Netherlands set for October snap election amid crisis of bourgeois rule

Parwini Zora

Green Left party leader Jesse Klaver, right and former Prime Minister and now NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, March 16, 2017. [AP Photo/Peter Dejong]

As the Dutch ruling class prepares for snap elections on October 29, 2025, the working class confronts a political system lurching further to the right under the combined pressures of militarism, austerity and authoritarian rule. From the fascistic far right to the discredited labour parties and pseudo-left formations, official parties across the board have drafted election programs that serve the ruling political and financial elite, guaranteeing that any coalition emerging from the elections will intensify war abroad while tightening repression at home.

Amid mass anti-genocide protests in The Hague, the collapse of the Dutch government in June—after Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew from the four-party coalition—was a calculated maneuver by the ruling elite to gain time to recalibrate its methods of authoritarian rule and advance its imperialist interests. This mirrors a broader international and European trend in which the bourgeoisie is deepening militarism and autocracy, fusing nationalist scapegoating of immigrants and refugees with savage austerity.

The ruling caretaker government, led by unelected former spy Dick Schoof, has reaffirmed Netherlands’ €19 billion NATO contribution, escalating the war against Russia in Ukraine and continuing tacit support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. These actions expose the ruling class’s central priorities: war abroad and the intensification of class war at home.

The political crisis in The Hague deepened in August when all ministers of the New Social Contract (NSC)—the coalition’s second-largest party—resigned after then Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp quit in protest at the government’s refusal to impose even minimal sanctions on Israel. The resignations were an attempt to deflect and contain public outrage over atrocities in Gaza. Across Europe, from the United Kingdom to Germany, governments have offered token gestures to limit Israel’s actions, hoping to placate public opinion while maintaining full imperialist support.

The remainder of the caretaker coalition, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB), now holds only 32 of 150 seats—far short of a parliamentary majority. This exposes both the fragility of Dutch parliamentary rule and the bourgeoisie’s reliance on symbolic gestures to mask complicity in imperialist war and domestic class repression.

Despite its weakened position, the caretaker cabinet is pressing ahead with an aggressive war budget. Annual military spending stands at €25 billion, bolstered by an extra €1.1 billion approved in April 2025, while social programs are being gutted: education cut by €1.2 billion, healthcare by €2.3 billion and culture and the arts by €200 million. Combined with 4 percent inflation and up to a 30 percent rise in health premiums, these measures intensify the financial burden on working class households, revealing the social cost of prioritizing war and profit over human needs.

The ruling class’s prioritization of militarism and imperialist war has provoked widespread opposition in the Netherlands, reflecting a broader international trend. In May and June, over 150,000 people marched in The Hague’s “Red Line” demonstrations; a third protest is scheduled for Amsterdam on October 5, linking solidarity with Gaza to demands for social justice at home.

Students occupied campuses nationwide, such as in Utrecht, Nijmegen and Amsterdam, denouncing the militarization of education and calling for an end to military subsidies. Nationwide railway strikes and a university staff strike in June—though limited and fragmented by the union leadership—illustrated the growing mobilization of Dutch and immigrant workers and youth. As the WSWS has emphasized, these struggles cannot be reduced to moral appeals or pressure politics; they must be extended to challenge the capitalist system itself.

A revealing opinion poll carried out by Motivaction International in September found that 42 percent of respondents said the war in Gaza would influence their vote “either slightly or a great deal” in the upcoming general election. In a separate Ipsos/I&O poll, 58 percent wanted the government to be “more critical of Israel.” International questions of imperialist war and genocide are therefore decisive for a sizeable portion of the Dutch electorate in casting their vote.

Furthermore, similar to Trump ’s executive order labelling Antifa a terrorist organization—effectively authorizing the branding of political dissent as “terrorism”—the Dutch Tweede Kamer adopted a motion on September 18 urging the government to do the same.

