France

In a situation where the crisis is deepening, the principal lessons of the regional elections which took place on 14 and 21 March, 2010 are the following: a massive level of abstention; a real electoral defeat for the government; the return of the National Front; and the disappointing results of the NPA. - read article...

Ilham Moussaid : statement by the National Executive Committee of the NPA, February 8, 2010 - read article...

We never saw the reference to Trotskyism as a way to shut ourselves off from others. For us, it was more like a polemical challenge. We accepted the Trotskyist tag in our conflict with the Stalinists — but without building a neurotic identity out of it or, conversely, downplaying the importance of this heritage. - read article...

Daniel left us today, Tuesday the 12th of January 2010. Born in 1946 he gave his life to the cause of defending revolutionary Marxist ideas right to the end. - read article...

The French radical philosopher and political leader, Daniel Bensaïd, died Tuesday morning after fighting a painful cancer for several months at the end of close to 15 years of living with AIDS. - read article...

On Tuesday January 12, 2010 our friend Daniel Bensaid, “Bensa” died. Those familiar with Daniel knew he was incurably ill, and had regretfully expected for some weeks news which, though we knew it to be inevitable, we always fought to believe would not come. - read article...

The Ford factory in Bordeaux has been the subject of a long struggle between the managers, intent on closing the plant, and the CGT union. Successive actions mean the plat remains open, but there are hard lessons for workers in similar positions. - read article...

The founding of the new party was an event both in France and for very many anti-capitalists across the world. All those who were afraid that it would just be the LCR under another name were proved wrong by the congress of the NPA. - read article...

Last week saw the biggest movement of strikes and demonstrations by public sector workers since the defeat of the movement over pensions in 2003. - read article...

Thousands demonstrated in Nice on 9 February against the NATO defence ministers’ meeting. - read article...

Strikes, marches, demos....once again the political temperature in France is hotting up. - read article...

1800 people attended LCR rally against the proposed European Constitution on 8 April. - read article...

Polls are showing that it’s too close to call in the French referendum on the proposed European constitution and the ’yes’ campaign, which unites most of the pro-capitalist mainstream, is panicking. - read article...

The LCR Political Bureau calls for the Left forces of the ‘No’ campaign to continue the fight for a social and democratic Europe. - read article...

September is the time of the “rentrée” in France - the “coming back” when political life starts up again after the summer break. Though, this year more than most, the shock waves of the May 29th referendum have meant that the summer was not so quiet. - read article...

The mobilisation for the one-day strike and day of action on Tuesday October 4 called by a united front of French trade unions was expected to be massive, and it lived up to expectations. Across the country there were an estimated 1.3 million demonstrators in 150 towns and cities. - read article...

On 8 November a thousand people gathered in Paris for a united front meeting to oppose the privatisation of EDF and to prepare for the national demonstration in defence of public services planned for 19 November. - read article...

In spite of the emergency powers that came into force at midnight on 9 November, the movement of revolt that is sweeping the poor neighbourhoods and estates on the edges of France’s major cities is continuing. - read article...

The state of emergency is the armed wing of liberalism...It would be unthinkable for part of the Left to persist in its accommodation with the government and not vote against the prorogation of the state of emergency. - read article...

The government’s proposed “First Job Contract” would make it possible to sack young people under 26 in the first two years they were in a job, without giving any reason. The mass student movement against this measure has the government worried. - read article...

The demonstrations called by student and workers’unions on 18 March against the CPE labour law were a big success - estimates ranged from half a million to one and a half million nationwide. - read article...

Daniel Bensaid, in this interview with Socialist Worker, reflects on the current battle of the French students and its comparisons with student movements of the past. - read article...

For the sake of maintaining a united front, the call for action coming from Monday’s meeting of union and student leaders was not clearly for a general strike. For the moment the government is not backing down. - read article...

Communiqué from the LCR (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International) - read article...

Four thousand people crammed in to the Mutualité meeting hall on April 18 to hear Olivier Besancenot, despite the rally falling in the school holiday period. A giant screen was erected outside the hall so that several hundred people who couldn’t find places inside the hall could follow the meeting. - read article...

Declaration made by Olivier Besancenot after the first results of the French presidential election were announced. - read article...

Olivier Besancenot will be a candidate in the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday 22nd April. The LCR has received the necessary 530 mayoral signatures. The LCR is very proud to have overcome all the obstacles. - read article...

The populist demagogy used in this campaign will lead to anti-social, repressive and antidemocratic measures, which will undoubtedly provoke very broad resistance and struggles. - read article...

Of 200 lists presented or supported by the LCR, 109 of them got more than 5% of the vote and 29 more than 10%. - read article...

