Sweden brings back the draft

Johannes Stern

On Thursday, the government of Sweden announced plans to reintroduce the draft. The Scandinavian country with a population of 10 million, which has not been directly involved in a military conflict for over two centuries, is girding up for war against Russia.

Swedish officials were unambiguous that recruits should be prepared to fight Russia. “The Russian illegal annexation of Crimea [in 2014], the conflict in Ukraine, and the increased military activity in our neighborhood are some of the reasons” for the re-introduction of conscription for the first time since 2010, a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Defence told the BBC.

Under the plan, all citizens born between 1999 and 2000 will be conscripted next year. Of the 100,000 Swedes that fall in this category, 13,000 will be ordered to receive a physical examination, and 4,000 young men and women will then have to begin an eleven-month military service on July 1.

Workers and youth across Europe should regard this announcement, which is supported by all parties in Sweden, including the Swedish Left Party, as a warning. After two devastating world wars in the 20th century, even the ruling class in supposedly peace-loving Sweden is again recruiting the cannon fodder for a new great war.

The government wants to “introduce a method of recruitment, which is more stable, and extends our military capabilities because the security situation has changed,” explained Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist. “We had difficulties staffing our fighting units on a voluntary basis and we have to fix that somehow.”

At the end of 2016, Sweden's civil protection authority (MSB) invited all municipalities to prepare “in case of war.” Emergency shelters were to be prepared, and emergency evacuation procedures were to be drawn up. A few days later, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced a new security strategy and an increase in the defence budget. The military is to be “strengthened, after going in the other direction for many years.”

Similar developments are taking place in all the major imperialist countries. In Germany, the defence budget is being raised, the army enlarged and the reintroduction of conscription is under discussion. President Donald Trump recently justified a ten percent increase in the US defence budget with the words: “We have to start winning wars again.”

In Europe, the massive rearmament is directed primarily against Russia, and is increasingly bound up with direct preparations for war. NATO is currently deploying combat troops and tanks to Eastern Europe and establishing so-called Battle Groups in Lithuania (led by Germany), Estonia (United Kingdom), Latvia (Canada) and Poland (USA).

Earlier this year, German tanks bearing the Iron Cross, the insignia retained by the modern German army despite its notorious use by the Nazis, rolled into Lithuania, just a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border.

Leading NATO generals are calling for a “grand strategy” against Russia. In an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, British General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, who is also deputy NATO commander in Europe, said that Russia remained a threat so long as Vladimir Putin holds power. It could have “catastrophic” consequences if the West was not unified in its response to a “competitor” who has “all the levers of power in its hands.”

Also on Thursday, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) promised the Baltic states that Germany would honour its commitment to the NATO alliance.

At the Ämari Airbase in Estonia, von der Leyen said it was “important ... that Estonia and our friends in the alliance in recent years, were able to rely firmly on Germany and its commitments and that they will also rely firmly on Germany and its promises in the future.” And in Lithuania's Rukla, speaking in front of the first German combat troops to be stationed in Eastern Europe since Hitler's war of extermination against the Soviet Union, Gabriel said, “The security of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is synonymous with German security.”

The statements by Gabriel and von der Leyen underscore how far the imperialist powers are prepared to go. Article 5 of the NATO Treaty stipulates that “an armed attack against one or more” parties “shall be considered an attack against them all” and that “if such an armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked ... including the use of armed force.”

To put it plainly: If one of the ultra-nationalist and fanatically anti-Russian governments in the Baltic states provokes a border conflict with Russia, then Berlin and NATO are committed to go to war against the second largest nuclear power in the world.

Last month, the World Socialist Web Site asked, How many people would die in such a conflict? Almost certainly many millions, if not billions. According to a report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, even a “limited” nuclear war would lead to more than a billion deaths, mainly due to severe climate disruption. According to the US National Academy of Sciences, a “full nuclear war” would directly cause up to four billion deaths.

In the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the supposed “triumph" of capitalism, such scenarios were dismissed as scaremongering from a time long past. But now, as on the eve of the First and Second World War, the ruling class is concluding that a new great war is likely or even inevitable, and say so openly.

In an editorial in the German newspaper Die Welt, headlined “The world faces its defining moment,” the German historian and political advisor Michael Stürmer warns of a “no longer unthinkable event that the brakes fail, control is lost” and “world order is nothing more than a pipe dream.” “For half a century, war with Russia—accidental or deliberate—has never been as close as at present.”

The danger Stürmer evokes of a “destructive moment” can only be prevented by the construction of a new anti-war movement. A year ago, in a statement entitled Socialism and the Fight against War, the International Committee of the Fourth International outlined the political basis for the building of such a movement:

* The struggle against war must be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population.

* The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital and the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war.

* The new anti-war movement must therefore, of necessity, be completely and unequivocally independent of, and hostile to, all political parties and organizations of the capitalist class.

* The new anti-war movement must, above all, be international, mobilizing the vast power of the working class in a unified global struggle against imperialism.

The building of a new socialist and internationalist movement of the working class is the most urgent political task.

New Zealand’s Maori parties sign election pact

John Braddock

New Zealand’s two Maori nationalist parties, Mana and the Maori Party, recently signed a co-operation agreement to prepare for the 2017 general election. The party leaders signalled their intention to “work together” to try to win all seven Maori electorate seats reserved for registered Maori voters. The Labour Party currently holds six of the seats, while Te Ururoa Flavell, the Maori Party co-leader, holds the seventh.

Under the deal, Mana will contest only the northernmost Te Tai Tokerau seat and will not be opposed by the Maori Party. Mana leader Hone Harawira lost Te Tai Tokerau in 2014, narrowly beaten by Labour’s Kelvin Davis, while the Maori Party’s candidate drew more than 2,500 votes. In return for boosting Harawira’s chances of retaking his former seat, Mana agreed to give the Maori Party an uncontested run against Labour in the remaining six electorates.

The arrangement sees Harawira align himself with the very party he quit in 2011. At the time, he denounced the Maori Party for its role as a coalition partner in the ruling National Party-led government, declaring it had “betrayed the people who put it in power.” Posturing as “pro-poor,” Harawira founded Mana to exploit the growing alienation of workers and youth as the social situation, including in his own electorate, sharply deteriorated.

Before the 2014 election, Mana merged with multi-millionaire Kim Dotcom’s pro-business Internet Party to form Internet-Mana. The cynical manoeuvre, a bid by Harawira to gain access to Dotcom’s wealth and media profile, backfired. Internet-Mana secured just 1.4 percent of the vote.

