Why the French Social Movement Should Support Palestine

By Claude Zurbach

For a number of weeks now, France has been experiencing main demonstrations towards the proposed reform of the pension system. 

With the proposed reform, the retirement age can be raised from 62 to 64, and employees ought to contribute to the system not less than 43 years to qualify for a full pension and profit from a minimal wage threshold of €1,200 euros (Approx. $1,300) per 30 days. 

The reform is a part of a collection of measures that had been carried out all through the years by successive governments, both right-wing or so-called left-wing coalitions. The ultimate objective is to wage a frontal battle on social and financial rights: healthcare system, unemployment advantages, household allowances, housing allowances, and so forth.

Certainly, each type of social safety has been known as into query, opening new areas for privatization and imposing the usage of non-public pension funds. 

In the meantime, the French authorities lately introduced a price range of €400 billion (Approx. $430 billion)  for the military over the following six years.

The federal government’s transfer goals at guaranteeing immense earnings for the French military-industrial complicated, with massive repercussions on France’s overseas coverage.

France’s structure, courting again to 1958, provides the president whole management over the protection and overseas coverage. This constitutional system is, in some respects, authoritarian because it reduces the ability of the elected parliament. Now greater than ever, the system doesn’t mirror the expectations of French residents. 

With the present protests, it has turn out to be clear to French oligarchs that the employees have their very own pursuits, that are in direct battle with the pursuits which have dominated French society for too lengthy.

There’s an growing diploma of radicalization of the social actions, which haven’t hesitated, on a number of events, to assault the very symbols of the state. For instance, buses of the ‘gendarmerie’, a physique belonging to the French military, had been set on hearth throughout a protest in protection of the surroundings within the French division of Deux-Sèvres.

French President Emmanuel Macron has usually resorted to utilizing particular constitutional powers to override the parliament and move the regulation. This transfer triggered and maintained a political disaster that Macron didn’t count on. 

Other than these selections, which stretch the bounds of constitutional legality, Macron lacks representativity. The one purpose why he was elected president for the second time was the truth that he was working towards a far-right candidate. This pushed many to vote for him, though reluctantly.

No society in historical past can endure a protracted lack of illustration. It appears that evidently French society is now reacting, regardless of the ferocious police repression and the systematic denigration of the social motion in mainstream media.

Furthermore, the selection to open an inner entrance whereas waging battle on Russia overseas is a exceptional instance of political blindness. It’s extra proof of top-down impositions, carried out via the manipulation of the establishments and absolutely the submission of mainstream media.

Maybe, French society has reached a breaking level the place the social majority finally needs to impose its rights.

Any problem to a basically unjust and unbalanced financial and political order can solely be helpful to the various struggles for justice on the worldwide degree, together with the Palestinian battle. 

The latter has all the time been emblematic of the strenuous resistance towards an iniquitous and predatory navy occupation. Due to this fact, it ought to obtain huge and spontaneous sympathy from all social actions internationally, together with France.

– Claude Zurbach is the editor of Chronique de Palestine, the French model of the Palestine Chronicle web site. A pc engineer by career, he has been concerned for a few years in solidarity with the Palestinian nationwide motion. His Twitter account is https://twitter.com/ClaudeZurbach