Let’s unite to fight and get rid of Macron and Darmanin!

Text of a leaflet produced and distributed by Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI France)

Nahel: another 17-year-old dead, after so many others. Alhoussein, Zineb, Adama, Cédric, Zyed, Bouna… Nahel’s death both shocks and revolts us. The policies of president and interior minister Macron and Darmanin (and Valls and Sarkozy before them) are constantly fuelling violence. In working-class neighbourhoods, this has been the case for a long time.

Repression is now widespread: trade unionists are treated as terrorists, the RAID [an elite police unit] in Mayotte gas undocumented migrants, a law making it easier for the police to use weapons, CRS [police reserves] and BRAV [a special motorcycle unit] at demonstrations… And facial identity checks, insults and provocation, discrimination, mass unemployment and the closure of public services have all taken their toll. Unemployment, racism and discrimination: we’ve had enough!

These are the real causes of the current revolt. Anger is being expressed, with violence to match that of the government.

But will burning cars and smashing shop windows really change things? Not to mention destroying schools and social centres? No, on the contrary, it gives them a pretext for even more repression.

And with a state of emergency, they could go even further. And why? Because what they are really afraid of is people getting together to fight their racist, anti-youth policies, particularly in working-class neighbourhoods.

Cutting funding for education, hospitals, transport, and other services reinforces inequalities. The government’s policies benefit the big multinationals and the richest people. Racism and repression are tools to divide us and prevent us from fighting together against the real culprits. Behind its racist, repressive and neoliberal policies, it is the interests of the same social class that it is defending: the capitalists.

Everyone has had enough. But there is no plan or programme to unite this anger and organise to direct it against the real cause of all these problems: capitalism and its servants like Darmanin and Macron. The rallies and demonstrations organised to demand #JusticePourNahel must continue and grow against the government’s racist and anti-social policies – to unite this anger and transform it into a massive struggle against Macron and capitalism. To achieve this, trade unions and left-wing organisations should be on the frontline, alongside the inhabitants of working-class neighbourhoods and young people.

There is no question of leaving them alone to face the police and the explosion in their neighbourhoods. The massive pensions’ movement gave an idea of how powerful a mass mobilisation could be against Macron’s policies, against violence, racism, racial profiling by the police, and in favour of tolerance among working class and youth.

The state is organised to allow the domination of a minority; with the help of the armed forces, in particular. Only a mass revolution will make it possible to really change society and build a new one; a socialist society for the benefit of all.

If you’ve had enough of this unjust system, if you’re looking for ways to overthrow it, if you’re wondering what system we can put in its place: contact us! Join us!