FRENCH president Emmanuel Macron took to the airwaves on Sunday night in a desperate attempt to divert the anger of the tens of millions of youth and workers who took to the streets as part of the wave of uprising that swept Europe on Saturday.
Macron placed the blame for the massive increase in the cost of living and the austerity measures that have reduced the French education system to the point of collapse squarely on the war launched by US imperialism on Iran.
Macron said he understood that protesters are worried about living costs and fuel prices, while insisting that he and the French government could not be held responsible for the crisis.
Instead, Macron placed the entire blame on the unprovoked war on Iran, saying that workers and youth ‘find their source in the conflict launched in the Persian Gulf, in which France did not take part and of which we suffer the consequences.’
After absolving himself and the French capitalist class from any responsibility for the economic crisis that sparked the uprising, Macron got down to the real business of the day for the ruling class – namely to ban all future protests.
He announced that in future, public gatherings will be banned and civil liberties curtailed with central government prefects, who are responsible for law enforcement across France, working with local authorities to impose bans on ‘certain gatherings when necessary.’
Macron promised ‘harsh’ consequences for anyone accused of ‘rioting’, saying: ‘They will answer for what they have done to the Republic.’
Macron’s attempt to shift the blame entirely onto the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz was met with a scathing response from Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
In a post on social media yesterday, Araghchi said Macron had ‘made his bed’ by giving assurances to US president Donald Trump that he welcomed atrocities against the Iranians, and that it is ‘too late to blame the war that his ilk helped cause.’
Araghchi also shared a screenshot of a message sent by Macron to Trump, published in January prior to the illegal US-Israeli attack on Iran, as clear evidence of Macron’s support for US policy on Iran.
In the message Macron wrote: ‘We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran.’
The ‘great things’ the US did – with the active support and encouragement of Macron along with all the other imperialist powers, including the UK – was to launch a war that failed to achieve domination over the Middle East region and has massively accelerated the economic crisis engulfing world capitalism.
On Sunday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei warned Macron that those behind ‘sinister alliances’ will eventually face the consequences of their own actions.
Workers and youth across France and across Europe came out in their millions determined to hold their capitalist governments responsible and make them face the consequences.
Macron’s response to swiftly move towards an open police state, to brutally suppress all opposition by workers to having their lives destroyed for the benefit of the bankers and bosses, will face the determined resistance of the working class.
The uprising of workers and youth across Europe at the weekend has sent tremors of fear throughout the capitalist world.
In the UK, the Daily Telegraph yesterday carried an article headlined: ‘France is burning, Britain is next’ which stated: ‘It’s going to happen. We are all on the same fast path towards fiscal and societal breakdown.’
Capitalism has reached the point where its economic crisis can only be resolved in the conflict between a powerful working class and a weak ruling class – a conflict that will be fought out to the finish.
This means trade unions must mobilise the huge strength of the working class by calling indefinite general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and go forward to workers governments and socialism.
The urgent task today is the building of the WRP and Young Socialists in the UK and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership required to dump bankrupt capitalism in the dustbin of history with the victory of the World Socialist Revolution.
