The revolts across Europe are animated by a lack of hope for any future from a broken system.
As national convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, Lindsey German was a key organiser of the largest demonstration, and one of the largest mass movements, in British history.
Her books include ‘Material Girls: Women, Men and Work’, ‘Sex, Class and Socialism’, ‘A People’s History of London’ (with John Rees) and ‘How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women’.
Cross-posted from Counterfire
A spectre is haunting Europe and it is terrifying the ruling class. There are mass demonstrations by mainly young people that are rocking governments across the continent. The greatest movement is in France, where for weeks students and young people have been demonstrating and protesting over the conditions of schools and colleges, and the lack of any hopeful future for their generation. Their counterparts are taking to the streets from Portugal to Albania.
While everywhere their demands centre on their immediate conditions, and the state of education after decades of neoliberal cuts, they are clearly about so much more than that. They represent a rejection of the values of neoliberalism, the bleak future facing young people denied meaningful education and work, the cost-of-living crisis, being priced out of housing, privatisation and poverty. The crowds in Paris carry Palestine flags and chant against fascism. Italian students oppose their prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, but also the threats of war and rearmament.
These movements represent an uprising mainly of the working-class young against the priorities of our rulers, which are leading to such misery across the world, with war, racism and poverty the future for so many. They are already supported by trade unionists and communities in many areas, but the organised trade unions need to step up. They need to be organising mass strikes in solidarity with the students.
The repression they are facing is quite incredible. Injuries sustained in France by demonstrators peacefully demanding change are comparable to those inflicted in a war zone. The French police have long been notorious for their brutal behaviour, but this is clearly aimed at destroying a mass movement. So far it has failed.
But across Europe there is a pattern of crackdowns on protest from an increasingly authoritarian ruling class, which invests in tear gas, stun grenades and sophisticated surveillance equipment to attack the demonstrators. Any response that then ensues is met with further brutality, and with denunciations of violence on the demonstrators’ side.
This weekend, the British media has been full of such stories – the burning of Limoges town hall, the looting of shops, the McDonald’s in Paris with its windows smashed. The violence is blamed on the largest left party in France, La France Insoumise (LFI), which has wholeheartedly supported the protests and has encouraged its elected representatives to join the protests and help protect the students from the barbaric treatment of the French police.
Leader of the LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has made clear that the demonstrations should be peaceful and that looting and damage to buildings should not be part of them. But he blames the authorities and the police, who deliberately tear gas and attack demonstrators, don’t give them adequate dispersal points, and do everything to delegitimise and criminalise the protests.
It is in any case grotesque for those who inflict actual violence on schoolchildren, as well as the much wider violence of war, poverty, inequality and oppression on society, to denounce those who react to these hurts by responding in kind.
The movement across Europe has massive potential to grow and to challenge the whole system. In a polarised context it is also under huge attack: not just the far right but some liberal commentators use racism to blame migrants and ethnic minorities, or suggest demonstrators are pro-Hamas because they carry Palestine flags.
This is class war in all its intensity. The whole working-class movement internationally needs to get behind the protests, defend the LFI and others who are supporting them, and try to spread them everywhere. The system cannot deliver, and far too many are looking to the far right for a solution. Marine le Pen is tipped to be the next French president, unless she can be stopped.
The outcome of these protests can be decisive for the future of Europe. That’s why they deserve all our solidarity and support. The best way to do that is to build our own struggles against our ruling class.
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