As part of the National government, the Maori Party has helped impose cuts to health and education, destroy thousands of public sector jobs, privatise electricity and increase the regressive Goods and Services Tax. Increasingly unpopular among ordinary Maori, its parliamentary numbers fell from five in 2008, to just two after the last election.

The electoral alliance brings together two capitalist parties, both moving rapidly to the right under the impact of deepening social inequality and class tensions. A sharp increase in homelessness and child poverty is impacting severely on Maori layers of the working class.

Talks between the two parties began last July when newly-elected Maori Party President Tukoroirangi Morgan approached Harawira to put their “differences” behind them. Both parties have ambitions for a more direct role in government, whether National or Labour wins the next election. Both are prepared to impose the next stage of the austerity agenda demanded by big business.

The realignment is bound up with the needs of the ruling class for new formations to derail the growing opposition of workers and youth to the political establishment. The Labour Party, widely recognised as just as pro-business as National, has seen its support fall to record lows in the last two elections. Mana and the Maori Party are both based on the promotion of Maori nationalism which serves to divide the working class and block a unified class struggle against the ongoing attacks on jobs and living standards. Maori make up 15 percent of the population and constitute some of the most impoverished and oppressed social layers.

Harawira has emphasised ousting the sitting Labour Party MPs, advocating “a conscious and powerful [Maori] voice in parliament.” Last September, the Maori king Tuheitia, the traditional figurehead of the central North Island Tainui tribe, endorsed the move, saying the Maori electoral seats should return to “Maori control.”

Mana and the Maori Party do not stand for the interests of Maori workers and youth. Rather they represent the privileged stratum of Maori entrepreneurs, tribal bureaucrats, lawyers and academics created over the past 30 years through multi-million dollar Treaty of Waitangi settlements, ostensibly as recompense for the historic crimes of colonialism.

According to the government ministry Te Puni Kokiri, the Maori asset base totalled $NZ42.5 billion in 2013. This comprised $12.5 billion for Maori trusts, incorporations and other tribal entities; $23.4 billion for Maori employers, including major companies, and $6.6 billion for Maori self-employed.

The commercial arm of the South Island’s Ngai Tahu tribe nearly tripled its assets in the past decade, from $561 million in 2006 to $1.5 billion this year. The second wealthiest tribe, Ngati Whatua, saw its asset portfolio, which includes major Auckland properties Quay Park and Vector Arena, rise by 22 percent in 2015, to $888.6 million. The Maori elites have accumulated this expanding wealth through the exploitation of workers of all origins.

Harawira used the resignation of National’s John Key as prime minister last December to demagogically distance himself from the government and its supporters among the well-off Maori. “The only Maori who will mourn John Key’s passing are those who clipped the ticket during his reign, those who reaped the benefits of Treaty settlements and corporate success, but did nothing to lift their own people from the mire of welfare despondency, drug-fuelled violence and suicide,” he declared.

Mana’s alignment with the Maori Party, a partner in the National government, underscores the duplicity of such statements. For all its pro-poor posturing, Mana has campaigned for increased funding for Maori businesses and the tribal elite, while supporting attacks on the working class and demands for jobs for “New Zealanders first.” Mana has joined Labour, the anti-immigrant NZ First Party and the Greens in seeking to whip up anti-Chinese xenophobia and scapegoat Chinese people for the country’s housing crisis and unemployment.

Both parties promote the reactionary nostrums of Maori identity politics. Harawira told Mana News that Mana and the Maori Party are committed to “the notion of Mana Maori Motuhake”—Maori self-determination—although “moving down that path right now is a bridge too far.” Maori, once among the most militant sections of the working class, have been encouraged to turn toward tribal identification and demands for racially-established “indigenous” rights under capitalism.

The pseudo-left groups—the International Socialist Organisation, Fightback and Socialist Aotearoa—all falsely promoted Mana as a progressive alternative for the working class. They affiliated with Mana and supported the alliance with the Internet Party, campaigning for Internet-Mana at the 2014 elections, as a vehicle for integrating themselves into the political establishment. None has made any comment on the Mana-Maori Party electoral alliance.

US Congress members visit Sri Lanka to boost US interests

Saman Gunadasa

A group of US Congress members—four Democrats and four Republicans led by House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte—called on President Maithripala Sirisena last Friday. It was the second group of Congress members to visit Sri Lanka during February, underscoring the intensifying geo-strategic tensions generated by the US military buildup in South Asia.

Indian and Chinese diplomats also arrived in Colombo during the past two weeks, seeking to strengthen their influence in Sri Lanka.

The first US delegation came on February 20 for a two-day visit under a so-called democracy partnership agreement with the Sri Lankan parliament. They met with members of parliament, as well as Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The second delegation concentrated more on sensitive political issues. The US embassy in Colombo said the delegation came to “discuss strategic issues affecting vital sea lanes in the Indo-Pacific, learn about Sri Lanka’s progress in forging lasting reconciliation and a non-recurrence of conflict” and “to learn more about economic reforms” that could increase bilateral trade and investment between the two countries.

President Donald Trump’s administration has indicated it will continue to concentrate on South Asia as it prepares for confrontation with China. US Defence Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis reportedly told his Indian counterpart, Manohar Parrikar, early last month that the US intended to build up its strategic partnership and defence cooperation with India, further developing ties forged as part of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” directed against China.

The Obama administration orchestrated a regime-change operation in Colombo via the 2015 presidential election, installing Sirisena to replace Mahinda Rajapakse. The main objective of this intervention was to undermine Sri Lanka’s ties with Beijing under Rajapakse’s government.

Delegation leader Goodlatte said the US was pleased with the steps taken by “the consensual government to strengthen democracy, individual freedom, and reconciliation.”

This “consensual government” is the coalition between Wickremesinghe’s right-wing United National Party (UNP) and a section of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by Sirisena. This coalition was formed not to “strengthen democracy” but to stabilise the government, which has changed foreign policy in favour of the US and its ally India, and to suppress the explosive social opposition among workers and poor to the austerity offensive begun under Rajapakse.

In his discussions, Sirisena reiterated his government’s readiness to serve the needs of American imperialism. According to a government statement, Sirisena said: “Sri Lanka has an important responsibility regarding regional security in addition to national security as the country is situated at an important strategic location in the international maritime route… [H]ence Sri Lanka takes all these into careful consideration while entering into international investment agreements.”