Introduced by Wilders’ PVV and other far-right parties and backed by former Prime Minister and now NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s VVD, the motion is the first European parliamentary initiative of its kind. It sets a dangerous precedent for expanding state surveillance and repressing mounting social discontent under draconian law, laying the groundwork for intensified repression and criminalization of left-wing opposition under the guise of combating “domestic extremism.” Dutch media largely ignored the motion, and international outlets downplayed it as “not yet legally binding.”

The merger of Green Left and the Labour Party

In a similar vein, mainstream media plays a crucial role in presenting the merger of GroenLinks (Green Left) and the PvdA (Labour Party) into a single electoral bloc—GroenLinks–PvdA—as a “progressive breakthrough.”

Just as the media avoids labelling Wilders’ PVV as neo-fascist, it brands the new party led by Jesse Klaver and Frans Timmermans as “left.” Timmermans is a seasoned minister under both Balkenende and Rutte governments, former European Commission Vice President and supporter of the US-NATO war in Ukraine. The description of the merger as “left” confers false legitimacy on two discredited parties entrenched in the bourgeois establishment, whose interests align with the upper middle class elite and lack a genuine and significant working class base.

The merged party presents itself as the “rebirth of a centre left” to block Wilders. Nearly 90 percent of party members endorsed the merger, invoking the urgency of countering the “populist threat.” Having already contested the 2023 elections on a joint list, this so-called “new left formation” is a political trap engineered to re-legitimize the capitalist order and channel mounting popular discontent into a parliamentary dead end. Dutch trade union bureaucrats, such as in the FNV, have eagerly hosted joint meetings with its leaders, presenting themselves as social partners committed to a “peace-first foreign policy.”

Klaver’s objections to the €1.1 billion increase to the military budget—framed as “strategic planning”—and Timmermans’ calls for a “Green-Deal-oriented security policy” have been cast in the media as principled opposition. In reality, both are deeply embedded in NATO and EU military-financial frameworks. Their post-election migration stances furthermore reveal procedural tweaks compared to their former “humanitarian concerns”: Klaver questioned deportation practices without opposing mass expulsions; Timmermans advocated labour-migration limits under the guise of policy coordination.

The newly formed party manifesto, “Een nieuwe start voor Nederland” (“A new start for the Netherlands”), especially the lengthy sections on immigration and domestic and foreign policy, demonstrates how the establishment has lurched further to the right, reducing the rest to demagogy on acute social issues, such as affordable housing, rising costs and dwindling social spending on healthcare and education.

Similarly, the ex-Maoist Socialist Party (SP) has embraced far-right policies promoted by Wilders. In spring 2024, it voted with the coalition to expand police powers to disperse farmer protests. In September that same year, it backed the military budget as “necessary for security of the Netherlands and Europe.” On migration, it frames immigration as a “competition for jobs” between “native” and “foreign labour,” backing stricter asylum rules, faster expulsions and reduced allowances for Ukrainian refugees.

By endorsing rising defence spending, stricter policing and restrictive migration under successive Rutte governments, the SP has enabled unprecedented police brutality and surveillance, especially against anti-Gaza genocide demonstrators. As the WSWS has repeatedly warned, the SP’s role has systematically enabled the rise of the Dutch far right. Its manifesto, “Super sociaal!”, includes empty words on Gaza and far more empty promises on pressing social questions faced by the Dutch working class as part of the international working class.

The Dutch establishment’s promotion of a “new centre‑left” merger must be understood as part of a broader pattern across European capitals: electoral pacts that appear to offer a progressive alternative but ultimately divert social opposition back into stabilizing a rotten and disintegrating political establishment. Everywhere in Europe, formations claiming to represent a “new progressive” or “left alternative” to the far right have proved instrumental to give a breather to the capitalist order in decay.

These political spin-offs fundamentally prevent the working class from breaking free of the capitalist framework, suppress strikes and protests and legitimize war, genocide and austerity under a “progressive” veneer.

The Dutch GroenLinks–PvdA bloc is no exception. Timmermans calls for a “just climate transition” but supports massive subsidies for Shell, Heineken and Philips and the 40 percent defense spending increase taken from healthcare, education and housing. Klaver calls for “fairness” but accepts the EU Stability Pact. On refugees, both parties have backed “managing flows” and “European burden-sharing”—language that justifies Fortress Europe policies and acquiesces to Wilders’ neo-fascist agenda.

