The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Month: March 2023

How should we respond to the new Israeli protest movement?

Should the Left intervene on demonstrations to “save Israeli democracy”?


22/03/2023

Israel’s new ruling coalition, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has provoked a worldwide moral panic. His Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, proudly calls himself a “homophobe, racist, fascist”. The new government is proposing a so-called “override clause”, which will make itself immune to any decisions taken by the High Court of Justice.

The Washington Post reports that in 2005, new Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir “led his neighbors on a reign of terror through Palestinian villages — torching homes, mosques, cars and olive groves.” Ben-Gvir’s election victory was accompanied by a new wave of pogroms by armed settlers, who were (even more) emboldened by the new right wing leadership.

The government has also been met with demonstrations of an unprecedented scale within 1948 occupied Palestine itself (writers note: to avoid confusion, the rest of this article will refer to the country as “Israel”. I hope to return to the discussion about what we should call the State in a different article). Half a million people – 7% of the Israeli population – demonstrated throughout the country including 200,000 in Tel Aviv. Demonstrators say that they are against a possible dictatorship. At the same time, the demos are bedecked with Israeli flags and addressed by leading military figures.

A small number of protests have invited Palestinian speakers – under very limited conditions. As activist Yoav Haifawi reported from the relatively liberal city of Haifa: “On February 18, the designated Arab speaker, Reem Hazzan, didn’t show up. It was soon shared on social media and later published in Haaretz that the organisers were not happy with the contents of the speech that she intended to deliver … She was told to submit an amended text, or she would not be allowed to speak. … The organisers were speaking to her, a representative of the Arab public, from a position of power. They duplicated inside the protest movement the same undemocratic attitudes that characterise the Israeli state. She consulted her comrades and decided not to submit any new text. That night there was no Arab speaker in the Haifa demonstration.”

Last week in Berlin, we were confronted with similar protests, when Netanyahu announced that he would be visiting Berlin. Israelis opposed to Netanyahu called a demonstration for “Jewish communities and other friends of Israel” (my emphasis) under the title “Saving Israeli Democracy”.  Some Israeli anti-Zionists argued for intervening in these protests. Others (including most if not all Palestinians) refused to attend a demonstration where Palestinians are clearly unwelcome. This article tries to explain what happened and why.

The Jewish Anti-Zionist response

By chance, shortly after Netanyahu’s visit was announced, Jüdisch-Israelischer Dissens Leipzig (JID) held an online meeting about the new Israeli government. Palestinians were invited to the meeting, and explicitly encouraged to make contributions, but as far as I can tell, most people attending were Israeli anti-Zionists.

Although JID is an Israeli group, it is one of the few organisations on the German Left which explicitly supports the Palestinian struggle.  The two speakers at the event – Yossi Bartal and Michael Sappir have both written articles for theleftberlin.com. Both speakers were clear that the current Israeli state, which systematically discriminates against Palestinians, is not a democracy and not worth saving, and that the demonstration was aimed at restoring the status quo. Nonetheless, they argued for an intervention, for building a block inside the demo, and pointing out the hypocrisy of a demonstration which called for democracy while excluding Palestinians.

As Yossi argued, the small anti-Zionist Jewish Left was making similar interventions  in Israel. This is true, to an extent, although it is not always wise to import tactics from Israel to Germany, home of both the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe, and where the dominant narrative systematically excludes Palestinians. In addition, the Israeli anti-Zionist Left may be tiny, but it is also divided on whether to intervene in the demos against Netanyahu. Some, like the Israeli Palestinian One Democratic State Group said that they did not want to participate in “a protest movement intended to preserve a racist colonial regime.”

Intervening meant standing inside a sea of Israeli flags, while being forbidden from carrying a Palestinian flag. It ran a clear risk of merely legimitising and normalising a demonstration which was unambiguously supporting Zionist oppression. 

What happened in Berlin?

In the end, a number of demonstrations took place in Berlin on Thursday, 16th March. There were two demonstrations called by Palestinian organisations which took place 100 metres away from each other outside the Bundestag. These soon merged to form one single demo of around 200 people. The Israeli Jewish anti-Zionists called for participation in the Palestinian demos, saying that their intervention on the Zionist demo was not an alternative to actions called by Palestinians, which were happening at a different time. 

Having said this, there is a difference between intention and effect. Although the “interveners” called for people to attend both the Palestinian demo and their intervention at the Israeli demo, it was clear that the German media would concentrate on the “intra-Israeli” debate which fits the narrative of “good” and “bad” Zionists. An opportunity to exclusively call people to attend the Palestinian demo was missed. 