Sirisena appeared to be addressing US concerns over Sri Lanka’s investment agreements with China.

Sirisena halted all investment projects funded by China as soon as he took office. However, his cash-strapped government has since been compelled to seek Chinese investments and loans, and is planning to sell the controlling shares in the Hambantota Magampura Port to a Chinese company.

The port was built by Chinese companies, largely funded by a Chinese loan, during the Rajapakse government. The US and India branded it as part of China’s “String of Pearls” strategy to allegedly dominate the Indian Ocean and beyond. In response, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have declared that no Chinese military presence will be allowed in Hambantota.

While thanking the US for resuming training of Sri Lankan armed force members, which was stopped under Rajapakse, Sirisena asked for “additional training slots” for naval officers.

His government is deepening military ties with the US. In November, the USS Somerset, a naval amphibious landing ship, anchored in Trincomalee port for joint naval exercises involving 300 US marines. Last September, the Sri Lankan navy established its first ever Marine Forces with the help of the US Marine Corps.

The US delegation reportedly asked Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders “what they felt about China’s and India’s interest in Sri Lankan political affairs.” The Island reported that TNA head and parliamentary opposition leader, R. Sambandan, replied that China did not interfere in the country’s internal affairs, whereas India continued to demonstrate interest in constitutional reforms.

The TNA, which represents the Tamil capitalist elite, fully backed Washington’s 2015 regime-change operation and supports the current government.

Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Sri Lanka on February 18 to meet with Sirisena, Wickremesinghe, several other ministers and TNA leaders.

Indian think tanks and the media reported that Jaishankar was sent to discuss some concerns of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Savita Pandey, a professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal University, told the press: “Although India has a favorable government in Sri Lanka, China’s efforts to expand its presence in the island nation is a cause of concern for New Delhi.”

New Delhi is also worried that the Sri Lankan government postponed the finalisation of an Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement with India in the face of an anti-Indian communal campaign by Sinhala extremist groups.

On February 23, Chinese International Department Minister Song Tao led a delegation to meet Sirisena and Wickremesinghe. He also met former President Rajapakse. Tao discussed several issues, including a proposed investment zone near the Hambantota port. Beijing is perturbed by the continuing postponement of an agreement on the port project and industrial zone.

Intensifying the geopolitical tensions, the US is aggressively working to develop its military buildup. A Sri Lanka Navy statement said top-level discussions took place when Brigadier General Brian W. Cavanaugh, the Deputy Commander of US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, met with Sri Lankan Navy Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne in Colombo on Tuesday.

According to the statement, “extensive discussions” took place on matters of bilateral importance as well as “future operational and training aspects of the recently established Marine Battalion of the Sri Lanka Navy.” It added that discussions were held “on issues pertinent to future naval affairs and means of strengthening defense partnerships between the two countries.”

The visits by US Congress delegations and Pacific Command officers further draw Sri Lanka into the maelstrom of mounting global tensions and war dangers.

Australian growth up but wages fall

Nick Beams

Australia has avoided a technical recession—defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. National accounts figures issued on Wednesday for the December quarter showed that gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 1.1 percent, following a 0.5 percent contraction in the previous three months.

Media headlines declared that economic growth was “back on track” and even that the economy had “roared” back to life.

However, yesterday the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a report on the Australian economy, warning it was vulnerable to a recession if the housing price bubble collapsed, impacting on consumer spending and hitting the major banks.

There were three main reasons for the increase in GDP, each pointing to the fragility of the recovery. The biggest factor was increased household consumption spending. It contributed 0.5 percentage points, almost half the increase for the quarter. This was despite household incomes contracting by 0.5 percent.

The consumer spending rise was financed by a rundown of savings. Households put just 5.2 percent of their income into savings, the lowest level since before the global financial crisis of 2008–09.

A number of commentators attributed the apparent strength in consumer spending to the “wealth effect” produced by escalating house prices, which rose by 18.4 percent in Sydney over the past year, with an average rise for the six state capitals of almost 12 percent.

Rising export prices, particularly for iron ore and coal, also provided a boost to the GDP numbers. The terms of trade index, which measures the ratio of export to import prices, rose by 9.2 percent in the December quarter and is now 15 percent higher than in December 2015. This is largely due to an uptick in demand from China, which may not last.

Finally, the growth figure was also helped by an increase in non-mining investment, which showed its first increase for three years. But questions remain over its sustainability.

Capital Economics chief economist Paul Dales told the Guardian that, despite the December result, “economic growth will probably still disappoint” this year. “In the second half of last year the economy grew by just 0.6 percent and we know that the collapse in mining investment has further to go,” he said. Dales noted that the boost to national income from higher commodity prices will mostly boost profits rather than activity.

In other words, the increase in export prices will not lead to further mining investment, simply greater output from already completed projects.

Moreover, with record low wage growth, the household spending increase cannot be sustained for an extended period.

The national accounts figures were eagerly seized upon by the somewhat beleaguered Turnbull government. Treasurer Scott Morrison claimed that Australia was “top of the pack” of major economies. He said the result “confirms the change that is taking place in our economy as we move from the largest investment boom in our history to broader-based growth.”

In fact, other data reveal that economic growth is becoming more narrowly confined. According to SGS Economics and Planning, the two major cites of Sydney and Melbourne were responsible for two-thirds of Australia’s economic growth in 2015–16. This compares to their share of 34 percent in the first decade of the 2000s. Many regional areas are experiencing stagnation or economic contraction, which is contributing to the growth of support for right-wing populist parties such as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

The Australian Financial Review, which is waging a campaign against what it calls Australia’s “dysfunctional political culture” and its failure to deliver sweeping pro-business measures, weighed in with an editorial yesterday warning of the fragile nature of the economic upturn.

While the “surprise rebound” in coal and iron ore prices would boost profits, a “sustained return to the sort of income growth Australians enjoyed over the last couple of decades is nowhere in sight.”

The editorial emphasised the need for a “growth and productivity agenda”—the code phrase in financial circles for sweeping attacks on social services, government spending and working conditions.

Large deficits, “leave the economy much more vulnerable to any negative shock, such as another financial crisis, a China downturn or a disorderly puncturing of the reinflated Sydney and Melbourne housing bubble.”

The record low interest rate of 1.5 percent set by the Reserve Bank of Australia was yet to “cajole a pick-up in business investment” but was “injecting more speculative financial risk into the economy that could come back to bite the over-leveraged housing sector and the big banks.”

