French monopoly capitalism has a dual character: it is despoiling and rapacious on the international stage, but dependent on American, German, Japanese and Chinese capital in France. France is regularly the champion of foreign direct investment (FDI) received in the EU, as well as the EU champion of French FDI invested worldwide.
We must draw strategic political conclusions from this duality: a) The French bourgeoisie is not a victim of the domination of other imperialisms. In the pursuit of maximum profit, it deliberately seeks to save certain investments in France, by handing over certain sectors to its rivals, and to secure maximum profit in countries where labor legislation is even more favorable to capital. b) The class interests of the French monopoly bourgeoisie not only run counter to the class interests of the workers, but also to the country's development.
Against the EU, the task of revolutionary communists must be first and foremost to distance themselves from the general consensus, to defend social demands, public services, democratic rights and national sovereignty, to fight against company closures by raising the question of private property, to oppose privatizations, the opening up of railways and health care to competition, and to oppose plans (and the beginnings of plans) for a European army, which is dangerous for the peoples of Europe and the whole world.
Against the EU, communists must contribute to forging a broad popular bloc of labor and cultural forces under the leadership of the working class to demand France's break with the EU, against "European construction", in connection with international struggles with sister parties and peoples for the dissolution of the EU, an international cartel of imperialist bandits. We must therefore combat the neo-Kautskyist viewpoint of the French Communist Party (PCF), the Trotskyists and other organizations claiming to be communist, according to which there is only one "US Empire", the only truly imperialist state in the world, against which "we must unite with certain other capitalist unions or states" such as Russia, China, the BRICS, or even the EU! This is the road to new betrayals, as in 1914.
Marxist-Leninists in France must fight the imperialist world system and the states that make it up. American imperialism, even weakened by its crisis, remains powerful and the main factor in wars against peoples who want independent development. However, the EU states, including France, grouped together in NATO but also acting "independently", are powerful international exploiters with strong warmongering and militaristic traditions. We are therefore working to forge class alliances against the same imperialist adversary, with the worker-peoples of countries oppressed by French imperialism, to draw up a common strategy, and likewise with the proletariats of EU countries. The historic task of the French proletariat and the communists in our country is to overthrow capitalism. We mustn't break one of our enemy's tools, but our enemy himself. Thus, we need to combat those who invoke non-materialistic arguments such as: "The government is carrying out foreign orders" or "They're serving the Germans", "Foreigners are ruling us", "We're under occupation", "France has become a protectorate", "We've lost national sovereignty", and so on. In the workers' and people's movement, we must fight those who mislead the people, because they distort reality and propose solutions that are obsolete within the framework of capitalism. Today, France is not occupied, the monopoly bourgeoisie is one of the pillars of the global imperialist system, a promoter of the EU, an active participant in NATO, a champion of armaments, and the French bourgeois rulers head or have recently headed several international imperialist bodies: ECB, IMF, WTO. French imperialism is therefore an international oppressor of peoples ! The contemporary national tasks of regaining full sovereignty and the fundamental right to a free path of development are part and parcel of the struggle against imperialism and for socialism; they are subordinate to it. In other words, they will be resolved by the struggle for a revolutionary change in the mode of production.
For our Party, the real alternative to the EU is not an "independent" capitalist France, which would not solve the historic task of putting an end to capitalism in France (nor would it even bring us closer to this goal, since it could lead to "sacred union"), but rather the Socialist Revolution. For our Party, while we must tactically wrest certain non-monopolist strata from the influence of the financial oligarchy, the immediate objective is to develop today the subjective factor without which Revolution is impossible, namely the building and strengthening of the Party, the revolutionary conscientization of the working class and the masses. Rejection of EU diktats, for example, is likely to trigger immediate struggles against the EU and capital. By rejecting diktats, we mean, for example, denouncing the principle of "subsidiarity" and the priority given to European legislation, rejecting neo-liberalism, and advocating the fundamental right of each people to decide freely on the paths of its own development. The task of communists, in our view, is to find common lines of struggle with the masses who opposed the liberticidal project of the European Constitutional Treaty in France, while demonstrating that the EU is an imperialist structure which cannot serve as a framework for social and democratic progress, by recalling in every circumstance our objective of breaking up and dislocating this anti-popular and anti-social imperialist entente, even if this objective is not currently understood by the majority.
The EU is neither peace nor prosperity, as the dominant ideology asserts. Action to break with the EU begins with support for and, if possible, the launching of struggles by workers who oppose EU directives in practice, even if they remain trapped in illusions about "social Europe": defend the struggles (including illegal ones) of fishermen, peasants, railway workers and users of public services who oppose deregulation and the end of public services, workers who oppose relocations or closures, fight against the high cost of living, linking their struggle to the need to shed light on the nature of capitalism, on the real policy of the EU. EU policy thus appears for what it is, not as the embodiment of a "European ideal", but as the application of directives and demands in agreement with the major groups of financial capital in each country, made compulsory and legal in each country by the various European treaties. Workers must take action in the countries of the EU, through struggles against the diktats of Brussels and against austerity, to make the monopoly bourgeoisie of each country pay for its crisis and its debts, in the perspective of breaking with the EU and achieving socialism. Lenin was right to predict that the United States of Europe would be either impossible or reactionary, impossible without the complete, crushing and total domination of one imperialism over the others. Nothing can be taken for granted, the people can send the EU and its imperialist pole to the dustbin of history. Revolutionary change in France will be socialist. The Revolutionary Communist Party of France (PCRF), under non-revolutionary conditions, is devoting its forces to the preparation of the indispensable subjective factor of strengthening the Party. The difficulties of our struggle are great, and bourgeois and opportunist pressure is strong.
For a communist party, elections have a tactical, not a strategic, character. The match that Macron and the monopolies want to impose on us in France, seems to be as in 2019: either be for the EU (including social) and its development, or be "euro-skeptic", anti-EU and in the nationalist camp. Vote for the "EU of prosperity, peace and freedom" or vote for the "closed EU, withdrawn and closer to Russia".
Our Party has decided to lead a substantive campaign in these European elections, to demonstrate and advance the Marxist analysis of the state, so little assimilated in our country, including in the workers' movement; to explain what imperialist unions are; and for our fight against the EU (starting with everyday issues), which is inseparable from the fight for socialism. The Party is proposing a campaign that focuses on the working class, with a deployment objective targeted at industrial monopolies or arms factories.
Many struggles are currently taking place for wages, for the first time in factories of these sectors. Public meetings will be organized under the ECA banner in various French departments, with the participation of sister parties. New leaflets, posters and stickers will be produced, and we'll be also relying on our "Let's blame capitalism" peace campaign website. As for the form, we'll be calling for a blank vote: "not a single vote for the candidates of capitalism or those who want to reform it". These are just a few elements of our fight against the EU of capital.
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