Radicalization of youth and workers

The summer months of July and August saw further radicalization of youth and the working class, reflecting broader European developments since, especially in France and Italy. Palestine solidarity protests, continuing into sit-ins and rallies across Utrecht, Amsterdam and Groningen, linked Dutch complicity in genocide to domestic austerity and militarization. The KLM staff at Schiphol went on repeated strikes that continued to be isolated by the trade union apparatus. The “Red Line” marches in The Hague were only the beginning of a broader mass mobilization. Without a revolutionary leadership, however, such movements risk being derailed by outfits such as GroenLinks–PvdA, which claims to “support” them while upholding US-NATO wars, EU diktats and repression.

The deployment of half the Dutch police at the July NATO summit in The Hague was particularly revealing. Alongside F-35 jets, drones and roadblocks, the caretaker government staged the largest security operation in Dutch history—not to deter foreign threats but to intimidate the working class.

Dutch hospitals report they will face staff shortages of 60,000 by 2030; student debt has doubled in a decade; 390,000 households cannot afford rent; 60 percent struggle to pay bills; food bank usage has risen by over 30 percent since 2022. Yet, defense spending soars and corporate subsidies remain untouched. This is not merely a budgetary choice—It reflects a ruling class preparing for broader war and social confrontation.

For the Dutch working class, the chief danger in this month’s elections lies in being disarmed by the illusion of voting for a “lesser evil.” The media hypes the Red-Green bloc as the “only hope” against Wilders. History shows that such alliances do not defeat the far right but rather play a pivotal role in emboldening it. Germany’s SPD-Green coalition’s war drive fed the far-right AfD’s rise. A GroenLinks–PvdA led government in the Netherlands similarly will not halt Wilders but prepare his return on a stronger, more reactionary basis.

Wilders’ PVV is leading in the polls, though its support is lower than in the last elections. Its manifesto, “Dit is jouw land” (“This is your land”), spells out a fascistic program, galvanizing lumpen elements into its own version of stormtroopers. The recent neo-fascist riot against immigration in The Hague, parading Dutch colonial VOC flags and those of the notorious fascist NSB party, underscores this trajectory. Passages in the PVV manifesto fuse hardline anti-immigration rhetoric with claims to defend “Dutch identity,” while simultaneously demanding a massive expansion of the state apparatus and a surge in defense spending.

Amid deepening drone war with Ukraine, Kremlin imposes severe internet and cellphone shutdowns

Clara Weiss

An iPhone screen shows a Telegram account of OVD-Info, prominent legal aid group in Russia that tracks political arrests in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 25, 2021. [AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko]

Amid an intensifying cyber and drone war with NATO-backed Ukraine, the Kremlin has significantly expanded its efforts to restrict free access to the internet and curtail whatever democratic rights in Russia nominally remain. 

Rolling internet and cell network shutdowns are now a feature of everyday life across the country. ATMs, card payments and taxi and ride-sharing apps are frequently not working. Pharmacies, especially in provincial areas, have reported major difficulties obtaining medication. Viktoria Presnyakova, head of the Association of Independent Pharmacies, explained to the Associated Press that prescriptions had to be logged in special software, which is impossible when there is no internet connection for weeks. Cell phone services are also disabled for days or weeks on end, especially but not only in regions bordering Ukraine, such as Belgorod, which are routinely targeted by drone attacks.

Because of the severe disruptions to social and economic life, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta recently called for “a special backup internet access mechanism—a system that allows key digital services to continue operating when communications are shut down.” Already, the Kremlin has created a system where specific websites on a “white list” are able to function, while the rest of the internet is shut down. This “white list,” according to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, includes “domestic social networks, large mail and information portals, Yandex ecosystem services, marketplaces (Ozon, Wildberries, Avito), and video hosting services, as well as government resources such as the Gosuslugi portal, government websites, and the president’s website. Users can still communicate, receive news, make purchases, and use basic financial services, but only within the approved list. All other resources, including foreign platforms and messengers, will be unavailable.”