The editorial’s warnings were underscored by the OECD report. In its first major review of the Australian economy since 2014, it said the housing market may not “ease gently” but could develop into a “rout on prices and demand with significant macroeconomic implications.”

A significant fall in house prices would produce a fall in household consumption and a rise in mortgage defaults that would impact on the rest of the economy. The OECD noted that households now account for about half of Australia’s total debt, compared with around one-third in the mid-1990s. Australia is near the top of OECD rankings for household debt.

The OECD also said Australia, along with other developed economies, “now faces the risk of low growth and lacklustre private sector investment due to pessimistic expectations and weakening global trade.”

The government insists it has a plan to ensure economic growth in the form of a cut in company tax rates from 30 percent to 25 percent, costing $50 billion, over the next 10 years.

This scenario was called into question by a report published this week by the Grattan Institute entitled “Stagnation Nation?” It said while a reduced tax rate would attract more foreign investment it would also “reduce national income for years.”

Most of the short-term benefits would go to foreign investors. The report also cast doubt on whether tax cuts for small businesses would bring major benefits as they were “unlikely to lead to a substantial increase in investment.” Mining investment was experiencing its biggest ever fall and non-mining investment was down to its lowest point in 50 years, with at least a third of the decline due to slow economic growth.

The report called for a “perspective, not panic” but warned there were only “tough choices.” The main demand outlined by the OECD was an increase in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 10 to 15 percent. In other words, like all other corporate think tanks, the Grattan Institute is insisting that workers and their families must pay for the mounting problems gripping the Australian economy.

Québec Solidaire leader Françoise David quits politics

Louis Girard 

The parliamentary leader of Québec Solidaire (QS), Françoise David, has announced that she is leaving politics, citing health reasons, specifically “exhaustion.” David, 69, has been one of the principal leaders of QS and its most prominent spokesperson since the ostensibly leftwing, pro-Quebec independence party was founded more than a decade ago.

Quebec’s political establishment and media responded to David’s resignation with gushing tributes.

Quebec Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard, who has presided over sweeping social spending cuts, praised David for having “contributed greatly” to helping “maintain a civilized tone” even when “we…disagree on the political orientation of Quebec.”

Jean-François Lisée, the leader of the big business, indépendantiste Parti Québécois, said “She (David) has been able to make our political mores gentler.”

The Montreal daily Le Devoir, which serves as a house organ for Quebec’s pro-independence political establishment and intelligentsia, hailed David as “a pragmatic politician,” who was ready to work with her political opponents in the National Assembly.

These ruling-class representatives sized up David accurately, recognizing that her rhetorical “leftism” posed no threat to the existing social order.

Rejecting the fundamental division of society into antagonistic social classes, David promoted the fiction of a “Quebec people” united by a common language (French) and able to act collectively to achieve social progress through parliamentary action—perhaps facilitated by occasional friendly pressure from “the streets”—but without serious social conflict or ever challenging capitalism.

Since its founding in 2006, QS has sought to revive the discredited program of creating a capitalist République du Québec, while working with the trade union bureaucracy to suppress the class struggle and prevent Quebec workers from joining forces with workers in the rest of Canada to oppose the revival of Canadian militarism and the big-business assault on jobs, wages and social and public services.

Québec Solidaire’s hostility to the struggle for the political independence of the working class was highlighted during the months-long student strike in 2012, when it helped the trade unions divert the opposition to the austerity measures of Jean Charest’s Liberal government behind the Parti Québécois and its campaign for the September 2012 election.

While QS proclaims itself a party of the “left,” it describes itself neither as a workers’ or a socialist party, but rather as a “citizens’ party, ” based on feminist, Quebec sovereignist, anti-globalization and environmentalist values. With its identity-based appeals focused on gender, sexual orientation, language and culture, Québec Solidaire articulates the grievances of sections of the upper middle classes and seeks to carve out for itself a place within the political establishment.

David was at the forefront of Québec Solidaire’s attempts to groom itself for government, by advancing “fiscally responsible” and “economically credible” policies—i.e., by declaring its readiness to impose austerity—and to give the PQ a “left” cover. Quebec’s alternate party of government, the PQ has seen its support in the working class hemorrhage over the past two decades, because it has slashed public services and attacked workers’ rights whenever it has held office.

At the press conference at which David announced her retirement, she enthused over the QS’s decision at its last National Council meeting to intensify “dialogue” with other “progressive” indépendantiste parties, above all the PQ. In her final act as QS leader, David thus emphasized her support for the union leaders’ longstanding efforts to politically suppress the working class by subordinating it to the PQ, this time under the pretext of “defeating the Liberals” in the next provincial election, slated for October 2018.

Françoise David’s political evolution, from one-time student radical and Maoist to capitalist politician, is emblematic of a whole layer of the middle class, which was radicalized in the 1960s and early 1970s, but always denigrated and opposed the struggle to win the working class to a socialist-internationalist program.

In the 1980s, this layer turned abruptly to the right. Many have openly embraced “free-market” capitalism, imperialist war, and Québécois chauvinism, such as Gilles Duceppe, the former leader of the separatist Bloc Québécois (BQ), the PQ’s sister party in federal politics. Others, like Françoise David, have retained a vaguely “progressive” posture, based on the promotion of identity politics.

David comes from a politically influential, bourgeois family. Her grandfather, Athanase David, was an important member of the Liberal provincial government led by Louis-Alexandre Taschereau from 1920 to 1936. Her father founded the Montreal Heart Institute in 1954 and sat as a Conservative Senator from 1985 until his retirement in 1994. Her sister, Hélène, is the Minister for Higher Education in the current Couillard Liberal government, and one of her brothers, Charles-Philippe, is considered a Canadian foreign policy expert.

In the midst of the militant struggles of the international working class in the 1960s and 1970s, David became active in the student protest movement, graduating from the University of Montreal in 1972 with a degree in social work. A few years later, she joined and became a prominent leader of the Quebec Maoist group En Lutte! (In Struggle!). Gilles Duceppe, the son of a prominent Quebec actor, was also active in the Maoist movement during this period.

The attraction Maoism had for these radicalized middle class elements was based on its essential nature as a variant of Stalinism: extreme nationalism; the rejection of the revolutionary role of the working class in favor of peasant populism; unconditional support for Stalin and his bloody repression of the defenders of international socialism (Trotsky and the Left Opposition); and the political subordination of workers to the “progressive” wing of the bourgeoisie (Mao’s “bloc of four classes”).

