This is the statement of the French New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-Révolutionnaires) on the collapse of the French government on December 4, 2024.
This evening, 331 deputies (delegates) from the Left and the Rassemblement National (RN, far-right) voted together on a motion of no confidence against [Prime Minister] Barnier’s government. The latter had not skimped on concessions to the far right since his appointment by [President] Macron. Marine Le Pen (leader of the RN) had brought forth Barnier; she has defeated him tonight.
No worker will weep over the fate of Barnier, who came from the most reactionary spheres of bourgeois politics and was brought out of mothballs by Macron at the end of the summer to continue the antisocial policies pursued for seven years by the Macronist clan, rejected and hated by a large majority of the working classes and youth.
The RN, torn between the pressure of polls demonstrating the unpopularity of Macron, Barnier and his budget, and the desire to appear to the bourgeoisie as a “responsible” party, has finally chosen to bring down the government while reassuring the business world of its willingness to deliver a budget that will take from public services and civil servants’ rights to continue subsidizing big business, the banks and the army. Does this mean that Le Pen, who will soon be condemned to ineligibility, wants to bring forward the presidential election timetable? The New Popular Front (NFP – moderate left coalition) is delighted at the fall of the Barnier government, but already appears completely divided on the immediate follow-up: La France Insoumise (LFI – reformist left coalition) is dreaming of a presidential election, while the Socialist Party (PS), along with part of the Greens, is offering its services for a government around Macron and [his party, the Republicans] (LR).
From “early presidential elections” to a “consensus government,” the entire parliamentary Left thinks only in terms of institutional solutions.
As for Macron, he’s going to speak “to the French people” tomorrow… but nobody wants to listen to him anymore!
Less than ever, our fate must not depend on political calculations and institutional timetables, whether planned or improvised. What is to be ousted is this entire racist, anti-social, and in support of Netanyahu’s Zionist state, policy.
The key to achieving this in the next few days will be the social mobilization of the waged workers, which promises to be strong as soon as tomorrow, December 5, with the call for a strike throughout the civil service. Because whoever the next Prime Minister is, he or she will put the same energy into making us pay for the debts the capitalists have forced the State to contract. He’ll put the same energy into preserving the bosses’ profits.
Behind the parliamentary charade, the bosses’ power over the economy and our lives is still intact: the shareholders of major groups can decide to lay off thousands of workers at the stroke of a pen, and condemn entire regions to unemployment. No fewer than 300,000 jobs are already under threat, and announcements for layoffs are pouring in every day. The workers concerned are not standing idly by: at Auchan, Michelin, Vencorex, MA France, Valeo, Arcelor, Arkema and Stellantis, workers are either fighting back or preparing for it. These reactions need to spread and unite into a movement of all the waged workers to impose demands and a political agenda in its turn.
So, on December 12, private-sector workers threatened with redundancy and SNCF railway workers threatened with privatization should also strike en masse against their bosses. December 5 and 12: this is a window of opportunity for all the waged workers. That’s where the real no-confidence lies, capable of putting an end to all policies serving the rich and the bosses.