The Kremlin-backed Izvestiia reported that the government is now planning to set up an agency to coordinate internet shutdowns. 

The shutdowns are connected to the intensification of drone warfare with Ukraine and, in part, aimed at preempting NATO and Ukraine from using telecommunications to launch attacks. The first major internet shutdowns were reported in the capital Moscow in May during the celebrations of the Soviet victory over the Nazis in World War II. A significant turning point was the Ukraine-NATO “Operation Spiderweb” in early June, when Ukrainian drones launched from trucks attacked military airfields deep inside Russian territory. Sarkis Darbinyan, founder of Russian internet freedom group Roskomsvoboda, told the Associated Press, “They got really scared that drones now may appear, like a jack-in-the-box, in any Russian regions.”

This is precisely what is now occurring. Although there is almost no coverage of it in the pro-NATO Western media, Ukraine now launches daily attacks on Russian territory with drones, targeting both civilian and military infrastructure. The Kremlin reports that it intercepts dozens of drones every night, including in regions far from the front lines. Because of mass drone attacks, airports across the country routinely have to cancel flights. The largest airports in St. Petersburg and Moscow have experienced several major shutdowns since July.

But the Kremlin is also clearly using the escalation of the cyber and drone war with Russia to significantly step up its efforts to prevent Russian workers from accessing news and linking up with their class brothers and sisters internationally. Plans for a closed Russian internet have been in the making for many years, predating the war, and the Kremlin has long imposed some of the most far-reaching censorship laws and measures to curtail the ability of users to hide their IPs through the use of Virtual Private Networks. 

Since the beginning of the war, most foreign-based social media apps and platforms, including Meta-owned platforms and Twitter (X), have been banned. WhatsApp, which is very widely used by Russian users, particularly to stay connected with friends and family abroad, still functions but its voice call and message functions have been severely restricted. On September 1, a series of laws came into effect that further complicate and criminalize the use of Virtual Private Networks.

These censorship laws are an intrinsic component of a broader crackdown on democratic rights. On September 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on the withdrawal of Russia from the European Convention of Human Rights. 

A Russian supporter of the World Socialist Web Site commented,

Although the full scope of this move is not yet clear, there are fears that conditions for prisoners and suspects will be tightened, and that torture may be actively used in the future. Russia has no clear legal norms for combating torture. The normalization of torture has been in full swing since the start of the war in Ukraine. This process accelerated against the backdrop of the tragedy at Crocus City Hall (March 2024), when the perpetrators were publicly tortured, thereby normalizing violence against suspects (whose guilt had not yet been proven at that point), not to mention the fact that torture cannot be used against criminals regardless of the nature of the crime. The issue of torture in Russia has a long history: from tsarist times to the Stalinist bureaucracy with its political genocide. Putin’s regime plans to once again resort to the weapons of the tsars and gangsters in an attempt to avoid retribution for its disastrous policies.

The escalating attack on democratic rights comes as NATO, and especially the European imperialist powers, relentlessly ratchet up pressure on Russia. Under these conditions, there are growing calls within the oligarchy for the Kremlin to respond more aggressively on a military level while intensifying its efforts to subordinate all of society to the war effort.

Sergei Karaganov, an influential foreign policy pundit, recently stated at a round table hosted by the Kremlin-aligned think tank Russia in Global Affairs,

Our state and military-political strategy needs to dramatically increase the role of nuclear deterrence. We have relaxed, and so has the rest of the world; the world has stopped fearing war. And we have allowed something completely unimaginable to happen—a sense of impunity has taken hold in the world, especially in the West. Therefore, we need to sharply increase our emphasis on nuclear deterrence, begin to move up the escalation ladder, starting with strikes using conventional weapons, and then, if there is a response, even nuclear weapons, against our opponents in Europe.