The political orientation of these elements underwent a profound transformation with the decline of the international student protest movement against the Vietnam War and the restabilization of world capitalism after 1975.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the coming to power of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain marked the rejection by the ruling class, under the weight of the resurgent contradictions of capitalism, of its post-Second World War policy of class compromise in favor of class war. The former radicals of the 1960s and 1970s made their own sharp turn to the right and broke any association they might have had, however limited, with Marxism and revolutionary politics.

Reconciling themselves with capitalism, they now aspired to the highest echelons of society, whether by enriching themselves in business and the stock market or obtaining management positions in the public services, unions and universities. Their ascent was eased by the policies of success Quebec governments−including the PQ’s Law 101 with its “affirmative action” type measures—to promote Québécois-owned companies and open up managerial positions for French speakers.

In Quebec, the militant struggles of the working class in the preceding period had been diverted, by the unions, with the help of the Stalinist Communist Party, the Maoists, and the Pabloite renegades from Trotskyism, behind the Parti Québécois and “left” nationalism.

It is in this environment, deeply hostile to the interests of the working class, that David subsequently made her political career.

After En Lutte! collapsed in 1982, David immersed herself in the community-activist movement, which has always moved in the political orbit of the Parti Québécois. In 1994, she became the president of the main feminist organization in Quebec, the Quebec Women’s Federation (QWF), thus completing her passage from Maoism, superficially oriented towards workers’ struggles, to feminism, based, like all identity politics, on the explicit rejection of the class struggle.

As head of the QWF, David organized the “Bread and Roses” march in 1995 and the World March of Women against Poverty and Violence in 2000. In a telling commentary on the fundamentally conservative character of David’s politics, focused as it was on pressuring the establishment, Quebec’s then PQ Premier Jacques Parizeau said of the 1995 march: “Thank you for disturbing us to this extent.”

David was part of the “rainbow coalition” in favor of Quebec independence that Parizeau created to fight the 1995 referendum on Quebec’s secession from the Canadian federal state. Under the banner of the “Yes Committee,” this coalition formally bound together the Parti Québécois, the Bloc Québécois, the right-wing populist ADQ of Mario Dumont, Quebec’s trade union federations, and many pseudo-left groups, including the Pabloite Gauche Socialiste (Socialist Left.)

In 2006, David played a central role in the founding of Québec Solidaire, through the merger of the Union des forces progressistes and Option citoyenne, an organization largely comprised of feminist and antipoverty activists that David had founded in 2004.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained in its evaluation of Québec Solidaire’s first decade, “Although it occasionally bemoans certain excesses of ‘neo-liberal capitalism,’ QS is a pseudo-left, pro-capitalist party that articulates the aspirations and grievances not of the working class, but of privileged sections of the upper-middle class—academics and other professionals, trade union functionaries and small business owners. It aspires to gain respectability in the eyes of the ruling elite and become a major player in official bourgeois politics.”

On numerous occasions, QS has provided indirect and even outright support for Canada’s participation in US-led imperialist interventions and wars, including n Afghanistan and Libya, and for NATO’s claims to be responding to Russian “aggression” in Ukraine.

The goal of QS is not to overthrow rotting capitalism but to safeguard it. In a context where support for the traditional political parties is collapsing because of their association with austerity and war, the ruling class needs new mechanisms to suppress the class struggle.

SYRIZA, a pseudo-left party that QS rightfully describes as its “cousin,” won office in Greece in 2015 by promising to end capitalist austerity, only to impose cuts to pensions, public services and the minimum wage even greater than its openly rightwing predecessors. Françoise David’s political legacy is to have prepared Québec Solidaire to play a similar role.

Turkey prepares for military escalation in the Middle East

Halil Celik

Amid signals by the Trump administration that it plans to step up military involvement in the Middle East, Ankara is preparing to expand its intervention in the wars in Syria and Iraq, while also threatening Iran.

On February 27, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met separately with Defense Minister Fikri Isık and General Hulusi Akar, the chief of Turkey’s General Staff. These meetings came three days after the Turkish army officially stated that, acting together with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) militia, it had brought the Syrian town of al-Bab fully under its control.

While no statements emerged from Erdogan’s meeting with Isik and Akar, they likely discussed operations against not only the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, but also the Syrian Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military organization, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey is also preparing for a broader campaign against IS and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq.

Last week, Akar was in the southeastern Turkish provinces of Kilis and Gaziantep to visit military units. Ankara has already deployed thousands of troops, backed by heavy artillery, along its Syrian and Iraqi borders.

Meanwhile, Massoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), visited both Erdogan and Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim.

Barzani met with Erdogan on February 26, along with the chief of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), diplomats and energy officials.

The Turkish government made no official statement. But according to a statement issued by the KRG, Erdogan and Barzani “spoke of the ongoing military operation against the terrorists of the Islamic State in the city of Mosul, where President Barzani reiterated his position of the importance of planning for the post-liberation of the city.” For months, Iraqi government forces, including US-backed Kurdish fighters, have been engaged in a bloody effort to retake Mosul from IS.

The statement from Barzani’s office also pointed to Ankara’s support for the Iraqi Kurdish leadership. It said: “President Erdogan stated that Turkey will continue to support the Kurdistan Region during these difficult times, as the collective effort against the terrorists of the Islamic State continues.”

The next day, Barzani met with Yildirim to discuss similar issues—the struggle against IS, Ankara’s economic support for the KRG, Turkey’s oil supply, and the fight against the PKK in Iraq’s Sinjar region.

All these developments point to a further escalation of military conflict in the region by the Turkish government, together with the other major powers.

At the Munich security conference on February 19, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Iran, Russia’s largest ally in the region, was “trying to create two Shiite states in Syria and Iraq... Iran wants to make Syria and Iraq Shiite… This is very dangerous. It must be stopped.” Less than a week before, Erdogan had accused Iran of trying to partition Iraq and Syria.

Tehran responded sharply. On February, 20, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi declared: “We are acting patiently, but there is a limit to that… We hope that such statements are not made again. If our Turkish friends continue with this attitude, we will not remain silent,” he said.

Afterwards, the Turkey-Iran Business Forum, which executives from at least 100 Turkish firms were scheduled to attend on February 25 in Tehran, was postponed.

Ankara has long complained of Tehran’s intervention in the Syrian war and its growing influence in Iraq. The conflict between Turkey and Iran over Iraq and Syria, however, did not keep Ankara from aligning with Russia and Iran during ostensible peace talks on Syria in Astana.

