France: NPA's Olivier Besancenot calls on all anti-capitalist forces to "act collectively"

Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Pierre Duquesne
l'Humanite

"I would be annoyed to make the umpteenth unitary call," warned Olivier Besancenot. Yes but here it is: the radical left resembles, in the aftermath of the Europeans, a "field of ruins". This is why the spokesman of the Parti Nouveau Anticapitaliste (NPA) on Sunday called "all those camps the resistant to Macron and to the far right" to act and to be heard "together". He invites the militants of France Insoumise, the Lutte Ovrière, the libertarian organizations, the Générations, the Communist Party, the anti-fascist organizations, the ecologists, the district militants, the syndicalists and all those who find themselves "intuitively in a space both anti-capitalist and internationalist policies" to "collective action". "What we miss is not a captain, a coach. It is to act together, " urged the spokesman of the NPA. As for the RN (National Rally [Marine Le Pen's new party]), "the worst enemy of the working class", its strength is explained above all by "the weakness of the left forces".

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France: The urgency of building an anti-capitalist and internationalist alternative

Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste
Tuesday, May 28 2019
The results of the European elections confirm the political crisis in France as in Europe: 50% abstention, votes for the extreme right very high, government parties globally discredited but which safeguard their electoral capital. Against capitalism, for social justice, there is still a voice for the world of work.

The extreme right threatens 
As in 2014, the National Gathering comes first, based on the rejection of the European Union to deflect anger in the field of racism and the struggle of all against all. 

With its associates in Italy, Belgium or Hungary, it embodies a mortal danger: that of the fiercest competition between the countries, with the dramatic consequences that would ensue for the popular classes, for women, for immigrants, and for all democratic and social rights.

Government parties save their seats
Although completely disavowed by the mobilizations of these past months, Macron and LREM managed to limit the damage. Similarly, in Germany and the Spanish state, the right or the PS are maintained although their policies have also been rejected by the people. These forces will dominate the future European Parliament, which shows once again the undemocratic nature of these institutions.

These formations are like ramparts against the extreme right. But it is the policies they lead, of social rights, privatization, contempt against the working classes, which actually feed the extreme right.

The Greens scored high on growing environmental concerns and mobilization for climate justice. With around 30% of the vote, the left parties are globally at their lowest, paying for their participation in liberal policies, particularly in the context of the European Union, their division and the difficulties of social mobilization that are struggling to win.

Fight, debate, build 
The economic, social, ecological crisis will continue to grow stronger and the choice to make is more and more clear: is the far right taking more and more space - up to the taking of power? - because the government parties will not stop the far-right's progress, or will the world of work manage to overcome its weaknesses to build a real alternative to liberal and/or nationalist policies?

It is futile to want to arrange the system. We need a radical left, independent of the institutions, anti-capitalist and internationalist, for the revolutionary break with the system, whose centre of gravity is the concrete defence of the world of work.

 There is an urgent need to build a political representation for all the exploited. Without denying the disagreements that exist, by the discussion and the confrontation of the points of view, we want to work for the unity of our social camp, to be able to unite to act against the government, against the repression, for our social demands, democratic and ecological. It is already possible to coordinate so that the struggles win together instead of losing one after the other. For these mobilizations, to this work of construction, urgent and necessary, the NPA intends to do our all to play our part.

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Solidaires - Against repression, solidarity with the Palestinian people

Trade Union Solidaires
Originally published July 30 2014
The Trade Union Solidaires wishes to provide full support to NPA (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste - New Anti-capitalist Party) militant Alain Pojolat threatened today with repression for filing and negotiating with the Paris prefecture, in the name of all those who wanted to demonstrate, requests for demonstrations in Paris in support of the Palestinian people, demonstrations which were finally banned.
 
The authorities accused him of bringing individually what is required from a collective. 

Following complicit statements by the government, it bans protest, the government will not tolerate its inability to prevent the expression of the solidarity of thousands of protestors. After trying to create an amalgam between solidarity and anti-Semitism, an amalgam clearly denied by the solidarity movement, the government now uses repression.

The Trade Union Solidaires believes that the incidents that followed the massive, peaceful demonstration at Barbès on July 19 are the responsibility of those who decided the ban. It assumes its presence in the two Parisian demonstrations banned 19 and 26 July and the public call she made to join them.
 