He continued,

If we do not defeat them [NATO] decisively now and put them in their place, I assure you that in two or three years, when Ukraine’s human capital is depleted, waves of mercenaries from the poor countries of Central and Eastern Europe will come. For Europeans and, to some extent, Americans, this is not a very big expense. Therefore, we need to end this war as quickly as possible.

Karaganov then went on to emphasize the need for a fundamental “reeducation” of the population in patriotic, Christian values. In a far-right Russian nationalist rant, he declared that Russia was destined to play the role of the “savior of civilization,” “save humanity” from a Third World War but that it had “first” to save Russia itself and establish its hegemony in Northern Eurasia.  

Behind the nationalist rants of Karaganov and the attacks on democratic rights stand not efforts to “save” humanity, let alone the Russian working class, from imperialism. The Russian oligarchy, which has emerged out of the Stalinist reaction against the 1917 socialist revolution in Russia and the bureaucracy’s destruction of the Soviet Union, uses this rhetoric and these measures to conceal and safeguard its own reactionary social interests. The Putin regime launched the invasion of Ukraine in the interests of that oligarchy, after years of provocations by imperialism, in a desperate effort to reach a negotiated settlement with the imperialist powers to safeguard its own class interests in the region and its “right” to exploit the working class.

Tellingly, despite far-reaching sanctions by the imperialist powers since 2022, Russian oligarchs were able to continue to grow their fortunes amidst the fratricidal war in Ukraine that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. According to Forbes, between 2024 and 2025, Russia’s richest individuals amassed an additional $20 billion in total wealth, growing their total fortune to a new record $625.5 billion.

Renewed general strike in Greece against the 13-hour day

Katerina Selin

Protesters take part in a nationwide 24-hour strike in Athens, Greece, October 1, 2025 [AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis]

Last Wednesday, October 1, another general strike brought the whole of Greece to a standstill. Protests took place in 73 cities. With the 24-hour walkout, workers and employees were protesting against the new labour law introduced by the right-wing government under Nea Dimokratia (ND, New Democracy), which provides for longer working hours of up to 13 hours a day and further attacks on working conditions.

Doctors and hospital staff, teachers, taxi drivers, urban transit and rail workers, as well as seafarers and dockworkers took part in the strike. Not only trains but also ferries came to a halt, temporarily cutting the islands off from the mainland.

Demonstrators also expressed solidarity with Panos Routsis, who has been on hunger strike since September 15. His son died in the Tempi rail disaster in early 2023, the exact circumstances of which have been covered up by the state to this day. He is now demanding the exhumation of his son’s remains and a forensic examination to determine the actual cause of death. The Tempi catastrophe, with 57 victims, triggered the largest mass protests in Greece since the financial crisis beginning in 2009.

Last week’s general strike is part of a wave of strikes and protests across Europe. In Italy, more than two million people protested on Friday and hundreds of thousands the week before against the genocide in Gaza and the Israeli attacks on the Gaza aid flotilla. Workers at the Greek port of Piraeus also went on a 24-hour strike on Friday in solidarity with the Gaza flotilla. In France, workers have demonstrated against the government’s austerity plans. Germany recently saw the largest demonstration to date against the genocide in Gaza.

In Greece, this is already the fourth general strike this year. In February, mass protests broke out on the second anniversary of the Tempi train disaster; in April there followed a general strike for higher wages; and at the end of August public-sector workers struck against a tightening of disciplinary law and the new labour act.

Only ADEDY, the umbrella federation of public-sector unions, had called the last strike. On Wednesday, the private-sector General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) also joined in, calling for a reduction of the workweek to 37.5 hours.

The new labour law is designed to intensify capitalist exploitation and cement it legally. As the WSWS has shown, most Greeks already have to hold down two jobs or more to make ends meet. The official abolition of the eight-hour day legalises the catastrophic working conditions that already exist and lead to chronic overwork and a lack of workplace safety.

The 13-hour day in Greece could open the floodgates for similar labour laws across Europe. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is already calling for longer working hours and is taking an axe to the welfare state. Greece, where the European Union has wrought social devastation in recent years, is to serve as a testing ground for other countries.