The row between Ankara and Tehran has intensified since the new US administration placed Iran on its target list.

Despite its efforts to cultivate ties with Russia, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has time and again stated its intention to improve its relations with the United States. It has not concealed its hope of launching a joint operation against IS with the United States under Trump. On February 16, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri İsik told journalists that the Trump administration has a different approach to Syria: “They are not insisting any more that the operation should definitely be carried out with the [Kurdish] YPG. They haven’t yet made up their minds.”

Three days later, Erdogan said that Turkish troops would assist taking the Syrian city of Raqqa from IS if Ankara reaches a deal with Washington. This came just two days after the Turkish Chief of General Staff met with his US counterpart at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, rolling out a plan to retake Raqqa which excluded the PYD and the YPG. According to the Turkish media, the plan also envisages a 54-kilometer-long, 20-kilometer-wide corridor to be held by the Turkish-backed FSA.

The Turkish government denounces the PYD/YPG as terrorist groups that are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is carrying out an armed struggle against Ankara. Washington, in contrast, has treated them as reliable partners in the fight against IS and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The US has pared back its support for the FSA and sponsored the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as its new main proxy, creating tensions with Ankara.

Ankara responded by launching its own operation, “Euphrates Shield,” to push Syrian Kurdish forces to the eastern side of the Euphrates River. Washington responded in November 2016 with the SDF’s “Operation Euphrates Wrath,” which is aimed at retaking Raqqa from IS.

Hoping to shift US policy under Trump, Ankara now claims that several thousand FSA fighters, supported by Turkish advisors and air power, are ready to engage in a joint operation with Washington to take Raqqa, providing the Kurds are sidelined.

It is unclear whether Trump will accept Ankara’s proposal to replace the Kurdish-dominated SDF with Turkish-backed FSA forces. The alternatives are stark, however: a negative reply will further alienate Ankara, while a positive one would improve US-Turkish relations at the expense of Turkish-Russian relations.

In recent days, Russian-backed Syrian troops and Turkish-backed FSA forces have clashed near al-Bab, which the FSA captured last week from IS. Russian mediation halted the conflict. Meanwhile, on March 1, Turkish troops and FSA fighters reportedly attacked villages west of Manbij—a town on the west side of the Euphrates River, from which Ankara has vowed to purge Kurdish forces.

As it bargains with Trump and quarrels with Iran, Ankara is still seeking to promote its relations with Russia, both commercial and especially military. During his scheduled March 9-10 visit to Russia, Erdogan is to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and attend a meeting of the High-Level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council. The two leaders are expected to discuss Turkey’s request to purchase Russian S-400 air defense missile systems.

Whether Trump continues to support the SDF or decides to accept Ankara’s proposals and cut off the PYD/YPG, Ankara’s plans to step up its interventions into both Syria and Iraq will further aggravate an already volatile situation.

Bangladesh government continues repression against garment workers

Sarath Kumara

Last week, the Bangladesh government released some of the labour activists arrested on trumped-up charges after a strike of garment workers demanding higher pay in Ashulia industrial district near Dhaka. Several workers remain in custody and the police are continuing to pursue charges against all those arrested.

The release on bail of several arrested activists followed an agreement between the IndustriALL Global Union (IAGU), the Swiss-based UNI Global Union (UNIGU), the Labour Ministry and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). The unions have not reported the exact number of released workers or explained why others were not bailed out. At least 35 workers remain in custody.

The IAGU and UNIGU have been lobbying Western retailers since the arrest of workers in December to press the Dhaka government to release them and for companies to recognise the trade unions. In response, five retail giants—H&M, Inditex, C&A, Next and Tchibo—announced that they had pulled out of last month’s annual Dhaka Apparel Summit (DAS) organized by the BGMEA to promote apparel exports.

The repression began after some 150,000 workers from more than two dozen factories went on strike for 10 days in December. The workers advanced 16 demands, including a wage rise to 16,000 taka ($200) a month from the current wage of 5,300 taka. The Bangladesh government and the companies reacted ruthlessly, locking out workers at 85 factories and arresting scores of strikers, including local union leaders.

Factories reopened at the end of December after the firing of at least 1,600 workers. These workers have been black-listed by the companies, making it impossible for them to find new jobs. The owners of eight factories in Ashulia have filed charges with the police accusing arrested activists of vandalism, looting and assault.

The unions and human right groups say these charges have been laid without any evidence. Three workers and a journalist have been charged under the draconian Special Powers Act for political violence unrelated to the strike. Some workers are hiding to avoid arrest.

Since the crackdown, fearing that major struggles could erupt, the government has mobilised police and paramilitary forces near factories not only in Ashulia but throughout the country to intimidate workers.

Apparel companies decided to pull out of the Dhaka Summit not out of concern for the rights of the workers, but for fear that the explosion of labour struggles would impact their imports and profits. The US and European companies are reaping massive profits from low-cost brands imported from Bangladesh.

IAGU General Secretary Walter Sanches said the release of workers was “an important victory for the garment workers in Bangladesh, sending a strong message to the country’s industry to enter into constructive dialogue with trade unions.” The UNIGU general secretary praised “international solidarity,” by which he meant the “support” of some Western retailers and trade unions.

Global unions are keen to establish trade unions in all factories and have “dialogue” with company bosses, hoping they can be enlisted to help discipline the workers. In Europe and America, these unions are working with corporations, including retailers, to slash the wages and benefits of their members.

No sooner had the release on bail of the detained workers been announced than the IAGU and UNIGU informed the companies that they could participate in the Dhaka Apparel summit.

However, the frame-up charges have not been withdrawn, the crackdown on the unions continues, and wages have not been increased. In December, the companies refused to negotiate wages until 2019. But according to earlier agreement reached in 2013, wages had to be increased last year.

The Ashulia strike was a spontaneous action. None of the global unions or their affiliates in Bangladesh were involved in calling it.

Western capital is attracted to Bangladesh because of the low production costs, which are based on the appalling conditions of the workers. Promises were made by the government, the garment companies and Western retailers to improve the conditions of workers after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in 2013, which housed eight garment factories. This, among the world’s worst industrial disasters, killed more than 1,100 workers and maimed many others.

Still, Bangladesh garment workers are among the lowest paid in the world, working conditions are brutal and unsafe, and intimidation and repression continue unabated.