After the Palestinian protest, we walked towards the U-Bahn. Police told us to not go to the nearest station – as this would require us to go past the “Save Israeli Democracy” protest. If we insisted on walking past, they told us to remove our Kuffiyahs because, I quote: “if the demonstrators saw people wearing Palestinian scarves, they might be ‘provoked'”.

Let me just remind you that the other demo was not supporting Netanyahu – it was supposed to be for democracy. But merely walking past it with a symbol of Palestinian clothing was deemed to be “provocative.” Similarly, when Israeli Jewish activists who had been taking part in the Palestinian demonstration tried to attend the intervention at Pariser Platz, police tried to prevent them getting through. Two people standing opposite the demonstration also held up Palestinian flags. They were surrounded by police and told that they must take down their flags, or they would be removed them from the square. 

But maybe this was just about the police? Surely the organisers of a demonstration for democracy would welcome anyone who opposed Netanyahu’s government? Well, not really. A video which later appeared on Twitter shows one of the demo organisers asking someone to take away his Palestine flag because “this will damage everything that we are trying to do” and that “we want to create a dialogue.” Liberals who enthusiastically supported the Israeli demo on social media must answer two questions – what exactly were the demo organisers trying to do, and who were they seeking a dialogue with?

Once more, the demonstration was covered in Israeli flags, which would make it difficult for most Palestinians to attend. For Palestinians, the Israeli flag is much more than a piece of cloth. It is a symbol of their expulsion and oppression and stands in contradiction to Palestinian freedom and self-determination. It expects the occupied to accept the supremacy of the occupier. Waving the flag reminds Palestinians of their unequal status in Israel and their continuing dispossession and oppression. Not for the first time in liberal Israeli politics, Palestinians were seen as less worthy of talking to than supporters of the occupation.

In the end, about 50 Jewish anti-Zionists did organise an anti-occupation block inside the Israeli rally on Pariser Platz. People in this block held placards in Hebrew with the slogans “There is no democracy with occupation”, “Occupation corrupts”, and “Legal Reform = Legalising Apartheid”. They reported little harassment, as long as they did not carry Palestinian flags. It is unclear whether they persuaded any of the people attending the demo to consider Palestinian rights.

Conclusion: How can Palestine be freed? And by whom?

In considering our strategy, we must begin with an assessment of who our main audience is – who do we think has the power to change society in Israel and Palestine? History shows that the main opposition to colonialism never comes from within the colonisers themselves. No serious anti-colonialists would centre the fight against the Raj in India on the British occupiers, or expect the fight for Algerian liberation to be led by French Pieds Noirs.

Independent Palestinian German researcher and writer Anna-Esther Younes argues: “Although all liberation movements have been led by those who were oppressed and enslaved – it seems to only matter or become a public issue when white people (or Israelis) – predominantly men – speak about it. Palestinians have been saying for a long time that you can’t have a democracy while practising settler colonialism and apartheid,  but their opinions and theorizations are usually erased in public. It wasn’t white allies who liberated South Africa. White people in SA lived with Apartheid, not under it – much like those Ashkenazim in Israel today, who can be militarist and anti-Palestinian, yet fight for ‘their’ rights to liberty and freedom.”

If I understand the strategy of intervening in the Zionist demos correctly, it is that Israel is in such a situation of flux (with interest rates rising 8 times in 10 months), that is is possible to win small but significant numbers of Israelis to a pro-Palestinian position. I remember hearing this argument before – during the social protests of 2011. These protests took some inspiration from the Occupy movement and even borrowed a chant based on the Arab Spring: “The people demand social justice”. At the high point, in August and September, hundreds of thousands of people protested throughout Israel. There was a renewed wave of protest 2 years later, when thousands took part in 30 demonstrations in a “Day of Rage” throughout Israel.

This movement never seriously addressed the rights of Palestinians – despite the attempts of some anti-Zionists to intervene. As early as August 2011, protests were called off after Israel launched an air strike on Gaza. The whole movement collapsed after it could not survive the call for national unity during the prolonged assault on Gaza in 2014.

A small number of individual Israelis have played a courageous part in the fight for Palestinian freedom. But Israeli society as a whole has and will only play a marginal role in the liberation of Palestine. This means that demonstrations, which openly reject or exclude the participation of Palestinians and their supporters, cannot be our focus.