Preliminary results indicate a strong rejection of the lists supported by the government. This is a clear disavowal of the policy of reactionary Sarkozy. - read article...

Tout est à nous is the name of the new weekly newspaper of France’s new anticapitalist party, the NPA. - read article...

On Thursday 5 February, 2009 the 18th Congress of the LCR (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire – Revolutionary Communist League) decided on its dissolution, as a prelude to the foundation of the New Anti-capitalist Party. The LCR - “the Ligue” -, was an adventure which, under different names (Cercles des diffuseurs de Rouge, Ligue communiste, Front communiste révolutionnaire and finally Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) lasted nearly 40 years. - read article...

This contribution was written as part of preparations for the January 2009 congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). The congress agenda includes the political “self-dissolution” of the LCR, to set the stage for the new challenge of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). The authors of this piece belong to the generation of activists from the 1960s and 1970s; so while principally addressed to members of the LCR, it may be of interest to many others. - read article...

The political panorama of the French left has been shaken in recent months by the announcement of the creation of a New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) at the initiative of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) of Olivier Besancenot. - read article...

The political impact of the NPA process is quite important. In a number places, this new political party in constitution is already de facto replacing the LCR and is very active. - read article...

In the past couple of years the fortunes of the radical left have diverged sharply. The most important case on the negative side was provided by the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista in Italy.... Fortunately, there are more positive experiences. The most exciting of these has been the initiative taken by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire to launch a New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). - read article...

The meeting in Saint-Denis on 28 and 29th June confirms the emergence of a new national political force. The presence of almost 800 delegates representing hundreds of local committees testifies to the reality of the process which is going to lead us to the creation of a new anti-capitalist party. - read article...

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The general strike of May-June ’68 in France is being hotly debated in franc itself and elsewhere. Revolution? Pre-revolutionary situation? What’s the truth of what happened? - read article...

We are thousands of workers, men and women, from the cities and the countryside, with or without employment, with or without papers, young people, pensioners, precarious workers, activists from political organisations, trade-unions, associations, new and old, who are in the process of making this project a reality. - read article...

French youth continue to show their potential for mobilising against education reforms. This time it is the turn of high school students, who, during the last weeks, have been on the streets against the suppression of teachers’ jobs in high schools. - read article...

Olivier Besancenot discusses the LCR proposal for a new, broad anti-capitalist party with the Swiss socialist journal SolidaritéS. - read article...

This call, approved by a very large majority at the LCR congress, marks the concrete beginning of the process of forming a new anticapitalist party that the LCR is calling to be formed. In the coming days, everywhere, its sections will undertake this process. - read article...

Within the LCR, there is a very broad agreement on the structural reasons behind the attempt to build a new political representation for the world of work, bringing together all those who have not given up on the struggle against the capitalist system. - read article...

The number and scope of the French and international delegations at the 17th LCR Congress proves the interest in our current debates. - read article...

In January, a vast majority of the delegates at the 17th national congress of the LCR approved a new political perspective: the building of a broad anti-capitalist party. - read article...

We recall that our feminist intervention is intended to be carried by all of the LCR in all our different areas of activity and that the secretariat is there simply to give an impulse to and centralise the activity, etc. We will therefore describe the political context within which feminist activists have militated, our internal operation and in conclusion several reflections relating to the New Anticapitalist Party. - read article...

He seems to be everywhere. Olivier Besancenot has a prominence in the political arena that now goes beyond his wildest dreams. - read article...

The strikes and demonstrations against Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempted neoliberal reforms have been massive. We publish here an initial report by the LCR. - read article...

Sarkozy’s election in May 2007 was a serious political defeat. But the recently elected president, hand in hand with the bosses’ union, had yet to inflict a major social defeat to the working class. - read article...

In order to launch the debate on the perspective of a new anti-capitalist party, first of all among the militants of the LCR, then among all those who might be interested in this project, the National Leadership has adopted the following motion. It obviously does not prejudge the outcome of a discussion which is only beginning and which will now continue over the coming months... - read article...

The new political situation puts two demands on the agenda: unity to resist the plans of Sarkozyism and a new workers party. - read article...

The French presidential election generated lots of debates about the way the anti-neoliberal and anti-capitalist Left should proceed. This article looks at what happened and the viewpoint of the LCR. - read article...

Report of the minority in the LCR, given at the meeting of the FI’s International Committee, in February 2007. - read article...

A long interview on the political project of revolutionary marxists, with an introduction reflecting on the outcome of the first round of the French presidential elections on 20 April 2007. - read article...

