February 3, 2025 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French
Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury group LVMH, the richest man in France and one of the richest on the planet, shamelessly put on a show of whining that, as a tax-crushed billionaire, he would have no choice but to relocate “made in France” production out of the country. All the CEOs of the CAC 40 [the 40 highest companies of the French stock market] immediately followed suit, denouncing taxes and “constraints.” Their model is across the Atlantic, where they claim “a wind of optimism” is blowing, under the auspices of the far-right Trump-Musk government, since the floodgates of public money are wide open… to benefit the capitalists.
Bayrou, French Macronist (right-wing) Prime Minister, and Bardella, leader of the far-right party “Rassemblement National” (National Rally Party), both serve the bosses
In France, as in the United States, if they want to slash public spending, it’s to enable the ultra-rich to rake in more and more. Fewer public services, fewer social budgets, however inadequate: everything for them. No more health or environmental standards: they claim the right to continue poisoning us with eternal pollutants and destroying the planet.
Bayrou strives to demonstrate that he is the best servant of the owning classes. Even if it means once again using the 49.3 constitutional article [allowing a PM to bypass a Parliament vote, quite frequent but infamous since the pension reform protests] to impose his budget, which slashes all social, health, education and retirement spending, and continues to transfer billions to the bosses and big shareholders. Taking the same line, Bardella delivered a rousing defense of “French captains of industry,” “crushed under suffocating taxation,” at his February 1 meeting. This was his way of positioning himself as a future head of government in the eyes of the business community. After Trump-Musk in the USA, a Bardella-Arnault government in France? A government at the service of the bosses, declaring total war on labor.
Capitalists are the sole perpetrators of unemployment and poverty
The French Ministry of Labor has announced a sharp rise in unemployment in France: 3.5% more in 2024. In total, more than 6.2 million people are out of work in the country, all categories of unemployed combined. This is hardly surprising, given the growing list of redundancy plans and company closures. Nearly 300,000 jobs are currently threatened or eliminated. But, at the same time, the big CAC 40 groups responsible for these redundancies – Carrefour, Auchan, Stellantis, Michelin, TotalEnergies and many others – are exceeding their records: almost 100 billion euros [98 billion euros ~ 102 billion dollars] were paid out to their shareholders in 2024.
At a time when the conditions for receiving unemployment benefits are becoming ever more restrictive, these layoffs are condemning many families to poverty. For the greater profit of these exploiters, unemployed workers can now be forced to work 15 hours a month for free.
Faced with the billionaires’ pole [of “attraction”], we need a pole of fighting workers
Not content with ruining lives and being sole responsible for the current social crisis, they sow hatred and division among the most exploited, to better mask their responsibility.
Whether it’s the government, with its declarations on “migratory submersion,” or the extreme right-wing international group headed by Musk, they all have the same goal: to stir up racism in order to divert us from the path of social struggle. These struggles do exist, but dispersed. Struggles for wages, on the occasion of the mandatory annual negotiations (“Négociations annuelles obligatoires, NAO”), because we want to live, not just survive. Struggles against layoffs, like at Michelin in Cholet, or in other threatened companies. That’s where the only pole capable of opposing the billionaires’ pole lies.
