by Ludo de Witte
For months I have been trying to draw attention to developments in France, in the run-up to the presidential elections of April-May 2027, because it is clear that the future of Europe, and that of the left, including in Belgium, is to a large extent being shaped in France.
The developments of recent weeks and days confirm that analysis. The enormous mobilisations of schoolchildren and students, supported by teaching staff and parents as well as the trade unions in recent weeks, have laid bare the absolute emptiness of the Macronie. No answer whatsoever to the legitimate demands of the education world, which would cost 10 billion euros in the short term — and that from a government which, together with its predecessors, has been paying out 270 billion euros in subsidies to companies every year, not to mention the hundreds of billions of euros being pumped into the military-industrial complex in the coming years.
The convergence of the schoolchildren’s and trade-union struggle, and the growing entanglement of the movement with the only consistent political force that supports it (La France Insoumise and presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon), is setting off alarm bells in the bourgeois bloc. The demonisation of Mélenchon and LFI has been organised for years by both the private media (90% of which is in the hands of billionaires such as Vincent Bolloré) and the public media. Just two examples. The star journalist of France Culture, Guillaume Erner, broadcast a manipulated speech by Mélenchon from which it would appear that he is supposedly antisemitic. And the Minister of Justice leaked to journalists from an investigation into LFI figurehead Rima Hassan that drugs had been found in her bag — although it concerned medicines. Today that demonisation is being taken to a higher level, on the pretext that LFI is behind the vandalism by the casseurs.
Yesterday, in a speech to several hundred militants in Paris, Mélenchon made clear that the Lecornu government is pursuing a strategy of rot: six weeks after the start of the first actions in the lycées, still no constructive substantive proposals, but using the vandalism and looting as a pretext to discredit the only real opposition — and the mass movement itself.
Mediapart revealed that the government instructed the intelligence services to state that LFI is behind the vandalism. Thus a commissioner of the Renseignement Territorial (RT) declared:
“There are things that are actually unspeakable, but when we are explicitly asked to write that LFI is behind the movement, while according to virtually all territorial intelligence services it is objectively established that this is not true, then it is clearly a matter of political decisions.” (Note of 18 October to Mediapart)
After demonisation, criminalisation looms. Prime Minister Lecornu and Senate President Larcher are considering banning La France Insoumise as an instigator of the “extreme left”. That LFI leaders constantly place themselves between peaceful demonstrators and riot police, and that Mélenchon calls almost daily for peaceful protest because violence only serves the government and the far right, is of no account. Nor is the indisputable fact that this demonisation of LFI plays into the hands of the far right, which increasingly presents itself as “reasonable” and “the party of order”. No problem for the bourgeois bloc, moreover: a great many politicians from the right and far right…
In his speech of yesterday evening, which by the time I write this, 17 hours later, has already been viewed by more than 440,000 people, Mélenchon and LFI dug in their heels: maintaining order is a responsibility of the government. A responsibility that consists in protecting constitutional freedoms such as the right to demonstrate. LFI, for its part, he promised, has as its task to exercise those constitutional freedoms, to keep them alive.
That means full support for the protest movement, which will mobilise again next Saturday. And the CGT trade union is calling for a general strike on 5 November. Facing that mass movement and converging struggles stands an inert government, led by a hated president whose term is running out. A government that for the time being plans only repression: anti-terrorism units such as the GIGN, BRI and RAID are being mobilised, and bans on assembly are being considered. The outcome is far from certain: Mélenchon does not rule out a “regime crisis”, in which no one is still in control of the situation.
Speech by Jean-Luc Mélenchon on YouTube “Conférence de Jean-Luc Mélenchon sur le moment politique”, 20 October 2026:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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