Prime Minister Sheik Hasina inaugurated the Dhaka Apparel Summit on February 25, but did not utter a word about the repression going on under her government in Ashulia. Hasina said as many as 3,869 factories had been inspected but only 39 closed down due to poor conditions. In the same breath, she said huge funds were needed to improve factory conditions and appealed to Western buyers to help.

Her speech focussed on increasing future garment export targets. She urged producers not to be “stuck in the traditional destinations,” and to “roll up your sleeves and find new markets.” Europe and America are the main markets for Bangladesh garment exports.

Hasina said she was hoping for duty- and quota-free access of Bangladesh products to the European Union so that her country could improve its share, currently 5.1 percent, of the international garment export market. She lamented that because of the absence of such facilities in the US, Bangladesh companies have to pay $850 million in taxes annually for $3 billion of exports.

The Bangladesh garment industry is the country’s main foreign exchange earner, accounting for 82 percent of all exports. A massive work force of 4 million is toiling in these factories. In an environment of cut-throat competition for market share, the Hasina government is determined to maintain cheap-labour conditions. This drives her government’s ruthless repression of workers.

The US-based organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a detailed report this month on the ongoing repression since December. It noted that “10 criminal complaints” were filed in December “implicating about 150 named workers and over 1,600 ‘unknown’ people for crimes” during the strike.

Though the number of those arrested is reported to be around 44, the real number is not known, as police have not provided a full list. Nor have the police revealed where jailed strikers are being held. A journalist from the local news channel ETV was also was arrested for reporting on the strikes.

The report noted that many workers suddenly “vanished,” but “more than 24 hours later” were brought before a court. This means the police abducted them.

Police intimidation includes the use of criminal complaints against large numbers, threats of arrest, repeated re-arrest of detainees, withholding of bail, forced confessions through torture, and other forms of degrading treatment.

The government continues to defend the repression. Mohammad Haque, junior minister at the Ministry of Labour, said the December protests were illegal and law-and-order measures had to be taken. BGMEA President Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman said the protests were “chaos and lawlessness created by an unruly section of workers.” He praised law-enforcement agencies for detaining “some people who created obstacles to production in the factories.”

Sitting on a socially explosive situation, the Hasina government is increasingly resorting to authoritarian methods of rule, of which the repression of garment workers is a major part.

UK: Rising mortality rates and rationing across the National Health Service

Jean Gibney

The slashing of funding over decades to the National Health Service (NHS) and social care by Labour and Conservative governments has led to increasing rationing of treatment.

Cuts and rationing of treatments are thought to be linked to thousands of preventable deaths across England and Wales, according to a joint study by Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Oxford University and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.

The report examined statistics from January 2006 up to December 2015 and found that during that period increases in mortality clearly coincided with financial cuts to the NHS and social care. The report found there were 30,000 excess deaths in 2015 in England and Wales and that these were likely associated with NHS and social care cuts.

The study found that the overall mortality rate increased during the period 2014 to 2015 and the huge increase in preventable deaths during 2015 was the highest since 2008. “The rise in deaths from 2014 to 529,655 in 2015 was the biggest in percentage terms in almost 50 years and the mortality rate was the highest since 2008.” The report notes that those most dependent on social care, mostly elderly people, had the highest numbers of excess mortality rates.

The authors warned that far from improving, increasing mortality rates were set to become the norm, as figures from October 2016 to January 2017 showed mortality rates increasing by 7 percent compared to the average over a five-year period.

Years of savage cuts to funding, privatisation of health services and profiteering by the pharmaceutical industry have had major repercussions for patient care. Many seriously ill patients are being denied drugs and treatments due to increased drives for cost efficiency.

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are reducing funding for surgical procedures such as cataracts, hip and knee replacements. Patients needing hip and knee procedures are being refused surgery on the basis they are not completely immobile.

In the West Midlands area of England, three CCGs proposed reducing the number of hip replacements by 12 percent and knee replacements by 19 percent. Only those patients who are suffering constant excruciating pain—which prevents sleep and have extremely limited mobility—will be eligible for surgery under the proposals to cut the numbers of surgical procedures.

The rationing of treatment cuts across all age groups, with child health also affected. A 2014 study by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), “Is Access to Surgery A Postcode Lottery?” found that some CCGs issued guidelines—which made patients including children wait 18 months under the “watchful waiting period”—for a tonsillectomy. The report found that patients had to provide documented evidence that tonsillitis had caused them time off school or work before being considered for surgery.

Clare Marx, president of the RCS, said, “This report seems to show that local commissioners are imposing arbitrary rules governing access to some routine surgery. The motivation may not be financial but it is clear that some CCGs do not commission services using clinically accepted evidence-based guidance.”

As more cuts are implemented, access to NHS treatment is being rationed under ever more stringent guidelines—based not on clinical need but on issues around weight and lifestyle.

An investigation into health care rationing by the General Practitioners magazine, GPonline, found that CCGs ration treatments for varicose veins, infertility, and male and female breast reduction, based on inflexible Body Mass Index [BMI] indices of the patient.

One GP commenting on the rationing wrote, “If it’s purely down to cost saving, it’s not ethical. There are clearly cases where certain people’s body size may make it difficult to safely do a certain procedure, but they’re exceptional. I think what’s happening here is overt rationing to save money.”

For those patients who need lifesaving anti-cancer drugs the situation is dire. Cost-cutting rationing is forcing increasing numbers of seriously ill patients, denied access to life saving treatments, to resort to crowd-funding to pay for treatments now unavailable to them on the NHS.

Figures released by GoFundMe said the numbers of campaigns for money to help pay for lifesaving treatment had increased over the past year. Nearly £8 million was raised last year in GoFundMe campaigns, compared to just under £5 million in 2015.

The lack of funding and the rationing of treatments are having an impact on patients in the community. The Vale of York CCG told GPs to “deliver £1 million savings on prescription costs” as part of the drive for additional savings and efficiencies, due to a predicted £8 million deficit at the York Foundation Trust.

The situation is set to worsen as figures released by the government revealed that NHS spending per head of population would decline by 0.6 percent in the years 2018/19. The figures and predictions of low growth for 2019/20 fly in the face of Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s claims that an “extra £10 billion is being invested in the NHS.”

Jon Ashworth, Labour Shadow Secretary for Health, responded to the figures saying, “Social care cuts were compounding the health service’s woes. Ministers have now finally admitted what I’ve been warning for some time—that head for head, NHS spending will actually be cut next year.” He called on May to “use the Budget this March to give the NHS and social care the funding our constituents expect.”