Two years ago, on the anniversary of the Nakba, an unprecedented 15,000 demonstrated in Berlin for Palestinian rights. Last year, all demonstrations around the anniversary were banned, and people who appeared anywhere near the site of demonstration sites were arrested and fined over €300 each.  In particular, the police picked out anyone who looked Palestinian and wore the “colours of the water melon” (red, white, black and green, which are also the colours of the Palestinian flag). Their trials are still going on.

The level of repression has, to an extent, demoralised a pro-Palestine movement in Berlin which was starting to revitalise itself. We now have 2 months until the 75th anniversary of the Nakba to build demonstrations, which – in contrast to those who seemingly want to “save Israeli democracy” – state clearly that there can be no democracy based on the expropriation and oppression of Palestinians.

Palestinian voices have been excluded too long from this debate, so I’ll conclude with some words by Palestinian activists in Germany. Journalist Hebh Jamal comments: “Palestinians protested when Gaza was bombed, when over 200 were killed in 2021 and over 50 just last summer. We protested when Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered- and we have been protested for decades now. The demos that took place in Berlin, by the liberal Zionist bloc, is selective outrage and I’m so exhausted by the hypocrisy. There is no protecting democracy when a crucial part of the state’s function is to brutalise, segregate and occupy a people. What type of democracy are you actually fighting for? The irony…”

Palestinian activist Ramsy Kilani believes that strategy is key: “Protests against Netanyahu, which were organised at short notice, have shown the potential for unification, but also possible problems and areas where we don’t all agree. Future Palestine solidarity in Germany requires us to develop our understanding of which orientation our movement needs.”

The fight for Palestinian Liberation is being led by Palestinians, as it should be. People who want to support them should pay heed to their important strategic discussions if we are going to build a movement here which can contribute towards the end of occupation, in Palestine and worldwide.

Klimaneustart 2030 – Volksentscheid!

Change the Law! Berlin Climate Neutral 2030


On Sunday, 26 March, Berliners will head to the polls to determine our hometown’s climate future. This “Volksentscheid”, or referendum, has been brought about by us, the citizen’s initiative Klimaneustart Berlin. We worked tirelessly for 18 months to collect a total of 300,000 signatures and thereby force the Berlin senate to hold this referendum, and we are now spearheading the “Yes” campaign.

If 25% of Berlin’s population, or 608,000 people, vote Ja on 26 March, the target date for Berlin to be carbon-neutral will change from 2045 to 2030. This will be a legally binding change to Berlin’s existing Climate protection law. In addition, the law will be changed to safeguard social justice in the transition to a net zero city, and there will be a 95% reduction of all greenhouse gases, not just CO2.

As shown by studies from the Frauenhofer Institut and the Energy Watch Group, 2030 carbon-neutrality is an ambitious but achievable, and above all necessary and worthwhile, target for this historical city. We believe Berlin will be healthier, more future-orientated and better off financially in the long term if the referendum is passed on 26 March. We are also convinced that a resounding Ja! will re-establish people’s faith in the Volksentscheid as a tool for direct democracy, especially given the dire warnings about the climate issued in the last few days.

To be eligible to vote, you must be a German citizen, a resident of Berlin, and above 18 years of age. If you are all these things, we urge you to vote YES/JA on March 26th at your local voting station, which you can find here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1FRlbyP-SN4Kr2HBlVbeyVa-b7-zdL0Q&ll=52.513194324415124%2C13.45246430136719&z=11.

If you can’t vote, there is still a lot you can do to help us mobilise support so we can reach 608,000 Yes votes. Please come along to our Demonstration with Live Music at the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday (2pm-8pm, more info here), and also to our Mass Bike Tour of Berlin on Sunday, the day of the vote (more information on the Telegram groups below). Also, before the weekend you could do us a huge favour by posting about the vote on LinkedIn, or any social media network you use, with the help of this fantastic document courtesy of Leaders For Climate Action.

You can also support the campaign

To find out more, please head here, or message Klimaneustart’s International Outreach Officer at +4917686096878.

Revolt against pensions attack – Macron losing his grip

Left MPs call for more Street Protests and Strikes continue after Macron forces through his Pensions Bill. John Mullen reports from France


21/03/2023

On Monday 20th March, Macron’s government escaped being overthrown by the French parliament by seven votes, after he had forced through by decree the attack on pensions which has caused a mass uprising here. Macron’s government is under so much pressure that most of his own MPs stayed away from parliament during the debate on the motion of no confidence!

