This general policy statement contains a provocation: the announcement of inscribing the Bougival agreement on Kanaky [3] into the Constitution before the end of the year. This agreement is a scandal imposed by the colonial state against the Kanak people, which calls into question the decolonisation process that France nevertheless committed to by signing the Nouméa and Matignon accords. [4] By making this choice, Lecornu is pandering to the right and the far right, flattering reactionary currents attached to colonial and imperialist France, now in poor shape and driven out of its traditional zones of influence and interference. This decision will provoke legitimate anger from the Kanak people, which NPA-l’Anticapitaliste will support.

But the main grandstanding gesture in this general policy statement is the proposal to suspend the pension ’reform’. This suspension is neither a postponement nor an abolition. Admittedly, there will be neither a raising of the retirement age until January 2028, nor an increase in quarters – which remain frozen at 170, i.e. 42.5 years of contributions. [5] But from January 2028 onwards, the flagship measure of retirement at 64 will be relaunched and the Touraine reform [6] (43 years of contributions) will continue. In 2023, workers mobilised on a massive scale – through strikes and with millions in the streets – for the abolition of this unjust reform, not for its suspension. Lecornu has bought himself time by making a concession to the PS [7], which will not vote for a motion of censure. By making this choice, the PS is allowing the government to propose an austerity budget that will worsen the social regression led by Macron since 2017.

For what the government pretends to give up on pension reform, it takes back through social security and on the backs of workers. The main antisocial measures from Bayrou’s budget [8] are reproduced here:

– freeze year for public sector workers, for pensions and social benefits;

– job cuts in public services;

– freezing of the tax scale which will push 400,000 households into paying income tax;

– doubling of medical co-payments...

– EUR 7.1 billion in budget cuts are planned for healthcare, and the government intends to continue its attacks on the amount and duration of daily sickness benefits.

In short, continuing the Macronist roadmap: making workers pay so that bosses and billionaires can continue to gorge themselves.

What forced him into this suspension is the political situation opened up by the mobilisations since the start of the autumn term. The ’Block Everything’ days on 10 September, followed by inter-union strikes on 18 September and 2 October, created a social climate and balance of forces that brought down Bayrou and thus enabled this suspension. But it is urgent to return to the path of struggle, of street demonstrations, of strikes to win on our demands, and first and foremost the total abolition of the pension reform.

It is with this perspective that NPA-l’Anticapitaliste will continue to publicly challenge other left-wing political forces by putting forward two essential elements: the necessity of blocking the far right and building a social and political front carrying a programme based on the demands of our class, as expressed by the inter-union coalition and the NFP programme [9] of June 2024.

There is urgency, and the forces of the social and political left must meet quickly to build the only response that Macron will be able to hear: the balance of forces, class against class.

NPA-l’Anticapitaliste