WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #337 - What state is the world in? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A war in the east of Europe which never ends between Russia which
attacks Ukraine, the latter state supported by an over-armed Western
coalition, a war which traps a population taken hostage by its leader
and the powerful arms lobby. Another war which is not fought between two
States but which is led by an over-armed State (Israel) supported by
this same Western coalition against a destitute Palestinian population
which has only the despair of resistance to oppose. .
And wars which have no name and destroy with "targeted" bombings
non-belligerent countries like Yemen, Lebanon,... and constitute
completely uninhibited deadly interference on the part of this Western
coalition. In France where the policy reaches the level below 0° in
accordance with winter temperatures, it is the homeless who will die of
destitution in one of the richest countries thanks, among other things,
to these arms exports. And during this time, the president showers us
with a long speech in a warlike tone, in front of a court of
well-behaved journalists who will only ask questions already briefed, in
due time.

Widespread rearmament and regeneration

Repeated to the point of disgust, these calls from Macron supposed to
achieve national unity - "to make a nation" as he says - are reminiscent
of the Pétainist accents of "work, family, homeland". They are aimed at
a French population considered threatened by "wilding",
"decivilization", "degeneration", all far-right concepts. When the
president, during the first council of ministers of his partly
reshuffled government on January 12, exhorts the members of his team to
be "revolutionaries", we are not far from the ideology of the Vichy
National Revolution. A dream of authority and order, with the support of
the financial powers (on condition that their freedom of maneuver is
guaranteed) and of the police and the army, who will remain pampered, of
course.

Rearmament in all aspects: civic, moral, economic, demographic...

School being "the heart of the ideological battle", it is a question of
"rebuilding France" on the foundation of the youngest, with the overhaul
of programs and the doubling of the hours of moral and civic education
in middle school, learning the Marseillaise in primary school, the
generalization of the SNU (universal national service) for all secondary
school pupils - with the hope of giving rise to military vocations -,
the gradual establishment of the uniform - this will avoid the abaya-,
the return of college graduation ceremonies, the re-establishment of
authority and discipline. All this, within the framework of a "strong
France", of a strong State intended to establish a spirit of obedience
to the rules, absolute respect for standards... these, for the most
part, only aim to to perpetuate the inequalities and injustices inherent
in the organization of class society.

The militarization of youth does not happen without "military
rearmament", as illustrated by the 2024-2030 programming law increasing
the budget of the Armed Forces, every year, from 3 to 4 billion euros,
or 413 billion in military spending. over the period. Weapons obviously
intended to enrich the industrialists who manufacture them and to
maintain wars in several regions of the world.

For the government, it is about reviving nationalism, "French pride", as
if we had "a common destiny", rich and poor, exploiters and exploited,
the same interests to defend. The government intends that the JOPs
organized in Paris (and a little in the territory) - as well as the
partly reconstructed holy cathedral of Notre-Dame - will contribute to
improving the image of the nation in the world, by producing a momentum
of wide-ranging attractiveness. Obviously with hopes of enrichment,
expectations of capital accumulation... and forgetting the economic,
social and environmental costs of this enormous machine.

Nationalism again.
. ... when Macron sings the pronatalist refrains of the last century, a
favorite subject, again, of the extreme right. A call to have more
children, provided that they are French, and that there is no recourse
to immigration to avoid demographic decline; a martial project of
"demographic rearmament" which is deployed on the bodies of women and
against their autonomy.

A productivist and/or warlike society needs hands to run the factories
for the benefit of the ruling class...

War economy

Here again the metaphor is bellicose. The direction is the same: salary
increase for civil servants "on merit", fight against "useless
standards" and for innovation, praise given to "the France of the middle
classes", nuclear and arms industry... War also against the environment,
with a destructive water policy, the manufacturing and use of chemicals
and dangerous products...

As for the social war, the war of the rich against the poor, of
capitalism against the exploited, it continues and grows: hunt for the
unemployed, France of "work", of "commitment" and "merit ". The
objective of "full employment", posted for 2027 and in the name of the
value "work", is used as a horizon to ensure social repression. This is
a pretext to make budgetary savings by reducing social spending (a new
turnaround of 12 billion euros has been announced), to force the
unemployed to accept extremely precarious, difficult and difficult jobs.
poorly paid, to reassure markets, support profits, reduce workers'
rights and discipline them.

It is clear that the social war will intensify, in the service of growth
and profit, with increased support for capital to the detriment of
labor. "Our administration must not be "facing" entrepreneurs, it must
be "with" them (...), it must put itself in "their" place," declared the
minister, B. Le Maire. The State is more than ever the armed arm of
capital, its surest support.

Discontent and anger: what struggles?

But this world below, against all odds, continues to fight, without
expecting anything from the union institutions supposed to represent
them. We observe strikes, demonstrations, support, occupations and
various forms of local, punctual mobilization, to say no to the
exploitation project, to demand a dignified life against social
injustice. As we write, blockades of angry farmers are multiplying on
major roads; the government, very understanding because fearing
demonstrations of force that it considers insufficiently controlled,
ordered the prefects "not to intervene", except in cases of danger to
the lives of others. In the south of Toulouse, the movement declared
itself outside the official union (FNSEA) and continues to doubt the
effectiveness of this union in solving the survival problems of
peasants. A popular movement if ever there was one, coming from the base
of the exploited, their demands question the system of purchasing and
distribution of their production, the inequalities and injustices of
which they are victims and receive broad support from the population
which understands all the more their anger as it echoes their anger,
already expressed by the Yellow Vests, by the demonstrations against
pension reform, against the Labor law, etc.

But what would this world of the rich, the powerful, the shareholders,
be without all these proletarianized populations, these exploited
emigrants, without a youth who is looking for a reason to live better?
With what money could the capitalists gorge themselves if production,
reproduction and capital gains dried up following a massive resignation
of the real producers of wealth?

The analysis of the strategies implemented to develop their profits with
even greater inequalities is a necessity in order to be able to "arm"
oneself intellectually and physically and tirelessly lead resistance and
struggles at all levels of society. If "France" must rearm itself, as
its viceroy-president trumpets, it will be a rearmament of the struggles
that are emerging against exploitation, humiliation, order and its violence.

CJ South West,
January 28, 2024

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4066
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