But as resistance in the working class to these social attacks grows, the unions are trying to contain, control and restrict it.

In its strike call, the GSEE warned: “In Greece, the average worker works 700 hours more per year than his European counterpart. The government’s 13-hour day destroys family and social life, the right to rest and leisure.”

What it omitted to say was that GSEE itself bears responsibility for the fact that Greek workers already put in so much overtime. For decades the union confederations have prevented an effective resistance to austerity from developing—one that would have to be organised across Europe and across all sectors. Instead, they have proclaimed isolated national “general strikes” that were nothing but pinpricks. Rather than stopping the government’s austerity course, this union tactic accompanied and shored it up by channeling and dissipating the anger of workers, pensioners and students.

At the head of the union confederations stand long-time functionaries of the establishment parties, who for years have enforced austerity measures: Apostolos Mousios, head of ADEDY in the public sector, belongs to the ND-aligned union faction DAKE; Giannis Panagopoulos, the chair of GSEE, is a member of the social-democratic faction PASKE.

At the central rally in Athens, alongside union officials the leaders of the opposition parties also delivered their own press statements. Nikos Androulakis of the social-democratic Pasok warned that the new labour law would further worsen people’s situation in the face of inflation and rising rents. Sokratis Famellos, head of the pseudo-left Syriza, declared that workers had “no future” with a 13-hour day, increasing workplace accidents and low incomes.

Not a word from these politicians should be taken at face value. Both parties—Pasok as well as Syriza—implemented the EU and International Monetary Fund austerity diktats during their time in previous governments, and thus prepared the ground for the right-wing ND to come to power. Today, they pose as critics and opposition; tomorrow, they would carry out exactly the same social attacks as ND Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis because they serve the same interests of Greek and international capital.

The ban on the air-traffic controllers’ strike

As in the August strike, this time a Greek court also banned the strike by air-traffic controllers and other aviation employees in order to protect the airlines’ profits. The ban affected the unions of air-traffic controllers (EEEKE), the civil aviation service (OSYPA) and aviation meteorologists (ENIMAEK).

In previous years, too, the government repeatedly prevented air-traffic controllers’ strikes by court order. Yet the extension of working hours is especially disastrous for airport personnel, who already work under enormous time pressure and heavy strain. Air-traffic controllers, who coordinate and monitor air traffic at airports and in national airspace, play a central role in flight safety. If they make mistakes because of work overload, dangerous air accidents are bound to happen. The tightening of the law immediately puts human lives at risk in this area.

With fewer staff, outdated equipment and lower wages, air-traffic controllers in Greece monitor more flights per year than in Germany. Regulations stipulate between 22 and 28 flights per hour, but in the summer season it can be up to 39. Since 2022 they have been working permanent overtime, which the airlines have long factored into their planning. Most recently, this led to significant flight delays at Athens airport because controllers monitored “only” the prescribed number of flights.

Before the strike ban, Transport Minister Christos Dimas (ND) publicly attacked the controllers and spread the myth that they were paid excessively high salaries. The ministry is planning a restructuring of the civil aviation authority that will further restrict employees’ rights.

But the air-traffic controllers’ union EEEKE responded to the minister’s attacks with pitiful press releases. It said it was “disappointed” and had been trying in vain since the beginning of September to obtain a meeting with the minister, who had merely referred them to his staff and the leadership of the civil aviation authority. The union complained: “Unfortunately it appeared that the leadership of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority and the ministry had already decided in advance not to hear our proposals, which in their entirety concern the implementation of European regulations.”

Instead of declaring a fight against the government, the union defended itself against allegations of high pay and stressed that controllers worked significantly more productively at lower labour costs than those in other countries.

One might think that an organisation presenting itself as the “employee’s representative” would, in the face of repeated strike bans in recent years and chronic understaffing, raise the alarm and mobilise broad support across all sectors and from air-traffic controller unions worldwide to organise protests and solidarity actions.

