Acting as if Putin were about to invade Europe, Macron wants to put the European Union on a war footing and to double France's military budget within the next five years. But are Russian tanks and Cossacks preparing to enter Berlin or Paris? No! This propaganda doesn't hold up.
Putin is neither capable of nor willing to invade the EU. If Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it was not to conquer Europe but to halt the advance of NATO, which was increasingly encroaching on his sphere of influence by integrating the Baltic states and a number of former Eastern Bloc countries. After three years of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the Russian army hasn’t even been able to take Kiev!
According to Macron, we should defend democratic values and the Ukrainian people, betrayed by Trump and his government. But European leaders are just as cynical as their American counterparts, it’s just that they aren’t as powerful.
What have France and the other European powers done in Africa and the Middle East? They have plundered natural resources and divided up areas of influence by drawing borders between peoples. They supported dictators who were useful to them, before abandoning them overnight, like Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi.
Today, they all want to take part in ceasefire talks in Ukraine because they're all eyeing its famous rare earths, its vast farmlands and the billions to be made building the country back up.
By playing on our feelings and fears, Macron is seeking to restore his reputation as a warlord and to brainwash us. Yes, he is preparing for war! And his aim is to enlist us and force us to make further sacrifices.
Today, he wants to mobilize us against Putin. But the trade war between Trump's America and Europe is raging, too. How will this tug-of-war turn out? Who knows how Trump's ambition to annex Greenland, which is under Danish and therefore European authority, will turn out?
As the noise made by warmongers gets louder, it's more important than ever to think about our interests as workers. Who are our enemies? Who is attacking our living conditions?
Some workers sleep in their cars, if not under bridges. And if many are afraid of losing their homes, it's not for fear of Russian bombs! It's because they're having trouble paying the rent or the mortgage. It's because they're afraid of being laid off.
We are under attack on a daily basis for the things that are most vital to us: our jobs, wages, working conditions, our right to retirement, to healthcare and education for our children. These attacks do not come from somewhere else. They come from French business and the government at its service. No, Macron is not our protector! The interests of French capitalists are not ours and their economic war is not ours either!
From the National Rally (RN) to the French Communist Party (PCF) and Unsubmissive France (LFI), all political parties approve of the transition to a war economy. The left has abandoned all reference to the class struggle and, like the right and the far right, claims to follow in the footsteps of General de Gaulle and his sovereigntist positions. Like Macron, they already have us closing ranks behind generals devoted to bankers and industrialists in the name of patriotism!
But in this “homeland” we are supposed to defend, some people are exploited and others are exploiters. There are billionaire capitalists who insist on turning us all into low-wage earners and on destroying the few social services that still exist. In this “homeland”, there is a hidden war going on: the war that big business is waging for its profits against the working class and society as a whole.
If we don't defend ourselves against big business and its political lackeys, worse, if we unite behind them, we condemn ourselves to being fodder for exploitation first and then straight out cannon fodder in the future.
There's no money for schools, public hospitals or transport, they say. But there’s plenty for weapon manufacturers! Even before we are officially at war, arms dealers are seeing their profits soar. As soon as Macron made his speech, Thales and Dassault shares soared. And according to the government, what investment could be more profitable than in the war industry!
We must refuse to go down that path! We must demand the requisition of the arms dealers' profits! The accounts of war companies should be controlled by workers! We must denounce our own government as the main warmonger!
Nathalie Arthaud