Editor’s note: In recent weeks, mass protests have swept France and many other European countries as working people stand up to the crisis of capitalism and refuse to pay for it through austerity. On Oct. 17, hundreds of thousands of French students, workers, retirees, and others filled the streets, but the government answered with police repression, arresting over 2,400 people.
While the corporate media in the U.S. focused on the violence and destruction of a few provocateurs, working-class demands are at the heart of the rebellion.
The following editorial was published L’Humanité, the Paris daily newspaper associated with the French Communist Party (PCF). Its author, Fabien Gay, is the paper’s director. He is also a member of the PCF’s national executive committee and a French senator representing Seine-Saint-Denis, the working-class suburbs north of Paris. People’s World presents it here in English translation.
On Saturday, Oct. 17, hundreds of thousands of French people flooded the streets, roundabouts, and public squares all across the country. High school students, university students, workers, retirees, yellow vests, trade unionists: a real and determined convergence against the high cost of living, austerity, and the government’s contempt.
This day did not come out of nowhere. It is rooted in weeks of high school revolt over the lack of resources for public education, in anger at soaring prices at the pump, in the memory of the yellow vest struggle, and in the social movement’s rejection of a budget calling for 54 billion euros in cuts.
The people refuse to keep paying the bill for a system that enriches oil companies’ super-profits and shareholders while strangling public services and wages.
Deaf to the country’s demands, President Emmanuel Macron’s address this weekend made clear, this government—delegitimized by the 2024 legislative elections—has chosen police repression once again.
Its response to the mass demonstrations has been grenades, tear gas, kettling, thousands of arrests, and injured protesters—among them a 17-year-old who lost a hand. It’s almost as if the president and his cabinet believe clubbing young people and the working class will solve the crises in purchasing power, in our schools, or in our hospitals.
State violence, like Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s ultimatum to choose between “the Republic”—which he reduces to the police alone—and “the side of the rioters,” confirms that Macron’s government is at a dead end; it is cornered.
On the other side, the hundreds of rioters, who are a minority, committed intolerable acts of destruction and looting. Smashing shop windows and setting fire to public buildings has nothing to do with legitimate social anger. These actions harm the broad social movement that is growing across the country and hand an easy pretext to those who want to discredit it.
These provocateurs divert attention from the real issues and make those who want to get involved hesitate. Above all, the rioters allow the government to play the “restore order” card while smothering social demands.
The strength of the mobilization lies in its peaceful, popular determination. These incidents must not obscure what we saw in the marches: smiles, songs, inventive slogans, new forms of solidarity. High school students talking with retirees, yellow vests marching alongside trade unionists. That is the strength of the movement.
“One hero alone: the people,” L’Humanité said, and it is true. This day must not be left without a sequel. On Nov. 5, the inter-union coalition is calling for a new day of strikes and demonstrations.
We must amplify, unite, and radicalize our demands: schools, wages, public services, taxing super-profits, an end to austerity. Capital and its political representatives will give way only under the pressure of a broad and determined popular movement.
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