But nothing of the sort. In its press release after the strike ban, EEEKE lamented the transport ministry’s lack of “insight” and prostrated itself before the ND government. “We ask ourselves whether, in this democratic state, the constitutionally guaranteed right to strike actually applies to our profession, or whether the government believes we are not allowed to strike,” it wrote.

The multiple strike bans answer this “question” sufficiently—but EEEKE folded its hands and said assuringly, “We would like to point out in all directions that air-traffic controllers are doing their job, and more than that, and that the system has been functioning since 2022 to this day because of our overtime. Without this overtime, delays in the last three years would have been many times higher than today. We will continue to do our work as best we can, with flight safety non-negotiable. To solve the problem and avoid even greater delays from 2026 onwards, the ministry and the civil aviation authority must do their job.”

EEEKE said it respected the court decision and was withdrawing the strike call, but would continue to “inform the public” and ostensibly advocate for modernising systems, more staff, better working conditions and compliance with European aviation regulations.

Hoping and praying that the government authorities would “do their job”—with such begging letters—the union fosters the illusion that it is in the government’s interest to improve controllers’ conditions. But the government “does its job” by serving the interests of the ruling class and the airlines, which means extracting the highest possible profits at the lowest labour costs. EEEKE conceals the class relations laid bare in this conflict. It seeks to lull its members with the eternal refrain that appeals to the minister and the state can win concessions.

The fact that controllers have been working permanent overtime since 2022, and thereby keeping operations going, is down to their union, which refuses to wage a real struggle.

Spiralling Gen Z protests in Morocco and Madagascar fuelled by social inequality

Jean Shaoul

Protests have been ongoing since September 27 in Morocco, as young people have taken to the streets all over the country accusing the government of neglecting health care and education while prioritizing funding for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which it is to host.

Demonstrators chanted “Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” They called for education and health reforms and an end to corruption.

Younf people protest against corruption and call for better healthcare and education, in Casablanca, Morocco, October 2, 2025 [AP Photo/STR]

The protests were reportedly sparked by the deaths of eight pregnant women in 10 days following C-section operations at a public hospital in the southwestern city of Agadir. They reflect the widespread anger over worsening social conditions that have prompted tens of thousands to take hazardous migration routes to Europe. A recent survey found that one third would like to emigrate, with or without the necessary visas.

The protests were organized by a previously unknown collective, “GenZ 212”, a reference to Morocco’s dialing code, publicized on social media platforms and hubs such as Moroccan Youth Voice. GenZ 212 was inspired by similar protest movements in Kenya, Indonesia, Nepal, Peru and the Philippines. Like them it is politically amorphous, driven by the lack of opportunities, political corruption and the gulf between rich and poor. It proclaims distrust of all political parties.

The collective put out the call for protests days before on the platform Discord, rejecting violence and insisting that “The right to health, education and a dignified life is not an empty slogan but a serious demand.”

The authorities banned and suppressed rallies that were largely peaceful in the first three days. But after scores of protesters were arrested, including 100 in the capital Rabat, dozens more in the commercial capital Casablanca as well as in the cities of Marrakesh and Agadir, young people, mostly students and unemployed graduates, poured onto the streets.

Violence broke out in several cities, especially in areas of high unemployment and poor public and social services. In Sale, the capital’s impoverished twin city, a bank was set on fire. Local media outlets and videos on social media showed protesters hurling rocks and setting vehicles ablaze.

On Wednesday, the police stepped up repression, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. In eastern Morocco’s largest city, Oujda, one person was injured when a police vehicle rammed into demonstrators. The Interior Ministry claimed that 263 police officers and 23 civilians had been injured. The police arrested a further 400 people, with more than 130 due to stand trial.

The opposition Justice and Development Party (PJD), the Federation of the Democratic Left, and the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) accused the authorities of using “systematic violence” against young people “demonstrating peacefully” and condemned the government’s “security-oriented approach to social demands”.

When the PJD sought to take advantage of the protests, activists pointed out online that in October 2014, when former prime minister and PJD leader Abdelilah Benkirane was in power, he had called for rolling back the state’s role in health and education in favour of the private sector. On Friday, GenZ 212 demanded that billionaire Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, also mayor of Agadir, and his government resign.