His bill can now be signed into law, in theory. And under normal circumstances, activists have tremendous difficulty mobilizing people against laws once they have been passed. But these are not normal circumstances, and the revolt continues to deepen. In the parliament, as the vote was announced, dozens of radical left MPs held up placards reading “See you on the streets!”.

Ongoing strikes by refuse collectors against the law have spread to new towns. All France’s oil refineries, which were being blockaded, have now stopped production (and it takes a week to start them up again). 1500 petrol stations are already short of fuel. Many thousands of transport workers and dockers are still on strike. 30% of flights were cancelled at two major airports on Monday. The staff at the Opera in Lyon closed down all shows for the weekend. Dozens more strikes continue in different sectors.

Motorways were being joyfully blockaded in scores of  places, including Reims and Rennes. TV stations had tremendous difficulty finding drivers in traffic jams to condemn the movement, so hated is this pensions bill. Bus depots and nuclear power stations, docks and universities are also blockaded. Groups of Yellow Vests have occupied the roundabouts they protested at four years back. It is impossible to list all the protests, although they are often not yet generalized – most universities and high schools are at work, and most trains and buses are running. 

Once the pensions bill was passed last Friday by decree, without a parliamentary vote, a new opinion poll showed that 68% of the entire population are “angry”, while only seven per cent are “satisfied”. Among blue-collar workers and low level office workers, 80% are angry (only 59% of management and senior technical staff are). Even 25% of those who generally vote Macron are angry (18% are satisfied, 41% are indifferent)! 24% of those who generally vote for Macron support the ongoing strikes and blockades, as do 88% of those who generally vote for the party of radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and 68% of those who generally vote for the far right. Even a couple of Macron’s own members of parliament are calling on him to back down.

With this level of public support, the main question has to be that of leadership. The national leaders of the eight union confederations, in a rare show of unity, have been regularly calling for days of strikes and demonstrations. There is another day of action on Thursday 23rd March, which will be crucially important. But the national leaders are not calling for an unlimited general strike, although the potential is obvious. And sorely needed strike funds are generally left to local union branches, whereas a national appeal by union leaders would raise millions of euros in no time at all. In addition, national leaders discouraged teachers from striking this week during the national baccalauréat exams. They are thus missing the opportunity to call for the exams to be postponed as they were for Covid a couple of years back. The momentum we need to win will not come from above.

As soon as it became clear on Monday evening that Macron’s government had survived by the skin of its teeth (under huge pressure from the movement, 19 right wing MPs voted for the no confidence motion), spontaneous  demonstrations broke out across the country – in Paris, Rennes, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Nancy, Amiens, Dijon, Nantes, and many smaller towns. In several places, demonstrators made good use of the piles of rubbish bins piled up due to the refuse collection strike. In Paris, demonstrators played cat and mouse with violent police forces, while singing the songs popular on recent demonstrations, but also a song about Louis XVI being decapitated and the risks Macron might suffer the same fate!

After a couple of weeks’ silence and hoping it would all blow over, Macron has decided to appear on national television tomorrow lunchtime in a major interview. Let’s hope that he inflames the situation even more and his government gets thrown out very soon.

Junior Doctors on Strike: Goodwill Exhausted

British Junior Doctors are striking to preserve the future of the NHS – and their own mental health


19/03/2023

For the second time in a decade, junior doctors, represented by the British Medical Association (BMA), are on strike in England. The current minister of finance, Jeremy Hunt, was the minister for health during the previous strikes in 2016. Despite a historic strike, the first since the 1975, the outcome in 2016 was a bitter disappointment. The negotiated contract that was put to a vote of junior doctors was rejected, leading the chair of the junior doctors committee, Dr Johann Malawana, to resign. Hunt imposed the contract anyway and the strike was as good as broken. Concessions were won a few years later in renegotiations opened in 2018 and concluded in 2019.

These included a below inflation 8.2% pay rise spread over 4 years from 2020, and changes to working patterns. The new contract was accepted by 82% of the members who voted. However, the turnout was just 28%, a sign of a demoralised workforce on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic. Consequently, the nature of this strike, based on a series of discussions with junior doctors who graduated in 2020 or 2021, feels very different to the central issues of the strikes in 2016.

The title of junior doctor can be misleading, suggesting a lack of experience, but this designation includes graduate doctors completing their 2-year foundation course or experienced doctors nearing the level of consultant, who require 6-8 uninterrupted years of training. Collectively, they are the engine room of healthcare delivery in the NHS. Approximately 50,000 of them have walked out to achieve their demands.

