/05

CGT union tries to block general strike against French labor law - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/30/cgtl-m30.html

http://www.wsws.org/img/open-graph-icon.png

While Martinez refused to inform the population about his secret, back-channel talks with Valls, his comments show that he is preparing a rapid climb-down. He abandoned previous calls by union officials for a “withdrawal” of the law, calling instead for the law to be “rediscussed.”

Martinez repeatedly insisted that the CGT would not enter into political conflict with the PS. He declared that he was not “going one on one against Valls.” He stressed that the CGT is “playing its role … We are in our proper role as a trade union.”

This was an all but explicit statement of support for the PS. Asked whether he regretted the CGT’s call for a vote for Hollande in the 2012 presidential elections, Martinez refused to say either yes or no, saying only that the CGT had not “paid enough attention” at the time. He recalled that in 2012, then-CGT General Secretary Bernard Thibault had called for a vote to remove Hollande’s right-wing opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, and then obliquely declared that in “another era,” the CGT issued open endorsements of presidential candidates.

Mobilize European workers to defend French strikers! - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/26/pers-m26.html

The repression bearing down on workers in France is a warning to the international working class. The basic answer of the ruling elite in France and internationally to the growth of social tensions and working class resistance is to move rapidly toward dictatorship.

It is clear that the state of emergency introduced in France and Belgium shortly after the Paris terror attacks last year was aimed not at Islamist terror networks, which in any case serve as instruments of NATO foreign policy in Syria, but at domestic opposition centered in the working class. The PS is using the emergency powers to smash occupations and assault peaceful demonstrators, threatening them with long prison terms.

The events in France demonstrate how the working class is left with no option but to take the revolutionary road, fighting to bring down pro-austerity governments in France and across Europe. As struggles spread, France and all of Europe are entering into a pre-revolutionary situation.

The indispensable ally of the French, Belgian and Greek workers in this struggle is the European and international working class. It is a basic political task facing workers internationally to support and defend their class brothers and sisters in France against persecution by the PS government.

French workers can make a powerful appeal to workers across Europe, who are carefully following the struggles in France, Belgium and Greece.

French Socialist Party’s labor reform boosts far-right National Front - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/26/nati-m26.html

Throughout the movement against the law that began in March, the FN, which boasts of being “the first party of France” and the party “of the people” representing the masses, abstained from any visible presence in the streets and from commentary in the media. The FN does not have a precise position on the law, often stating it is “against” it and criticising certain of its provisions. It participated in one, carefully-staged right-wing protest against “anti-cop hatred,” which enjoyed PS support.

Here the FN and the ruling class resorted to a proven strategy. For 25 years, at every major struggle of workers and youth against austerity measures from right-wing or PS governments, the FN disappears from the political scene. The purpose of this manoeuvre is to avert a clash between the working class and the neofascists, and to preserve the FN’s entirely false populist veneer as a defender of the “people.” After every defeat of the workers organised by the unions and their allies, however, the FN’s position inside the political establishment emerges reinforced.

The press noted this “anomaly.” Under the title “On social aspects, the FN is silent,” France Inter wrote: “While the left and right tear each other apart on the El Khomri law, the FN has disappeared ... after months of media saturation, admittedly one is a little surprised to not hear anything from the extreme right.”

War danger grows following new US provocation in South China Sea - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/11/chin-m11.html

War danger grows following new US provocation in South China Sea
By James Cogan
11 May 2016

On Tuesday, in an open military provocation, the Obama administration authorised the US Navy to send a guided-missile destroyer into the 12-nautical-mile territorial zone surrounding Chinese-held Fiery Cross Reef, located in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea. The operation was carried out on the fraudulent pretext of “freedom of navigation”—that is, the assertion by US imperialism that it has the right to send its military forces anywhere it chooses, at any time, in Chinese-claimed waters.

Yesterday’s action achieved its real aim of ratcheting up military tensions in the Asia-Pacific. The Chinese military responded by scrambling at least two J-11 fighter jets. Chinese pilots reportedly issued warnings to the American destroyer, the USS William P. Lawrence, to leave Chinese territory or face engagement. The Chinese Navy dispatched three warships, but there have been no reports that the rival vessels came into contact.

#mer_de_chine_méridionale #chine #états-unis

« The selection of a fascistic demagogue as the candidate of one of the two major capitalist parties is indisputable proof of the advanced stage of the putrefaction of American democracy. »

Ça, c’est du “statement” :)

Trump’s victory: A dangerous turning point in American politics - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/05/pers-m05.html

Trump’s victory: A dangerous turning point in American politics
5 May 2016

The emergence of Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee marks a dangerous watershed for US and world politics. The selection of a fascistic demagogue as the candidate of one of the two major capitalist parties is indisputable proof of the advanced stage of the putrefaction of American democracy. The impending nomination of Trump means that a substantial section of the American ruling class has concluded that the defense of its interests requires massive political repression within the United States and war against competitors and enemies beyond its borders.