April 21, 2025 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French.
Forty billion euros (more than 45 billion dollars). Last week, [French] Economy Minister Éric Lombard put a figure on the “additional efforts” to be made for the 2026 budget. The government is preparing to take these 40 billion from public services, hospitals, schools, and local authorities. In other words, they plan to steal it from those who pay for and use these services: workers and the working class.
The art of saving money at the expense of others
[Prime Minister] Bayrou, more unpopular than ever, tried to make his point at a press conference the following day. He wanted it to be “educational.” And there he was, lecturing us with colorful graphs and per capita GDP figures, speaking slowly so we could understand: “We don’t work hard enough.” We? Who’s that? Clearly, when it comes to his teaching methods, the Prime Minister hasn’t worked very hard: we’ve heard these talking points before. Our exploiters repeat day in and day out that workers should toil harder than ever for their profit.
An international gang of thugs and big shots
Bayrou described Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine and the announcement of new tariffs as a “tsunami,” a “hurricane,” a “dramatic turn of events”… What a show! Indeed, the policies he pursues are not so different. Bayrou talks about the state of the country’s finances thirty years ago with nostalgia, and about General de Gaulle with tears in his eyes. One could believe he was on the verge of chanting “Make France Great Again.”
[French President] Macron offers to welcome American researchers who have been violently attacked by Trump, but two months ago Bayrou himself cut €1.5 billion (a reduction of around 6%) from the 2025 higher education budget. This did not prevent him from complaining in his speech about his predecessors’ budget management: “We should have invested in research.”
And when he describes Trump or Putin as aggressors, it is to better justify increased military spending. In this area, the state has no intention of making savings. To defend their profits and markets against the shark next door, they need equipment. And all these leaders, the lords of this world, intend to bring the working class to heel, in the factories or on the front lines.
Workers of the world: unite!
There was one amusing spark in this well-rehearsed market-friendly soup: Bayrou quoted Lenin and Trotsky! “Only truth is revolutionary.” Did communist books end up on his desk because the specter of revolution is giving him cold sweats? Because if you pull too hard on the rope, you never know when it will snap. All bourgeois politicians know that.
It snapped, for example, in Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are challenging the regime of dictator Erdoğan after yet another abuse of power. This revolt could well spread and impact the entire Middle East, which the capitalists have turned into a bloody mess, but also Europe, for which Turkey acts as a mercenary border guard. This is far from an isolated possibility, as revolts have been multiplying in recent years all over the world.
This is a possibility and a necessity. If we refuse their budgets, their agenda, their world, and take matters into our own hands, we will be able to oppose their international gang of criminals with our international solidarity as workers. This is the historical meaning of May Day, a day for strike and protest which the labor movement established almost 150 years ago, notably to demand a shorter working day. Let us be numerous in the streets on that day. Lenin and Trotsky will appreciate it. Bayrou, not so sure.