Harry Gething, a BMA representative active in organising the strike ballot, explained the motivations behind the strike. Stating the real-terms pay cut experienced by junior doctors of 26% since 2008, he emphasised that an extraordinary 79% of doctors polled by the BMA are considering leaving their career. He mentioned colleagues leaving to countries such as New Zealand and Australia, which offer salaries of £9,000-18,000 more per annum along with better working conditions. In spite of the alarming risk that such an exodus of highly trained professionals poses to the NHS, Gething reports that health minister Steve Barclay refused to discuss pay with BMA negotiators.

The previous strike focused less on pay and more on working conditions and compensation for working unsociable hours – emphasising the risks to patient-centred care. The current dispute pivots around pay. Junior doctors are demanding a 35% pay increase to bring their real terms pay in line with the levels in 2008. The inflation spike in the aftermath of the Covid lockdowns accelerated pay erosion for doctors just as the demands of their profession increased exponentially. The number is large because restoring a 26% loss of real-terms pay requires an increase of just above one third from the current levels, a matter of simple mathematics, but one that required explaining to the national media which asked hostile questions about the size of the pay demands.

Beneath the surface, the situation seems understated, and the current strike appears to be less of an industrial dispute and more of a heroic last stand to preserve the basic integrity of the NHS. Christine*, a junior doctor practicing in Cornwall, echoes the psychological exhaustion of doctors. Her fellow foundation year doctors speak of feeling intimidated, exhausted, and uncared for by the NHS. Feeling pincered by worsening conditions and declining pay, her hourly pay is less than the cost of a Domino’s pizza. Christine speaks of working 8 hours at a stretch without a break, hiding in bathrooms crying during shifts, and generalised burnout. In spite of these conditions, she expressed concern for patients in accident & emergency departments waiting over 8 hours to be seen by a doctor.

I ask her what it would take to keep her working in the NHS. Her response is emblematic of the crisis of conscience faced by all her colleagues: “I am too exhausted and resentful to carry on in the NHS at the moment. When my contract finishes in August I plan to stay on as a locum for a few months before fleeing the country…” It is disheartening to hear of once energetic medical students, completing a demanding education over a minimum of 5 years, then feeling the need to flee within 2 years of practicing.

The crisis is not exclusive to England, it is simply most acute in the only constituent of the UK that lacks a devolved parliament to manage it without being aggravated by the agenda of Westminster. Conditions in Wales and Scotland are not dramatically better; the bleeding is simply better managed, and the workforce’s suffering spread more thinly. The absence of strikes does not imply an absence of comparably severe problems. Natalia*, a junior doctor who practiced in Wales for three years before quitting to take a job in the private sector, speaks of burnout, financial desperation, and PTSD.

Within a year of graduating, she was deciding which patients to allocate oxygen to because of the shortages experienced in the pandemic. Making life and death decisions working in intensive therapy units (ITUs) so soon after graduating left her psychologically traumatised. But this was not all. Unable to afford the costs of travelling to work, living, and the fees doctors are obligated to pay for further training courses, she once resorted to gambling to keep up with costs; a choice she said she would never make again but gave her a temporary reprieve from the financial pressures she was under. Her other option was to work relentless hours in overtime, averaging over 70 hours a week to earn a net income of under £2,500 – below £9 an hour. The final straw in her ordeal was when she was refused accommodations on account of disability when applying for specialist training. Her career stalled, her mind exhausted, she decided to leave the profession.

In all these accounts, it is striking how apologetic doctors are about asking for a pay increase or even making simple requests such as being able to take regular breaks, not working consecutive weekends, and the right to give input on their scheduling. Perhaps aware of the social prestige of their profession and their officer-like position within the NHS – unlike soldierly nurses who command widespread public affection due to the regularity of their contact with patients – the junior doctors I spoke to for this report appear defensive about asserting their demands. The instinct remains to inflect their demands in terms of patient safety and long-term viability of the NHS as a treasured national institution.

Government ministers, their spokespeople, and media commentators constantly fearmonger about the impact of strikes on patients, insinuating that doctors are holding patients hostage. In reality, it is the government which is holding both patients and the good conscience of doctors hostage, and ultimately succeeding in immiserating the entire profession. In England, this emotional exploitation has reached a limit, and the strikes are a parting gift for the generation of doctors which might succeed them should the strikes achieve their demands. For the current generation of junior doctors, beneath the fire of indignation, resignation is on the verge of prevailing.

