We share a translation of the article by La Cause du Peuple

National mobilizations and “social protests” are a common thing in France, especially during springtime. And so, every spring, we see some activists waiting for the next one to happen, and when it doesn’t, they feel like nothing at all is happening. Nothing could be further from the truth!

They make the mistake of blaming the masses for their own inertia and lack of mobilization, placing themselves above them, as if they understood better than everyone else. Although there is no “major protest” in France currently, anyone who lives among the masses and works with them knows that their rage is boiling and the tension is high. They are ready for the fight. So why are things not blowing up? Since 2023, we have been saying that there is a revolutionary situation developing unevenly in the country; let’s see where we are now.

Two contradictory hills that explain this movement

When looking at the side of the bourgeoisie and the side of the people, we say that they are like “two hills” fighting each other. Even if these two hills are influenced by the global situation—because France is an imperialist power exploiting oppressed countries, and the war tendency is developing between the imperialists—the main dynamic is the internal base: that is mainly the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, which expresses the revolution and the counter-revolution, the said “two hills”.

As for the bourgeoisie, we will be brief, as we have analyzed it many times before. Over the past year, their political crisis has turned into a crisis of the French regime, leading to direct repression. They attack everything that is organized because, in Lenin’s words: “It is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the ‘upper classes’, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth…” They want to quell all this discontent, prevent it from expressing itself, because they know that in France, it usually turns into massive and/or violent demonstrations against the bourgeois state. Therefore, they seek to strengthen their fortress named “Republic”, which foundations are crumbling. They use its name and its bourgeois democracy shape against democratic rights and the rights of the people.

On the other hand, France has a relatively high level of class struggle for an imperialist country. There have been many recent battles, up to the year 2023, which intensity was exceptional and recognized throughout the world, and particularly in Europe. Since then, no demands have been met, and in terms of pensions alone, the “Conseil d’Orientation des Retraites” (Pension Advisory Council) has just published a report in which they suggest a new reform to raise the retirement age again. All this even though 90% of the French society (not just the working class!) is opposed to the original plan that was pushed through two years ago. The number of poor people is rising to nearly 11 million, wages are stagnating; and struggles against massive layoffs and against the arbitrary state authority in demonstrations and neighborhoods are multiplying. Even through the massive use of sick leave, we witness some individual resistance to the capitalist order at work, according to a report published in June.

However, it should be noted that since the second half of 2024 and up to the present day, there has been a relative stabilization: its main cause is the problem of the political leadership of the masses. That leads to all the secondary causes that prevent the country from exploding: a fear of mobilizing, the division of the masses into groups cut off from each other, and a feeling of powerlessness on an individual and collective scale. In the revolutionary movement and among the progressive forces, if there is a counter-encirclement in the face of repression, it is because there has been an encirclement in the first hand. And encirclement is not carried out by the weak against the strong, but on the contrary by the strong against the weak. It is therefore a sign of weakness on the part of the revolutionary movement: even if it is growing in relative terms, it remains tactically weak in the face of a bourgeois state with a long counter-revolutionary tradition like in France.

The situation is excellent for revolutionaries to seize the moment.

But stabilization can only be relative and temporary, which is very important. Class struggle in France is not retreating or slowing down: it is preparing for a leap forward. The development of the old bourgeois state process paves the way for a reactionary wave against everything that is organized. This necessarily means that the next major social movement will be criminalized. The organizational impact will be strong, because there will be only two paths for organizations and organized masses: either comply with the state and accept its order, or break with imperialism, and choose between the socialist revolution on one side and the social accommodation of French imperialism on the other. Revolutionaries must therefore learn all the lessons from this and develop their movement with the necessary clarity on this matter.

When we oppose the repression of the bourgeois state, when we demand that democratic rights be respected in demonstrations and trials, does that mean we have any confidence in this rotten state that has broken with the masses? Does that mean we have any confidence in its laws and institutions? Of course not! Lenin said: “We are in favour of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism; but we must not forget that wage‑slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic.”Thus, when we defend democratic rights, we do not do so from the point of view of the bourgeoisie, as a magical belief, but from the point of view of the proletariat, we demand that they be concrete. You say that there is freedom of expression in France? Let us say what we think about Palestine! You say that we have the right to assemble and organize in France? Then stop massively dissolving organizations! It is only by uniting with the progressive and democrat forces that revolutionaries can break the encirclement that is being forced on them.

But that does not mean that their rotten, bourgeois democracy must be saved by a “republican” surge through the union of political organizations, trades unions and groups that oppose reactionary forces. On the contrary, we must spread as widely as possible the slogan of defending the rights of the people, of demanding the enforcement of the democratic rights enshrined in the French constitution. And we must explain tirelessly, prove again and again, that their falsely democratic regime is in reality a monopolistic dictatorship which denies our rights all the time. Thus, there is only one solution for ensuring that social gains—and even the most basic democratic principles—be long-lasting and strictly enforced. It is what the Communist Party of Peru taught us on the issue of rights: “Fight for a New State, only the revolution can guarantee the rights of the people freely and permanently, the rights wrested away with their blood, and the bourgeoisie puts them on the Constitution, or Magna Carta as they call it. But since those from above continue to rule, these rights are not respected and remain mere words written on paper, they are something like burned paper, useless to the people, good only to the exploiters.”

Then, it becomes clear that even if they hire more police officers, even if they increase the arrests and trials, they cannot tame the revolt of the masses in France on the long run. But this revolt cannot triumph without advancing the process of rebuilding the higher organization of the class; without organizing the spontaneous revolutionary violence that exists throughout the country; and without a broad united movement that truly defends the rights of the people, which means the extension and guarantee of the democratic rights that the bourgeoisie denies. This is the most important task for anyone who is a revolutionary in France today. Only the socialist revolution can accomplish this program by developing power for the class, power for the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the guarantee of the triumph of the revolutionary hill and of the rights of the people, until society is liberated from classes, the state, and exploitation.