The failure of the anti-neoliberal left in France to agree a united candidate for the coming presidential elections has caused great controversy. For some leftists the LCR shares the blame, for refusing to back any candidate who is equivocal about participation in a ’left’ government with the neoliberal Socialist Party. Daniel Bensaïd explains the LCR’s intransigence on this point - and the damage being done to the French body politic by the campaign. - read article...

The political divisions on the left in France in the run-up to the Presidential elections have provoked much debate internationally. François Duval, from the LCR national leadership recently set out the position of the LCR in a report to the European Anti-capitalist Left. - read article...

In the run up to next year’s presidential elections, intense skirmishing is taking place to determine who will stand for the anti-neoliberal left. - read article...

Alain Krivine, one of the best-known leaders of the Fourth International, is about to publish his political memoirs, covering 50 years of political activism. He began his political life as a young Communist militant. It was in that capacity that he was sent to the World Youth Conference in Moscow in 1957, where he met with representatives of the Algerian FLN. This meeting was to be the turning point in his political life. - read article...

France has just experienced the third confrontation with the government in less than a year. The country had already seen political confrontation on a large scale with the mobilization against the adoption of the European Constitutional Treaty in the spring of 2005. - read article...

The LCR’s candidate in the last French presidential election discusses the prospects for a united left campaign in the upcoming presidentials - addressing Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet, left environmentalist campaigner Jose Bove and Lutte Ouvriere spokesperson Arlette Laguiller. - read article...

After two months of a mass campaign against the CPE (First Employment Contract), the French government finally caved in and withdrew the measure. Why did it fail this time? - read article...

“The executive (government) is in tatters, the ministers squabble, the (parliamentary) majority is rent by divisions” says Le Monde. It is reeling under the pressure of the movement. - read article...

On the morning of April 10, the French government finally caved in. After two months of a mass campaign against the CPE (First Employment Contract), the measure was withdrawn. It is nothing more than a very unconvincing attempt by the government at saving face. - read article...

The LCR (French section of the Fourth International) held its 16th National Congress in January 2006. We reproduce the following report of the congress, accompanied by the principal motions adopted, from the 26th January issue of the LCR’s weekly paper, Rouge. - read article...

To answer the wave of unrest the French government is giving itself sweeping repressive powers. We are reproducing three documents written in response; a national leaflet of the LCR (French section of the Fourth International); a joint statement by left and democratic organisations; and a press statement by LCR spokesperson Olivier Besancenot. - read article...

The nightly riots in the poor neighbourhoods around France’s towns and cities have now been going on for two weeks. On November 7th, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced the government’s response. It was to resuscitate a 1955 law authorizing the proclamation of a state of emergency. - read article...

The French referendum on the European constitution created a political shock in France and in Europe. A political shock because, in spite of the commitment of the biggest parties of Right and Left to the campaign for the “Yes”, the electoral disavowal was definitive. - read article...

France has voted ’no’ in the referendum on the EU constitution - and it’s overwhelimingly a vote against a neoliberal Europe - from the Left. - read article...

LCR spokesperson Olivier Besancenot, speaking at a large rally organised by the French Communist Party, argued that a victory for the ’No’ position in the referendum on the proposed European Constitution would be a victory for the left, and could be a new point of departure for anti-capitalist struggles. - read article...

Jan Malewski probes the authoritarian neoliberalism at the heart of the proposed European Constitution. - read article...

This spring saw an important movement of high school students in France, first of all in the form of mass demonstrations and then by radical forms of struggle such as blockading schools. For the moment the movement is over. The following article draws a first balance sheet of the movement. - read article...

LCR leader Francois Sabado says that May’s referendum has the potential for a major shift in the French political terrain. - read article...

The first three months of 2005 have seen a change in the social and political situation in France. On the one hand, there has been a definite upturn in the class struggle, of which the most visible manifestation has been a series of nationwide strikes and demonstrations. On the other, the campaign for the referendum on the proposed European constitution is gathering speed, with a real possibility of a victory for the “No”. - read article...

The results of the European elections in France partly confirm those of the regional elections in a context of a remarkable rate of abstention. - read article...

The alliance adopted last autumn between our two organizations concerned the regional and European elections of 2004, where we put forward a series of concrete measures including: an emergency social programme based around mobilizations breaking with capitalist logic; increases in wages and social subsistence; a ban on layoffs; redistribution of wealth; lifting of banking, industrial or commercial secrets; defence of public services. - read article...

The national congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International) took place at the beginning of November 2003. Coverage of the congress figured largely in the press and television, even making the front page of the “left” daily Liberation. - read article...

The following appeal was adopted by an overwhelming majority at the 15th national congress of the LCR, held in Saint-Denis from 30th October to 2nd November, 2003. - read article...