Solidaires demands an end to any suit against Alain Pojolat and respect the right of expression and demonstration.
 
Solidaires asked the French government to work for:

• ending the bombing;
• lifting the blockade of Gaza;
• the release of Palestinian prisoners;
• the implementation of sanctions against the Israeli state to force compliance with international law.

Solidaires calls for new protests to be held in the coming days.

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France: NPA and Left Party call for united mobilisation against government austerity and the right

Joint Statement of Nouveau parti anticapitaliste and Parti de gauche

February 17, 2014
Original in French is available here

Olivier Besancenot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Delegations of the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA – New Anti-capitalist Party) and the Parti de gauche (PG - Left Party) lead by Olivier Besancenot for the NPA, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Martine Billard for the PG met yesterday afternoon in the head office of the PG[1].

The two organizations signed a broad agreement. This agreement related to both the need to not leave the streets to the right, extreme-right, racists, anti-semites, sexists and homophobes of all kinds, by gathering all those on the left who reject the policy of the government. Because “enough is enough”! It is time to express the dissatisfaction of the left vis-a-vis the pro-Medef[2] policies of a government which creates the conditions of the rise of confusion and reaction to which it reverses its pledges!

The NPA and the PG observe with satisfaction that similar concerns arise in several places: call together, the idea of Pierre Laurent[3] of an initiative in April, proposals for an action of the whole of the Front de Gauche. Concretely, the two organizations agree on the need for a national march, in Paris the same day. Given the electoral calendar and demonstrations already envisaged in the calendar, including trade-union mobilization of March 18 to which the NPA and the PG call, the date April 12 seems the best. The two parties insisted on the fact that this date is a just proposal. The success of any initiative will depend indeed on the broadest possible call joining together political leaders, trade-union associations, collectives of workers in struggle (companies which are dismissing workers or threatening to close) and militant teams… It is the collective which will unite them together that will thus be responsible to embody this common will. The two organizations have agreed to work in this direction.

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1 The NPA is an anti-capitalist party initiated by the Ligue communiste revolutionaire i(LCR) in 2008, the LCR dissolved itself into the NPA prior to the NPA’s founding conference in early 2009.
The PG established in 2009 following the decision by leading parliamentarians of the Parti Sociliste’s (PS) left wing to leave the party over it’s pro-austerity policies. The PG was a founding party in the Front de gauche (FdG – Left Front) in 2009.
Olivier Besancenot was the LCR’s candidate in the French Presidential electionsin 2002 and 2007 – in which he received 4.25% and 4.08% respectively. These results which were seen as a significant breakthrough for the LCR gave impetuous to the move to initiate the NPA.
Jean-Luc- Mélenchon is a former PS senator. He left the party in 2008 to form the PG. He was elected on the FdG ticket to the European Parliament in 2009. In 2012 Mélenchon was the FdG presidential candidate, campaign, which included a series mass rallies including protests of 100, 000 people at each of the Front’s election rallies in Paris, Toulouse and Marseille – Mélenchon ultimately ran fourth in the first round receiving 11.10% of the vote. Mélenchon is co-president of both the PG and the FdG.
Martine Billard – is a FdG deputy in National Assembly of France and co-president of the PG. Billard is a former member of Les Verts (The Greens) with whom she was elected as a deputy as parted of a “united left” ticket in the 2002. She was an outspoken opponent of the European Constitution and campaign for the “no” vote in referendum on the referendum on French ratification, against the position of Les Verts.
FdG – electoral coalition initiated for the 2009 European elections. The initial adherents were the PG, the Parti communiste francais (PCF – French Communist Party) and Gauche unitaire (united left) which was a split from the NPA.

2 Refers to Francois Hollande’s call for a “responsibility pact” with MEDEF (Mouvement des entreprises de France - Movement of the Enterprises of France), which would consist of reduction in state charges on business including taxation reform and the gradual abolition of company contributions to family allowances, in exchange for a commitment to boost employment.

3 Pierre Laurent is the national secretary of the PCF, co-president of the FdG and president of the European Left Party. Laurent has called for a march against austerity in on April 12.
Three of France’s union confederations Confédération générale du travail (General Confederation of Labour – CGT), Fédération syndicale unitaire (United Union Federation – FSU) and Solidaires have called for a united day of mobilisations and strikes for March 18 to demand urgent action on wages, employmen, social protection and public services.

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