National Association of Communists (France) | Charles Hoareau
Dear comrades
First of all I want to bring you the fraternal greetings of the ANC of France and our thanks to the PDP which not only welcomes us but plays a leading role in the development of this platform, a tool for meeting, exchange and action of many progressive forces of the world. If the period we are going through is dark and heavy with threats for the very future of the human species, the platform appears as a hope and a ray of sunshine in the ambient greyness. A ray that is still thin, but a ray nonetheless, and one that only needs to grow under the tenacious efforts of craftsmen and women from all over the world. I will not dwell on the causes of the current situation. We have developed them during the 3 previous conferences and we have noted a broad agreement on the role of imperialism, first of all the American one, but also those of its henchmen states which are found in NATO or are knocking at its door as the last meeting held in Brussels on February 14 and 15 showed.
We are convinced that the situation is worrying, but our meeting shows that we are determined to prevent the irreparable and to defeat together the forces that see only war as a future to impose their domination of the world at a time when their economic supremacy is being challenged and when peoples are aspiring to development who choose, through their aspiration to full sovereignty, other paths than those of globalized capitalism. Coming from France, we are well aware that we are not in the same situation as the vast majority of countries on the planet, since our country is part of this alliance of imperialisms. By the way, we could have and should have put in the plural our name anti-imperialism…
If the USA wants to continue to dominate the world, if it can maintain and extend its military bases, it can only do so thanks to the agreement of obedience of its accomplice countries, including France, one of its first pupils. It does so within the EU, which was originally presented as an alliance independent of the blocs and which, as the war in Ukraine shows, in fact completely cedes to US capitalism whenever it demands it. As French communists, this means that if we want to show solidarity with the peoples of the world and thus be peacemakers, we must first fight our own imperialism, that of France and that of the EU.
France’s imperialism is particularly active in Africa because of its military interventions and the tool of the CFA franc, the currency imposed by France at the time of “independence” and which keeps 15 countries under its monetary and economic domination. This imperialism is also manifested by the more than 30,000 soldiers present in Africa, thus allowing the continuation of the leonine agreements imposed at the time of independence and the plundering by French multinationals. This imperialism is also manifested in Oceania where France wants to continue to maintain Kanakia (a term that does not even exist in the French language, our state continuing to call this archipelago under the name given by the colonizers in the 18th century) under its control despite the will of the people expressed many times, and finally in the Comoros, a fractured nation to which France has always refused full sovereignty despite more than 20 UN resolutions condemning it. It is also manifested by the perpetuation of the unequal system of subjugation of the overseas departments and territories, which is only a remnant of the former French colonial empire. Finally, it is manifested by its unwavering solidarity with the other imperialist powers, first and foremost Israel, the occupying power without right or title in Palestine, the armed wing, under the pretext of religion, of international capitalism in the Middle East, which explains why we have the oldest political prisoner in Europe, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been kept for 39 years in French jails for not wanting to disavow his struggle in support of the Palestinian people.
We are leading the fight in France on several axes as we can:
1. In the current social movement which is the strongest in decades in terms of street demonstrations, scattered and recurrent strikes, but no general strike, which explains its duration and its difficulty winning. In this movement, which goes far beyond the question of pensions alone, we keep repeating that if the government is attacking social issues, it is because it has planned to put its efforts into a war economy. France, one of the richest countries in the world, has more than 2 million unemployed people who receive benefits, while 3 out of 10 are unemployed. Wages are so low that many employees can no longer live on their work. In addition, housing is in crisis to the point that we have 4.5 million poorly housed people. And I am not talking about undocumented foreigners who have had to flee misery or Western wars and are forced to live illegally when they have managed to cross the sea cemeteries that have become the Mozambique Channel, the Comoros Strait between Anjouan and Mayotte and the Mediterranean Sea. The government’s military programming law provides for 413 billion euros of expenditure until 2030, i.e. a 30% increase in the budget. By comparison, the retirement plan is intended, according to the government, to recover 12 billion: less than 3%! This plan provides for the recruitment of 100,000 reservists, i.e. 30,000 more than today, and the press does not hesitate to headline that “the French army is training for a high-intensity war”. Similarly, the Minister of the Army has just announced the relaunch of the manufacture of strategic weapons. Today the pretext is “support for Ukraine”, tomorrow will it be the “defense” of Taiwan? The EU through the voice of its head of diplomacy, Josep Borrel, has just declared that “Taiwan is crucial for Europe”! In what way? In what way would an island located thousands of kilometers from Paris and in the Chinese seas be so “crucial” for the European continent? Can one imagine China or Russia declaring that Kanakia, the Comoros or Corsica are crucial for their country? Immediately back home, the press would be running headlines about the irresponsibility of the declarants and the declaration of war that such statements would constitute? So in every demonstration for employment, wages and social protection we display our banner with the headlines “YES to peace, NO to the wars of imperialism”, “let’s get out of the EU and NATO”. We have also drawn up a brochure on this theme which we can send you for translation if you wish.
2. In this fight against imperialist wars, if we do not spare our efforts to make our point of view and our analyses known, we try to do it by gathering, first of all with the scattered communist forces in France, which has become the reality in our country since the PCF, the historical party, has abandoned a certain number of reference points, including those of internationalism, to the point of supporting arms sales and NATO, even if this discourse is not unanimous within its ranks. Bringing together the communists in our country is not a simple matter and the recent declaration of the KKE, although not very well known in our country, does not help and has caused confusion among some of them, but we are working on it with tenacity because it is the condition for winning consciences. Obviously in this context we welcome the decision of the platform to make one Saturday a month a world day of struggle against imperialism and for peace. We join this initiative within our means.
We are committed to helping build a broader movement that would agree on at least a few points: a cease-fire, a halt to arms shipments and the opening of peace negotiations under the auspices of the UN. We are trying on these minimal bases to move the lines in the heart of the population so that it weighs in the national political debate in a country where even the progressive forces too often join the war mongers and come to find that war can be a solution … of peace! It is not easy nationally but we are beginning to score points and here too perseverance is our weapon. In this context, we must support any initiative of the peoples and states that pursue a counter-hegemonic policy of sovereignty, egalitarian international cooperation and the promotion of their right to development.
We are committed to helping build a broader movement that would agree on at least a few points: a cease-fire, a halt to arms shipments and the opening of peace negotiations under the auspices of the UN. We are trying on these minimal bases to move the lines in the heart of the population so that it weighs in the national political debate in a country where even the progressive forces too often join the war mongers and come to find that war can be a solution … of peace! It is not easy nationally but we are beginning to score points and here too perseverance is our weapon. In this context, we must support any initiative of the peoples and states that pursue a counter-hegemonic policy of sovereignty, egalitarian international cooperation and the promotion of their right to development.
From this situation we draw as an analysis a look at the position of communists and progressives in the world. It seems to us that here too we must work for the unity of the communists and progressives of the world by holding fast to two axes: our analysis of the role of world imperialism led by the USA and NATO in its pay, and the need to unite progressives in the struggle for peace and the right of peoples to self-determination. From this point of view the anti-imperialist world platform is an opportunity that we must make known by proudly displaying its logo and slogans.