The strike movement of May-June 2003 marks a significant stage in French social struggles. The Raffarin government, which came to power a year ago, set as its objective the realization of numerous neoliberal reforms, remodelling the role of the state and attacking the living conditions of wage earners. - read article...

Only yesterday, French intellectuals overflowed with compassion. From Bosnia to Chechnya, by way of Kosovo, on every front of the new world disorder. Their silence before the imperial crusade in Afghanistan and before the criminal policy of the Sharon government in Palestine is all the more deafening. This inglorious resignation is not, alas, unrelated to the relative weakness of the anti-war mobilizations in France, compared with the demonstrations that have taken place since 7 October 2002 in most big European countries. - read article...

Lutte Ouvrière is one of the largest organizations of the far left in Europe. For the last 15-20 years, it has been the largest of the three major organizations of the far left in France. - read article...

In less than two months, France has experienced four nationwide electoral contests that have shaken the country. Political crisis combines with social crisis. Indeed, far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen’s qualification for the second round of the presidential elections revealed a system on the verge of implosion. - read article...

Following the success of the presidential campaign of Olivier Besancenot, the LCR now faces the challenge of consolidating its support in the elections for the National Assembly (parliament). It is obvious that this will be a hard task. - read article...

Action programme of the LCR-100% Left candidates for the parliamentary elections. - read article...

At the first round of the French Presidential elections on April 21 2002, the far left gained more than 10% of the vote. Despite the Le Pen effect and the 20% score of the far right, this unprecedented result is positive both in terms of the current relationship of forces and in the struggles to come. - read article...

"...each of us must defend their own politics and then the meaning of the votes will be clear..." - read article...

"Again you respond to a proposal from the LCR for unity by refusing to entertain it. However, we are in a situation which should have made you perceive the necessity for far left unity..." - read article...

The first round of the French presidential election provoked a real trauma, particularly among the masses and traditional left supporters. The final election will be a run off between outgoing president Jacques Chirac, a particularly corrupt rightwing figure, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, representative of the racist and fascist far right. - read article...

Since Sunday April 21, 2002 a massive movement, essentially made up of young people, has erupted onto the streets of France. - read article...

The Front National is a current that represents a direct continuity with Vichy, fascism and the Nazi crimes of World War II. Tonight I share the sadness of millions of people in the face of this advance of the far right. - read article...

The score of the far left in the first round of the French presidential election is a major political event even if it has been relativised by the electoral success of the Front National. - read article...

For a week now demonstrations against Le Pen and the Front National have continued. Hundreds of thousands of young people are expressing their anger against the far right. - read article...

ON Saturday March 23, 2002 the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International) deposited at the Constitutional Council the 500 "sponsorships" that will enable its candidate, Olivier Besancenot, to be on the ballot in the first round of the presidential election on April 21. - read article...

Shortly after the French local elections of April 2001, which confirmed the increased electoral strength of the far left, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire proposed a joint campaign for the Spring 2002 presidential and legislative elections to the other main organization of the French far left, Lutte Ouvrière (LO). - read article...

Despite the predictions of the pollsters that it would be victorious, the gauche plurielle ("plural left"), that is the coalition government, came out defeated from the French municipal elections of March 11th and 18th 2001. - read article...

“...the LCR and LO have particular responsibilities to prepare for the coming events, both in the struggles and in the presidential and parliamentary elections.” - read article...

We, the participants at the Istanbul ESF, affirming that we have a strong engagement aganist all war and occupation and that we are for a politial resolution of the Kurdish issue, have made the following resolution : - read article...

Under the impulse of the World Bank and international capitalist institutions, the Moroccan regime started a privatization process of the universities and attacks against the right to studiy. The announcement of the “Emergency plan” to the university at beginning of the academic year, i.e. of the brutal aggravation of these attacks, put a spark to the powder. The class-struggle trade unionists of fight, organised within the UNEM, are at the forefront of the mobilization against the “Emergency plan”. - read article...

We have learned with immense sadness of the death of our comrade Denise Comanne, last Friday May 28, following a mild heart attack, just after she had participated in a solidarity activity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. - read article...

On April 27th, Ainur Kurmanov, journalist and political militant, was sentenced to a fortnight’s imprisonment for having reported on a strike picket. The picket was organized by the oppositional social movement "Kazakhstan 2012" to protest against the eviction of the poor from their homes. - read article...

Declaration of the Fourth International on Thailand: There must be an end to repression, the censure of the media and the denial of democratic freedoms. The rights to organise, freely associate, strike and demonstrate must be respected. - read article...