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Mass mobilizations in France and Spain – Is Italy next ? While police brutalize teenagers, politicians and the bourgeois media have unleashed a barrage of propaganda denouncing "protester violence." Government officials who unflinchingly support Israel and spend billions on weapons, as well as far-right leaders who would like to deport millions through remigration, seethe with indignation at every burning dumpster. In their campaigns to criminalize students, these people don't hesitate to use the most wicked "fake news," such as the story of a principal "doused in gasoline" in Marseille, which was later debunked. The right also accuses the students of being manipulated by La France Insoumise (LFI), the main French left-wing party. Former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau openly calls for the LFI to be banned, accusing it of "organizing an insurrection" for supporting the student struggle. These hysterical campaigns demonstrate the panic of the ruling class, terrified that the struggle might spread. And indeed, all the conditions are in place for this to happen. The movement has already spread to universities, involving some thirty institutions. In many schools, teachers have joined the student struggle. In Le Havre, workers from the CGT, the main union, cordoned off schools to protect students from police attacks. On September 29th, firefighters and public sector workers went on strike. On October 8th, the CGT called a strike at all TotalEnergies plants, demanding wage increases. Calls for a day of protests on October 17th against rising fuel prices circulated widely on social media. As if all this weren't enough, the government presented yet another austerity plan, calling for €54 billion in public spending cuts. In such an explosive situation, all the conditions exist to unite these diverse struggles into a single movement of students and workers. The unions, in particular, can play a key role in this by preparing a broad, all-out strike movement in the workplace, based on an advanced program of anti-austerity measures. This is the slogan that our French comrades of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire are promoting within the movement. The struggle for housing explodes in Spain In Spain, the masses mobilized over the housing issue. It all began on September 23 with the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old disabled pensioner, who saw her rent increase from €500 to €2,650 after the Madrid apartment where she had lived for seventy years was purchased by an investment fund. To enforce the eviction, the state mobilized a grotesque deployment of law enforcement, consisting of 15 vans, a helicopter, and dozens of officers. Images of this despicable outrage swept across Spain and sparked a wave of protests, involving hundreds of thousands of people in all the country's major cities. In central Madrid, Puerta del Sol was occupied day and night by a mass encampment. The movement succeeded in getting Maricarmen back into her home with the rent unchanged, but this did not stop the struggle, especially after Maricarmen died in the hospital from the trauma she suffered during the eviction. The problem of real estate speculation is widespread and dramatic in Spain. In just a few years, rents have increased by an average of 54%, while 4 million homes, mostly owned by large banks and investment funds, remain completely empty. Pedro Sánchez's government attempted to quell the mounting anger with two decrees that included partial and insufficient measures, such as a freeze on evictions of the most "vulnerable" individuals and the automatic renewal of rental contracts. However, on October 2nd, Parliament rejected these two decrees, decreeing the end of the Sánchez government and the calling of early elections. This demonstrates once again that no answer to social problems can come from bourgeois institutions. This had the effect of further radicalizing the struggle. After the parliamentary vote, even larger demonstrations took place across Spain, pushing forward advanced demands, such as a 50% reduction in all rents. All the protesters loudly called for a huelga general, or general strike, and this is placing the union bureaucracies under enormous pressure. Another significant aspect is that this massive mobilization for housing rights developed after weeks of poisonous, racist campaigns from the right surrounding the events in Ceuta. The fight against racism and the far right is a fundamental component of this movement, as is the student struggle in France. Comrades from the Organization Comunista Revolucionaria, the Spanish section of the ICR, report that the demonstrations are filled with red flags, as well as Palestinian flags, and that the revolutionary ideas are well received among participants. Let's take an example Italian workers and students should carefully consider what's happening in France and Spain. The problems facing French students and the Spanish working classes are the same as those we face here: underfunded public schools, skyrocketing rents, low wages, austerity policies, racist campaigns around the clock... The massive mass movements in these countries also show us the right path to follow, even here in Italy, to resolve all these problems. The solution cannot be to wait for the next elections, hoping to have—perhaps—a government less reactionary than Meloni's, but still subservient to the interests of big business. Instead, we must follow the example of France and Spain. It is workers and young people who must act independently to assert their rights and interests. We must reconnect with the broken thread of last year's Palestine solidarity movement; we must return to fighting the ruling class and the conditions it forces us to live in. https://rivoluzione.red/mobilitazioni-di-massa-in-francia-e-spagna-adesso-tocca-a-noi/? Back |
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