*Names changed to protect privacy.

Authoritarian Macron on the back foot: could France explode?

People take to the streets to defend pensions in France


18/03/2023

President Emmanuel Macron suffered a significant political defeat on Thursday 16th March. Having spent his last few days begging MPs from the traditional right-wing Republican Party to abstain rather than vote against his pensions bill, he had to decide at the last moment to impose the bill by decree, thus avoiding a parliamentary vote he would have lost. Macron is 39 short of an overall majority in the National Assembly, but has usually been able to count on the 61 Republican MPs. Not this time.

The Republicans are just as much enemies of workers as is Macron, but under the pressure of the millions on the streets or on strike, in particular the massive mobilizations in medium-sized “conservative” towns, around half the Republican MPs  made it clear that they were planning to vote against the bill. After the decree, the bill is now set to become law, unless the lower house of the parliament decides on Monday to pass a motion of no confidence in the government and in Prime Minister Borne. Such a move would no doubt lead to new parliamentary elections.

On the announcement of the decree on Thursday afternoon (the “forty nine-three”, named after the clause in the French constitution which allows  parliament to be overruled in this way), spontaneous demonstrations broke out in a dozen cities across France. In Paris, a couple of hundred yards from parliament, thousands gathered. The police soon attacked them with water cannon. Protesters set up barricades with burning refuse bins. In one town “ Fuck the 49.3” was spelt out on the road… in cobble stones, the symbol of the social explosion of May 1968. In another, a huge graffiti warned “ The shadow of the guillotine is on its way”. In parliament, Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne was unable to make herself heard, as Left MPs drowned her out singing the Marseillaise, “ To arms, citizens!”

On Friday morning,  motorways were blockaded in Paris, Chambéry, Perpignan, Toulon and elsewhere. Dozens of high schools and universities are also blockaded, including Nanterre, the Sorbonne  and Saint Denis. In several places such as Bordeaux, demonstrators are occupying railway lines and stopping trains. The ongoing strikes over the pension issue, among refuse collectors, refinery workers, dockers, energy workers, to mention just some, seem to have hardened. Rubbish is piling up in the streets of Paris and other cities. Meanwhile, energy workers have laid on free electricity to hospitals and other socially useful places.

Disappointingly, public transport is running again after several days of stoppages. In the absence of a clear call for a general strike by national union leaders, workers in some striking sectors felt unable to continue (low wages and high inflation added to the pressure). There have been far more strike funds than is usually the case in this country (the France Insoumise collected 500 000 euros for example), but at present strike funds can only help out the poorest strikers a little. A hundred times more would be useful.

Union alliance

The leaders of the less combative union confederations had more or less planned to wind down the movement once the bill was passed, but the fact that it was forced through by decree has obliged them to stay in the national union alliance of all eight confederations, which is largely conducting the movement. The biggest weakness of this rarely seen alliance has been its solid refusal to call for an open-ended. general strike, instead using ambiguous language such as “Bring France to a halt on Wednesday!” This timidity was partly aimed at keeping less combative unions on board, but it is a risky and damaging strategy, faced with the determination of Macron and his clan.

Even now, instead of calling for a huge mobilization on Monday, the day when a no confidence motion in the government will be debated in parliament, the national union alliance has called for a ninth day of action and strikes next Thursday, 23 March. The movement’s best hope is in the development of the more radical initiatives mostly initiated by rank and file trade unionists and students.

The crisis is showing the differences between the different left organizations. Whereas the France Insoumise, and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, immediately expressed support for the spontaneous demonstrations of anger, and the ongoing strikes and blockades, as did the New Anticapitalist Party and other far left currents, the leader of the Communist Party declared that the main campaign now must be for a referendum on the pensions bill. CP posters calling for a referendum are being flyposted across the country. If one can get the signatures of 185 members of the parliament and the senate, and the signatures of 4.7 million electors, the Constitution allows people to oblige the government to hold a referendum. Although obviously no-one should directly oppose such an idea, it is a serious error to put the emphasis on a constitutional procedure which would take at least nine months, rather than on an insurgent movement right now.

In a revealing comment on Thursday, Macron claimed that pressure from international finance was an important factor in his decision to force the bill, which will push the standard retirement age back two years, through. It is up to us to show international finance and its lackeys that the price will be too high for them, and send out the clear message “We’re not working two years longer!”.