, has deliberately desynchronised the next step in the fight: the workers in Guadaloupe will strike on the 26th Oct 2010 while in France the next ‘one-day’ strike will be on the 28th October. Lutte Ouvriere’s group in the Ivory Coast is very critical of US imperialism and its role in Madagascar but is silent on the role of French imperialism on the island.
The Socialist Equality Party (part of the International Committee of the Fourth International ICFI), while criticizing the tendencies for failing to organise selfdefence, nevertheless calls for independent committees independent of the unions, once again failing to fight for the expulsion of the union bureaucracy from the unions, landing up, similar to Solidaires and the Collective for a revolutionary Tendency of the NPA (the FT-CI), with self-isolation and dividing the working class vanguard in the time of revolution. The SEP also has a nationalist vision of the strike in France and sees no link to the revolution in the colonies and semi-colonies. The social imperialist vision of the SEP (the ICFI) will be fatal for the working class. If the working class in France are poised to seize power, then all the world’s imperialist powers, including US imperialism will stand together to attempt to drown the French October in blood. This is the ABC of the lessons of the 1871 Paris Commune.
Lenin also spelled out another important lesson from the 1871 Paris Commune, namely that the working class will pay dearly if it fails to go to the end in its clashes with capitalism-imperialism. The Communards gave a breathing space to the Versailles government. It appealed to them on a moral basis (for a social France) but the imperialists regrouped and drowned the uprising in blood. The tendencies in France have ‘learnt’ from the Paris
Commune- they are not even prepared to take the first steps to call for the arming of the masses. They think they can appeal for a ‘social Europe’ while day by day imperialism sharpens their swords. Workers have wages cut and more are dying of hunger; health care is privatized and more workers are dying because they cannot afford the private health rates; workers are forced to work longer and more are dying before they go on pension. Now the few sectors that have started an indefinite strike stand isolated by the tendencies that claim to be in solidarity with them. Imperialism is preparing to drown the resistance in blood. We are not neutral in this fight. In the final analysis the battle will be settled by force, in the streets.
In this time, the church, the middle class, the university professors, the mass media, the fake left, the upper layers of the labour aristocracy, will all pose as revolutionary and democratic and pro-worker, in order to betray the revolution from within.
Since 1998, US and French imperialism have plundered the DRC for its mineral wealth. Over 6 million were killed. Over the past 20 years the standard of living of the working class has dropped dramatically. The level of culture has dropped. Iraq and Afghanistan has been reduced by US, French, German and UK imperialism to a state of barbarism, to being torture regimes where more than 70% of those killed are civilians (working class), where imperialism instigates so-called inter-ethnic violence, but really creates a cover for the brutal slaughter of the working class resistance. And the treacherous ‘left’ like the NAP, the lutte Ouvriere and others want workers to negotiate, unarmed, with the worst perpetrators of violence against the working class that has last been seen in the second imperialist war. The imperialist regime in Britain is unleashing attacks worse than Thatcher. All the left in Britain are sorry tailenders of Thatcherism. We call on the working class to kick out all these class traitors and to set up factory committees and to join the French workers at the barricades. No, the antagonisms between the workers, urban and rural are irreconcilable with the imperialists. The working class must take all the necessary measures to ensure its armed defence against the coming imperialist onslaught. We have to realize that the working class in the world is in a class war with the capitalists-imperialists. Either the system destroys us or we destroy the system. These are the stark choices that we face. Let us unite as the world working class to defeat these handful of parasites, the capitalist class and their system. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
All preparations must be made for a decisive fight for the working class to take political power with its own methods. This will only happen with the defeat of the reformist and counter-revolutionary tendencies within the workers movement.
Down with the imperialist regime of the Fifth French Republic and the government of Sarkozy!
For factory committees in every workplace to prepare for occupation of all factories, mines, capitalist farms, mines, banks, etc.
Out with the union bureaucracy from the unions and the workers movement
Down with the CP, NAP, Lutte Ouvriere, Groupe Bolshevique, Collective for a revolutionary tendency of the NAP, Solidaires, and all such groupings.
For general strike committees of delegates of workers, students, unemployed, immigrant workers, rank and file soldiers.
For workers self-defence committees
For an organizing committee to refound the Fourth International.
All power to the broadened inter-union, general strike committees in France!
For an international congress, convened by the organizing committee to refound the Fourth International, in France of worker delegates from across Europe and from the colonies and semi-colonies, to prepare a Europe-wide general strike and general strike in the colonies and semi-colonies!
For the expropriation of all imperialist assets and banks, without compensation, to be placed under workers control, in France, across Europe and across the colonies and semi-colonies! For workers republics in the colonies and semi-colonies!
For the retirement age of 55 irrespective of being a French, European or immigrant worker!
Equal pay for equal work, on a world wide scale!
Set up factory committees, uniting local and immigrant workers, permanent and casual workers, to prepare for a revolutionary general strike in the USA!
Out with the class collaborationist leaders from the AFL-CIO and the unions and workers organizations, in general.
For the defeat of Nato troops in Afghanistan! For the defeat of imperialist troops and their mercenaries in Iraq. Imperialism out of Iraq!
Workers to send weapons to the Palestinian resistance!
For a federation of Workers Socialist states of Europe! Down with Maastricht of the imperialist bandits.
In this fight the ILTF will be your firmest ally.

 

FLTI 20.10.2010 amended 25.10.2010