Macron did everything he could to make the most of the Olympic Games, appearing as often as possible with the athletes. Under the pretext of ensuring the smooth running of the Games, the “resigning” ministers showed off in the media as if nothing had happened. But once the so-called “enchanted interlude of the Olympic Games” ends, the question of appointing a new Prime Minister will be back on the agenda and shake up the political world again.

Will the new head of government come from the New Popular Front or will it rely on a coalition of Macronist MPs and the right wing? Whatever combination emerges from this political maneuvring, the next Prime Minister will, like all the previous ones, comply with the demands of the wealthy bourgeois minority that rules the economy –Arnault, Dassault, Bolloré, Peugeot etc.

Workers will continue to suffer due to wages that won’t make ends meet, due to unemployment, job insecurity and redundancies as is happening at Valeo and many other companies that don’t make the headlines. To enable the largest capitalist groups to increase their profits, the future government won't hesitate to sacrifice shopkeepers, craftsmen and small farmers who are threatened with bankruptcy as a result of the worsening crisis.

With the help of the government that serves them, a minority of parasites can accumulate ever greater fortunes year after year. Extorted at the cost of aggravating exploitation and driving part of the population into poverty, these billions are used to prepare for new catastrophes.

Irresponsible and exclusively preoccupied with making the quickest possible gains, the capitalist class prefers to turn to finance and speculation. This is the source of the stock market, banking and currency crises that have followed one another for years and threaten to undermine the entire economy. On August 5, the world's stock markets dropped once again, reviving fears of a financial collapse that would have devastating effects for society as a whole.

In the past, the crisis of 1929, the worst one capitalism has ever known, led to Nazism coming to power in Germany and plunging the whole of humanity into the horror of the Second World War. Almost a century later, another capitalist crisis is threatening to drag society back into barbarism.

The racist demonstrations and riots organized by the far right in Great Britain show that xenophobic rhetoric can overnight lead to violent acts. In many working-class neighborhoods ravaged by the crisis and the austerity policies pursued by both the right and the left, mosques, migrant hostels and stores have been targeted, as if those responsible for the social catastrophe were to be found there.

The same demagogues are at work here in France, among those who have been in power and those who, like the RN (Rassemblement National), also aspire to be. By pitting workers against each other on the basis of their origin or religion, this xenophobic propaganda divides and weakens them at a time when they need more than ever to be united to defend themselves and to wage the battles likely to offer another future to society as a whole.

This worsening of the crisis and the economic war between states is also at the root of increased warmongering in many parts of the planet. For more than two years now, a deadly conflict in Eastern Europe has pitted imperialist countries, led by the United States, against Putin's Russia. The murderous war being waged by the Israeli state against the Palestinian population of Gaza, with its indiscriminate and relentless bombing, has already begun to cause unrest in the Middle East. Tensions with China are escalating. Wars are spreading throughout the capitalist world.

The working class is the only class capable of putting a stop to this trend, by expropriating the capitalists and reorganizing the economy in the interests of the greatest number. It is urgent and vital that workers of all nationalities and origins rally behind a program defending their interests, with the prospect of overthrowing the capitalist system.

Nathalie Arthaud