Mélenchon hails French army as he launches movement against Macron’s cuts
By
Alex Lantier
24 July 2017
The crisis that erupted after the resignation of French armed forces chief of staff General Pierre de Villiers has rapidly exposed the class character of Unsubmissive France (LFI). Shortly after launching LFI’s movement against President Emmanuel Macron’s drastic austerity policies, LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon rapidly aligned himself with the financial demands de Villiers had made before resigning.
This underscores a basic political reality: the anti-Macron movement Mélenchon wants to build is a pro-war movement that would subordinate the interests of the working class to the strategic interests of French imperialism. But long historic experience shows one cannot defend workers’ living standards by kowtowing to the generals. Explosive class struggles are being prepared against Macron, but workers’ opposition will be expressed and can only find expression through struggles waged independently of Mélenchon and his allies.
Mélenchon is an unambiguous advocate of military spending and war. To the media, he denounced Macron’s “enormous error” in proposing €850 million in defense budget cuts. He also applauded de Villiers’ provocative statement to the National Assembly denouncing these cuts: “If his duty is to serve, his duty is also to say the reality of the situation. The head of state has created an extremely unhealthy situation between the army and the Nation, and I deplore this.”
On his blog, Mélenchon demanded unstinting financial support for France’s wars: “Whatever one thinks of the value of defense spending, whatever one thinks of the conflicts in which our armed forces are engaged, the duty of the country is to abide by these…