Ashworth’s words ring hollow. Before being elected an MP in 2011, he was a special adviser to the Treasury under then Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown. When Brown took over as prime minister from Tony Blair in 2007, he initiated the devastating austerity measures, which have been continued by successive Tory governments since 2010. These include the ongoing imposition of more than £40 billion in NHS “efficiency savings”—read cuts—and the escalation of profiteering from public health provision by the private sector.

The introduction of “Sustainability and Transformation Plans” (STPs) to impose these cuts via health trusts nationally is the final nail in the coffin of the NHS. Some £26 billion worth of cuts are set to be implemented under the STPs by 2020, with plans being drawn up for the mass closure of hospitals, wards, accident and emergency departments and staff cuts.

In response to the introduction of the STPs, the main complaint of the largest public sector union, Unison, is that they are being implemented too hastily and that the union has not been consulted regarding the process. It stated, “Unison, along with other NHS trade unions, has written to the Secretary of State to request that he slow down the STP process to give patients, staff and the public greater confidence that local decisions are being made for the right reasons, rather than as part of a rush to save money.”

Unison, with over 500,000 members in the health service, along with the other unions with members employed in the NHS, have not led a single struggle against the ongoing destruction of a vital gain won by the working class—the right to free and universal health care. The unions have accepted every cut, every closure and every job loss and actively worked to prevent any form of independent action by the working class to defend itself against a relentless assault on its living standards by the ruling elite.

Fillon to continue his French presidential bid despite indictment

Alex Lantier 

François Fillon, the presidential candidate of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR), held an emergency press conference Wednesday afternoon to announce that he would continue his campaign despite being indicted on charges of organizing no-show jobs for his wife, Penelope.

In August, he had criticized his then-rival for the LR nomination, ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, for facing multiple trials. He declared, “If I were indicted, I would not be a candidate in the presidential election, it’s a moral issue.”

Now, the LR candidate is announcing that he will continue his campaign despite his imminent indictment over a series of alleged no-show jobs that netted his wife at least €900,000 as a parliamentary aide and employee of the Revue des deux mondes. However, the scandal threatens not only his candidacy, but the unity of LR and potentially even the normal holding of the elections.

“My lawyer has learned that I will be summoned on March 15 to be indicted,” Fillon said at his campaign headquarters Wednesday. “Yes, I will be a presidential candidate, and we will draw from these challenges … the extra energy we need to win and reinforce our country.”

The Fillon indictment underscores the extraordinary virulence of the factional battles inside the ruling class, both in France and internationally, in the run-up to the April-May 2017 elections.

In his press conference, Fillon questioned the impartiality of the justice system and the role of the Socialist Party (PS) government, which doubtless exerted considerable pressure behind the scenes to secure an indictment. He declared, “Only universal suffrage, and not a trial waged for purposes of persecution, can decide who will be the next president of the Republic. … I will go to the end, because besides myself, it is democracy that is being defied.”

This provoked a response from President François Hollande, who denounced “any questioning of the judiciary”. He added, “Being a presidential candidate does not give one a blank check to cast suspicion on the work of police and judges, to create a climate of mistrust incompatible with one of responsibility, or worse, to make extremely serious accusations against the judiciary and, more broadly, our institutions.”

The evidence against Fillon in the case is overwhelming. In 2007, as Fillon became prime minister under Sarkozy, Penelope Fillon told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that “I was never his parliamentary assistant” and added, “I did not take care of his public relations, either.” Given the absence of any concrete proof that Penelope Fillon did any work whatsoever, over a month after the initial accusations surfaced in the press, Fillon is in extreme legal jeopardy.

It is not, however, the French political establishment’s undeniable corruption, or even less the popular anger and alienation from its austerity policies, aggressively advocated by Fillon, that made the judiciary break the traditional “Republican truce” of the election period and indict Fillon. It is the deep conflict inside the imperialist bourgeoisies of the NATO alliance that have come to the surface, particularly since the election of Donald Trump as US president, that is driving the crisis of the Fillon campaign.

The sums of money handed over to Penelope Fillon pale in comparison to those plundered over decades by French imperialism’s networks in Africa, which went to pay off both the PS and the French right, as emerged in the Elf affair in the 1990s and 2000s. These parties divided up among themselves vast sums siphoned out of the billions of euros in profits realized by French oil firms in France’s old colonial empire in Africa—a process that took place behind the back of the French electorate.

Now, however, with NATO deeply divided over international strategy, particularly in the context of its war drive against Russia, the judiciary is threatening to use “Penelopegate” to blow up the LR campaign, with the backing of the PS and its international allies.

According to the January 25 article of the satirical weekly Canard Enchaîné that set off the scandal, journalists discovered Penelope Fillon’s work arrangements in November. Just after the election of Trump’s far right administration in Washington, linked to France’s neo-fascist National Front (FN) and suspected of pro-Russian sympathies, they were looking for potential Russian links of Fillon’s lucrative 2F consulting company. The Democratic Party and factions of US intelligence, working with Berlin and Paris, were attacking Trump for his alleged unwillingness to confront Russia.

The Canard published its article only a few days after Fillon traveled to Berlin, where he proposed an alliance between Berlin, Paris and Moscow to counterbalance the new US administration. It was after this proposal of a geopolitical alignment that is fundamentally unacceptable to Washington, as well as to powerful sections of the European ruling class, that the judicial and media campaign against Fillon was launched.

Now, after his press conference Wednesday, ever broader sections of Fillon’s backers in the French right are withdrawing their support. The Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), a small party allied to LR, said it would suspend its participation in Fillon’s campaign.

Even as the ruling class increasingly worries about FN candidate Marine Le Pen’s rise in the polls, and even a hypothetical victory in the run-off handing Le Pen the presidency, many LR supporters of Fillon are demanding that he fulfill the promise he made last August and withdraw.

LR has not formulated any clear strategy if Fillon withdraws, but its representative for European and foreign affairs, Bruno Le Maire, demanded his withdrawal. Le Maire said this was “indispensable” for the credibility “of politics.”

LR deputies Sébastien Huyghe, Laure de la Raudière, and Pierre Lellouche also appealed to Fillon to withdraw. Lellouche said he was considering launching a case before the Constitutional Council to demand a postponement of the presidential election, so that LR would have the time to nominate a new candidate.

A LR councillor in Paris, Jérôme Dubus, said he would leave Fillon’s campaign to support independent (but PS-backed) candidate Emmanuel Macron, a banker and former economy minister under Hollande.