Republished from the UK Socialist Website Left Horizons

Huge day of action shakes France

24 September 2025Posted by Editor

By Greg Oxley

Since the fall of the Bayrou government on the September 8, France has been in turmoil. After the massively supported day of protest on the 10th, the historic attendance of 610 000 at the Fête de l’Humanité (a yearly political and social event organised by the French Communist Party, PCF) from the 12th to the 14th, the day of strikes and demonstrations on the 18th was another outstanding success.

Trade union demonstrations were organised in more than 250 urban centres around the country, with a total attendance of somewhere between 800 000 and a million people.

Besides the official marches, countless rallies and gatherings took place outside workplaces, schools and universities. Workers listed their grievances and declared their hostility to Macron’s vicious cuts in public spending and attacks on workers’ rights.

This movement demonstrated beyond doubt that the most powerful force for organising and mobilising the people is still the trade unions.  Historically, trade union membership in France has been lower in percentage terms than in many other European countries.

Nonetheless, they can call upon enormous social reserves, beyond the card-carrying membership. Besides those who actually took to the streets, millions more supported the movement, showing once again that austerity policies – this time involving close to €44bn of cuts in public expenditure – are profoundly unpopular.

Instability and paralysis

Constitutionally, President Macron can hang onto power until 2027, but the next two years will be fraught with instability and governmental paralysis. Macron does not have a majority in the National Assembly (parliament). He has the power to dissolve the National Assembly, but he is not likely to do that, because it would undoubtedly result in a further weakening of his position.

This is not the first time major demonstrations against government policy have taken place in France. In the past, the strategy of the government was simply to bide its time, allowing the workers to march through the streets, chanting their chants, blowing their horns and waving their banners for a few weeks, and then pass the contested laws once the movement had died down.

In the present circumstances, however, this is not possible, because of the parliamentary impasse. The pro-Macron members of parliament are caught between those of the left parties on one side and the nationalist right on the other, and therefore cannot pass any measures without the support of one of these oppositional blocks.

Abolition of two bank-holidays – dropped

So it was with the Barnier and Bayrou governments, and so it will be with the newly appointed Lecornu government. Lecornu has dropped the abolition of two paid bank holidays, which figured in Bayrou’s budget proposals. But otherwise, his policy is essentially the same, and will most probably suffer a similar fate, with a vote of “no confidence” bringing the government down.

Overall, the situation in France could be characterised by growing social instability at the bottom of society and institutional instability at the top. However, this instability does not, in and of itself, solve anything for either of the contending classes. Even if Macron is prevented from applying this latest raft of austerity measures, this will not ease steadily declining living standards and working conditions.

Modern capitalism is incompatible with the social conquests of the past. Government measures are one thing, but the economic realities of the profit system, constantly eroding  the real value of wages and wearing down the remaining safeguards against poverty and despair for millions of people, are another.

On the demonstrations, it was clear that many workers and young people understand this reality. They can see that they need to fight not only Macron, but also the systemhe represents. This is an idea which is also present in the speeches and publications of the PCF and La France Insoumise.  However, neither of these parties – at leadership level – have been capable of addressing this crucial question in their programme and policy.

Economic problems weighing down working people

If the most pressing social and economic problems weighing down on the working people cannot be resolved under capitalism, then we need a policy that strikes at the root of the power of the capitalist class, and that root is private ownership of industry, of banking and finance, of commerce and technology.

Call it what you will: nationalisation, socialisation, collectivisation, but what needs to be done is to take the control of all the main levers of the economy out of the hands of the capitalists and place them under the democratic control of working people. Only then can the production and distribution of wealth be organised for the public good, rather than for the profit and greed of an all-powerful minority.

Unless the labour movement recognises this necessity, unless it stands clearly and unequivocally for the expropriation of the capitalist class, whether it be in France or any other country, the left parties and the trade unions will be powerless to resolve the problems caused by capitalism. They will effectively confine themselves to fighting a losing struggle against the consequences of the system rather than against the system itself.

That is why, in France, we have a situation that amounts to a stalemate, wherein, despite all of Macron’s difficulties, neither side can inflict a decisive blow to the other. This stalemate is fraught with danger. People want and need change. They need solutions.

If the left cannot provide it, many of them will turn to the nationalist and xenophobic forces on the extreme right. This process is already underway in France, as it is in many other countries in Europe.

Greg Oxley is editor of the French Marxist website La Riposte.