LAST WEEK, an explosive letter from 25 senior retired French generals was published in the right-wing Valeurs Actuelles magazine threatening President Macron with an army coup.
The letter, which has also been signed by a further up to 7,000 serving or retired army personnel since it was first published on April 21st, bluntly warns Macron that France is headed for ‘civil war’.
The generals warn that ‘laxist’ policies by the French government would result in chaos requiring ‘the intervention of our comrades on active duty in a perilous mission of protection of our civilisational
values’.
The generals wrote: ‘The hour is grave, France is in peril,’ adding that failure by the government to act against the ‘suburban hordes’ who ‘scorn our country’ will lead to ‘civil war’ and deaths ‘in the thousands’.
The timing of the letter was deliberately chosen as it was published on the 60th anniversary of a failed coup d’état by French generals to overthrow the then President Charles de Gaulle over France’s humiliating defeat by the Algerian people, forcing France out of its former colony.
By choosing this anniversary the generals are making it clear this is no idle threat but a statement of intent.
If Macron doesn’t ruthlessly put down the ‘suburban hordes’ who threaten the rule of capitalism then the army will.
The suburban hordes are of course the great mass of workers and especially young workers. They are referring to the thousands of working class unemployed youth who live in tower blocks surrounding Paris under the most deprived conditions in the country who face daily harassment by the police.
With nothing to lose, these youth are the most revolutionary section of workers and have been at the forefront of the demonstrations earlier this year over laws by Macron to make it illegal to photograph riot police thugs attacking peaceful demonstrators.
Giving the police virtual immunity while they viciously attack workers and youth is not enough for the generals and the French ruling class that they speak for.
Either Macron crushes them or the army will is the message. What they fear is that alongside the suburban hordes is the great mass of workers and a revolutionary uprising that will soon sweep not just France but the whole of Europe.
An official report by the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), the main EU risk watchdog chaired by the European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde, has just reported that the entire eurozone is facing a ‘tsunami’ of bankruptcies as the Covid support schemes for businesses are ended shortly.
Companies in the eurozone bloc have claimed £1.3 trillion in grants and loans to keep from collapse during the pandemic.
The report says ‘the postponed insolvencies would suddenly materialise and trigger a recessionary dynamic, potentially causing further insolvencies. The current low rate of insolvencies would then be similar to the sea retreating before a tsunami.’
Research from Bank of America estimates that over 200,000 companies across France, Germany, Spain and Italy will go under once the EU ends propping them up.
This tsunami of bankruptcies will be accompanied by a tsunami of sackings with millions of workers across Europe thrown into the gutter of mass unemployment on a scale not seen since the 1930s.
The powerful working class of France, Germany, Italy and Spain will not accept being driven back into poverty and destitution by a bankrupt capitalist system that is collapsing around its ears.
This fear of an imminent revolutionary uprising is what lies behind the reactionary threats of the French military. It is a warning to the working class to make their own preparations for the civil war that the ruling class are threatening.
The fast developing mass revolutionary uprising requires a revolutionary leadership to take it forward to seizing the power and smashing the capitalist state, replacing it with a workers’ state that will expropriate the capitalist class, disband its armed forces and advance to a socialist planned economy.
The urgent issue of the day is building revolutionary parties of the International Committee in every country to lead the fight for the victory of the world socialist revolution – there is not a moment to lose.