The protest movement is Morocco’s most significant since the mass demonstrations during the Arab Spring in 2011 calling for a boycott of the constitutional referendum to be held in July that year—which included many Islamist activists and sympathisers close to the Justice and Development Party—and the months-long protest movement in the Rif region in the north of the country in 2016-2017.

None of the political parties have much popular support. They are unable to address the social and economic issues confronting the mass of the population. A 2025 World Economic Forum report highlighted Morocco’s economic problems, citing severe water shortages, exacerbated by climate change, as one of the most significant threats.

Also of concern was inflation, leading to widespread poverty and income inequality, made worse by huge disparities in wealth distribution. More than one third of Morocco’s young people are without work. Some 40 percent of Moroccans labour with primitive tools and animal-drawn ploughs—many in full view of the new Casablanca-Tangier bullet trains—on farms that account for only 15-17 percent of GDP, barely scratching a living.

While the government has focused on mega infrastructure projects, including the bullet train, tourist resorts and mining projects that consume vast quantities of water, linked to the country’s ruling elite and royal family, it has spent little on basic infrastructure for workers, peasants and their families.

Similar Gen Z protests have broken out in Madagascar. Public anger over chronic power and water supply shortages that have led to hours-long daily outages by the state-owned utility company exploded following the arrest on 25 September of two leading city politicians, who had planned a demonstration in the capital, Antananarivo. Their call to take to the streets was taken up by civil society groups and the Gen Z Mada formation, a youth-led online movement.

The demonstrations spread to other towns and cities across the island, with activists forming a committee to organise further demonstrations following a meeting between Gen Z Mada, civil society groups and local politicians. Protesters denounced the blackouts, blaming rampant corruption in the power company, and accused the government of failing to guarantee basic rights.

President Andry Rajoelina responded by deploying the security forces across Antananarivo and other major cities, with police using tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters. According to the UN, at least 22 people have been killed in violent clashes. The capital has been subject to a dusk-to-dawn curfew after reports of violence and looting, including the torching of the finance ministry’s offices. Schools were closed last week.

As the protest movement gained momentum, some of the trade unions, including the largest, the Malagasy Trade Union Solidarity, have formally backed the youth-led movement. Some civil society organisations have called for the Church to lead talks to “prevent Madagascar from sinking into chaos or civil war”.

Last Monday, Rajoelina sacked his government, accusing some of his ministers of failing to do their job properly, and invited dialogue. At the end of the week, he posted on his X account calling for calm, promised that the World Bank would fund the investment needed to expand the electricity supply and pledged to support businesses affected by looting.

None of this has assuaged public anger. Some organisers said they were disappointed by Rajoelina’s speech and demanded an apology from him and the former prime minister, and the dismissal of Antananarivo’s mayor.

Others waved placards with messages such as “We need water, we need electricity, Rajoelina out”. They said they would continue their fight for Rajoelina’s resignation and radical reforms. These include the dissolution of parliament, the replacement of constitutional court judges and electoral commission members and the rooting out of corruption surrounding the president and his circle of businessmen.

These protests are the largest the Indian Ocean island has seen since the 2009 demonstrations against the elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, that led indirectly to the military coup that ultimately brought Rajoelina to power for the first time.

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. A massive 80 percent of its 32 million population live below the poverty line. Only about one-third of its people have access to electricity.

The latest World Bank briefing states, “Madagascar’s long-term progress in poverty reduction has largely stalled, mirroring the sharp decline in average real incomes, as GDP per capita fell from US$812 in 1960 to US$461 in 2025 (constant 2015 US dollars)”. It adds, “While rural poverty remains widespread, urban areas also experienced a marked deterioration in living standards over the decade, leaving the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty among the highest in the world”.

These terrible conditions fueling mass anger and discontent are found internationally. They are not simply the product of corruption, but of capitalism: the production of goods for private profit and their distribution by the market.