October 13, 2025 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French.
The parliamentary circus continues unabated. It’s a bad puppet show, where everyone tries to get their lines in, between offering their services to [President] Macron and attempting to jump on the bandwagon of widespread hatred for him, so as not to ruin their chances in the next elections. Bourgeois democracy is in crisis? So much the better, we have our card to play!
Faced with the bosses’ democracy…
In the latest twists and turns, the height of ridiculousness was seeing Élisabeth Borne (former Minister of the government) declare herself in favor of suspending the pension reform… she who had insisted at all costs on raising the legal retirement age to 64, after months of massive demonstrations in cities across France to oppose it. This gives us a clear understanding of what their democracy is all about: ignoring the opinion of an entire country in order to impose on us what we all unanimously reject. To satisfy the interests of employers alone and reduce the amount of our pensions.
Have Macron and the government just formed by his Prime Minister, who has already resigned twice in ten days, suddenly become more attentive to our demands? They are looking for any way out of the political crisis and, above all, any solution that will not fuel popular anger, which could at any moment turn into strikes and demonstrations again. So if, to this end, they say they are prepared to temporarily suspend this reform, it would be in order to better continue attacking us later, this time by raising the retirement age beyond 64. From the far right to the Socialist Party, and the center, they are all capable of this! Under Macron, as under Hollande (former Socialist president), they all voted for laws to this effect, to the delight of the bosses. There is nothing to expect from this new government, which is likely to be very temporary, or even from new elections: all the parties in government are under the command of the bosses. There is nothing to expect from the left, which has gone so far as to put forward an “objective of cohabitation” with Macron. And above all, there is nothing to expect from the far right, which is finding more and more billionaires to defend its ideas and finance it, from Stérin to Bolloré, and is seeking to sow racist hatred in order to better divide us workers.
Let’s impose our demands!
The current issue is therefore who will govern… in the service of the capitalists. For years, they have imposed layoffs, the deterioration of public services, rising prices, and the reduction of our wages. So, there is no question of paying for their debt with yet another austerity plan. Through tax cuts and subsidies of all kinds, bosses receive between €211 and €270 billion ($245 and $313 billion) every year! It is finally time for them to suffer austerity.
With the events of September 10, then September 18 and October 2, demonstrations and strikes have made the headlines. It was a social comeback the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. Struggles against layoffs are currently underway, along with others for better working conditions and wages. In the Loire region (western France), employees of the world’s leading coffee producer, the Dutch group JDE Peet’s, have just secured a minimum gross monthly increase of €160 for all employees and a bonus of €1,500 thanks to their strike. Together, we have the power to block everything, because we are the foundation of the entire economy, the source of all their profits.
Far beyond the casting of the next Macron government, or that of the next elections, it is up to us to prepare to fight against the attacks of the future government and the bosses.
