Once again, the French population has taken to the streets, with protests and riots continuing unabated after the end of the summer holidays. From September to early October, three important strike dates have been set: September 10 and 18, and October 2.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic under Macron’s neoliberal regime, France has witnessed a series of political and economic crises. France, while seeking to arm itself in the context that has developed with the war between Russia and Ukraine, is pursuing serious austerity policies to control the growing deficit and debt of the state budget. And, of course, all these austerity measures affect public spending first and foremost: education, health, and transportation.

The La Renaissance political bloc, which pursues these policies, is losing ground in parliament every day, unable to pass laws without resorting to the infamous Article 49.3. Governments are short-lived. After the Front National’s victory in the 2024 European Parliament elections, Macron dissolved parliament. After the subsequent elections, he refused to grant the majority party, La France Insoumise (LFI), the authority to form a government, sparking protests. Although it is essential for those in power, and for the capitalists who control them, to pass the budget to protect their profits, they do not have a majority in parliament on their own and are unable to form a coalition. Due to the resulting government crisis, there have been three prime ministers in the last 18 months.

Today, we see a France where the welfare state has been weakened and where attempts to cut state aid and public policies continue through various political maneuvers. Education and health budgets have been drastically reduced, causing teacher and staff shortages, overcrowding, and service disruptions. The transport sector has been privatized, many regional lines are closing, and ticket prices are rising due to competition with other companies.

Anti-immigrant laws and policies are prominent, in response to the demagoguery of the Front National, which claims that the country is being invaded by immigrants; the Minister of the Interior has boasted on social media about the reduction in visas and asylum applications.

The housing problem has persisted for years and is worsening as private construction for profit and rent is demolishing social housing and replacing it with luxury housing, driving poor working-class communities out of the cities.

Yet the rich are not taxed, and tax evaders are forgiven or receive discounts.

The army, police, and gendarmerie are equipped with the latest technology and, together with military companies, demonstrate and sell their goods all over the world. The concentration of companies that privatize, monopolize, and devour everything continues.

A crisis was reached when Minister Bayrou proposed reducing vacation days and increasing austerity measures. At the end of August, workers decided to take to the streets, both through unions and individually. This marked the beginning of the autumn mobilizations. The first move was made by this independent popular movement. Union leaders kept their distance, but in the end, not with all their strength, in the first week of September they announced the first strikes.

First, on September 8, Bayrou resigned after losing a vote of confidence. In the following days, President Macron replaced him with Sébastien Lecornu, former Minister of Defense, close to the National Front.

Two days later, the first “Bloquons-tout” (Let’s block everything) mobilization began, inspired by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement. It is a movement that is organized in neighborhoods and draws on different ideologies, from anarchists to socialists and social democrats, but they claim to be outside the unions and remain non-partisan. They want to adopt “different tactics” from those of the parties and trade unions in order to create a “popular force” capable of exerting pressure on the state: blocking strategic points throughout the country such as roads and highways, junctions, and train and subway stations.

Early in the morning of September 10, trade union or occasional groups began their attempts to block traffic. Small groups moved around, creating short-lived obstructions, while larger groups blocked specific points for longer periods. At the same time, in neighborhoods inhabited by the communities, pickets blocked markets, canteens, and similar public spaces.

The police attempted to repress the movement, with groups playing cat and mouse in the cities. Some gatherings in communities were dispersed with tear gas and sound bombs. The number of arrests and injuries due to police violence was particularly high in Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, exceeding recent precedents. At the end of the day, the various groups in each city decided to meet regularly to continue the movement by setting up action committees, also coordinated with the unions.

The popular movement continued its actions and meetings in October, albeit with less vigor. Neighborhood and class-based groups intersect, communicate, and sometimes coordinate.

All this, of course, has its limits: the confused social base, the lack of organization, and the lack of political direction mean that reformist, populist, and radical illusions prevail over class demands. The individual basis and the assembly mechanism make any decision to take action very slow or even impossible, with everything remaining decentralized and spontaneous.

September 18 continued along these lines. However, it was joined by strikes and pickets organized by the unions, which involved a more unionized and class-conscious crowd. The blockades began in the morning with strikes and workplace occupations and the participation of a growing number of other unions, and turned into demonstrations in the afternoon and united marches.

The police intervened in the same way, with heavy use of pepper spray, sound bombs, and arrests.

While the strike clearly demonstrated the working class’s reaction to current conditions, it also highlighted the shortcomings of the trade union movement. The debate over whether to consider the letter sent by the unions to the minister as an ultimatum revealed a rift between the union’s rank and file and its leadership. The workers’ desire for action clashes with the conciliatory and reformist approach of the leaders, and the movement risks being stifled by the internal dynamics of the union itself. Although the success of the strikes demonstrates how essential working-class organization and demands are, reformism and the transformation of the current organizations in Europe into regime unions pose a serious problem for the class struggle.

At the end of September, when talks with Lecornu proved fruitless, a new strike day was declared for October 2. The union demands, together with the European protests sparked by the Israeli army’s seizure of the Sumud flotilla bound for Palestine, succeeded in bringing a significant section of the working class across France onto the streets, albeit with less massive participation than on September 18. The working class nevertheless took to the streets both to defend its rights and to reject imperialist war.

The government, however, has refused to back down and is attempting to violently repress all opposition. To resist oppressive capitalism, it is essential that the working class unite in its own organization, in militant class-based unions. But for their struggle for life and liberation, they need the leadership of the International Communist Party. Without a collective historical and scientific program, the uprisings cannot guarantee that the demands of the working masses will be met.

Even in the current interclass struggle in France, the working masses must prepare to fight against the exploitative order of capital, around their own party, in order to eliminate the capitalist system that oppresses, exploits, divides, excludes, and destroys.