A-Infos (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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