Macron names government to implement social counterrevolution in France
By
Francis Dubois
18 May 2017
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, named May 15 by newly elected French president Emmanuel Macron, made public his cabinet choices yesterday. It is a government in which all the dominant factions of the political establishment, particularly the so-called moderate wings of the Socialist Party (PS) and The Republicans (LR), come together to prepare a social counterrevolution.
The presentation of the cabinet had been delayed 24 hours to make certain that none of the nominations would embarrass Macron, who has pledged to “moralise” public life and end tax evasion by officials. He wants to give a veneer of legitimacy to his policies, which continue and intensify those of his discredited Socialist Party predecessor, François Hollande: austerity, war and attacks on democratic rights.
The strategic ministries (the interior, foreign affairs, defence, justice and economy) will be occupied by longstanding pillars of the political establishment and proponents of the policies implemented in France under right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy of LR or Hollande and the PS.
In the second round of the presidential elections, a race between Macron and neo-fascist Marine Le Pen, the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) stressed that workers could not stop the rise of militarism and police state rule by voting for Macron, whose programme was profoundly reactionary. The PES proposed instead an active boycott to arm workers with an independent, revolutionary and socialist perspective for the struggles against Macron that were to come.
The team presented by Macron and Philippe confirms this analysis of Macron’s presidency against all those, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or the New…