All of France’s regional presidents re-elected amid mass abstention

Alex Lantier

Over 65 percent of voters abstained yesterday in the second round of the French regional elections, as each of the 12 incumbent regional presidents were re-elected. Neither Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) nor President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the March (LRM) carried a single one of France’s 12 regions.

Thanks to this repetition of the massive abstention in the first round (66.5 percent), the traditional Gaullist and social-democratic parties held on to office. The right-wing The Republicans (LR) won six regions, the Socialist Party (PS) or the Greens five; the pro-autonomy Fà populu inseme party of Gilles Simeoni won Corsica. Notwithstanding this appearance of stability, mass abstention points to the deep discrediting of the political establishment by its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and violent police repression of strikes and protests.

Far-right leader Marine le Pen attends a press conference in Toulon, southern France, June 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

As of yesterday evening, polling and media projections were giving the following results, with the candidate taking the most votes winning the regional executive and a bonus of one quarter of the seats in the regional council:

* Auvergne-Rhône-Alps (regional capital Lyons): Laurent Wauquiez (LR) 55.3 percent; Fabienne Grébert (Greens) 33.4 percent; Andréa Kotarac (RN) 11.3 percent.

* Brittany (Rennes): Loïg Chesnais-Girard (PS) 30; Isabelle Le Callennec (LR) 20; Thierry Burlot (LRM) 17; Gilles Pennelle (RN) 12.

* Burgundy-Franche-Comté (Dijon): Marie-Guite Dufay (PS) 43; Julien Odoul (RN) 24.95; Gilles Platret (LR) 24.28; Denis Thuriot (LRM) 9.66.

* Center-Loire Valley (Orléans): François Bonneau (PS) 38.6; Nicolas Forissier (LR) 22.9; Aleksandar Nikolic (RN) 22.4; Marc Fesneau (LRM) 16.1.

* Corsica (Ajaccio): Gilles Simeoni (Fà populu inseme) 40.6; Laurent Marcangeli (LR) 32; Jean-Christophe Angelini (Avanzemu Pè a Corsica) 15.07; Paul-Félix Benedetti (regionalists) 12.26.

* East (Strasbourg): Jean Röttner (LR) 39; Laurent Jacobelli (RN) 27.1; Eliane Romani (Verts) 21.1; Brigitte Klinkert (LRM) 12.8.

* North (Lille): Xavier Bertrand (LR) 53; Sébastien Chenu (RN) 25.6; Karima Delli (Greens) 21.4.

* Île-de-France (Paris): Valérie Pécresse (LR) 45.5; Julien Bayou (Greens) 32.5; Jordan Bardella (RN) 11.5; Laurent Saint-Martin (LRM) 10.5.

* Normandy (Rouen): Hervé Morin (LR) 44.2; Mélanie Boulanger (PS) 25.9; Nicolas Bay (RN) 20.1; Laurent Bonnaterre (LREM) 9.8.

* New Aquitaine (Bordeaux): Alain Rousset (PS) 39.3; Edwige Diaz (RN) 18.9; Nicolas Thierry (Greens) and Nicolas Florian (LR) both 14.3; Geneviève Darrieussecq (LRM) 13.2.

* Occitania (Toulouse): Carole Delga (PS) 57.8; Jean-Paul Garraud (RN) 23.9; Aurélien Pradié (LR) 18.3.

* Provence-Alps-Riviera (Marseilles): Renaud Muselier (LR) 57.3; Thierry Mariani (RN) 42.7.

Amid mass popular disaffection, the ruling class clearly intends to use this election, the last before the April-May 2022 presidential elections, to decide whom to run as president. Macron is deeply unpopular, as is his opponent in the second round of the 2017 elections, neo-fascist Marine Le Pen, who had only a 34 percent approval rating in an April poll. A February poll found that 80 percent of French people would oppose a Macron-Le Pen rematch in 2022, but polls also show that this is what would emerge if elections were held today.

Moreover, with Macron only leading Le Pen 52 to 48 percent in a hypothetical match-up, there is a discernible possibility that a neo-fascist could become president of France next year.

Significant sections of the French ruling class are clearly concerned about finding a more palatable frontman for the reactionary policies advocated by both Macron and the far right. And so, barely two minutes after the first projected were published last night, LR candidate Xavier Bertrand gave a victory speech preparing a presidential bid.

Bertrand, a health and then labor minister under right-wing presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, is a reactionary candidate of the financial aristocracy. Yet his motley speech mixed rhetoric of the Gaullist movement, “yellow vest” protests against social inequality, and the law-and-order appeals of Macron in order to demagogically posture as a candidate of the people.

“History will record that twice here, on the soil of northern France, which is faithful to a certain idea of France, the National Rally was stopped,” he said. He addressed “you, the silent ones, the invisible ones, the workers,” pledging to make sure that “labor will live again, that it will be possible to live decently from work. My priorities are the middle classes and popular social layers.”

At the same time, adopting the rhetoric Macron has used to to justify violent police repression of protests and measures targeting Muslims’ democratic rights, Bertrand pledged to “re-establish order and respect for authority” and to fight “hatred of France.”

Le Pen said the election reflected “a deep crisis of local democracy” and thanked “electors who went to vote while everything pushed them to abstain.” She proposed to adopt Citizen-Initiated Referendums (RIC), a legislative initiative championed by the “yellow vests,” as “everything must be debated in order to win our fellow citizens back to interest in politics.” She concluded by declaring that her party is “the change in government that France needs.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former PS minister and leader of the “left populist” Unsubmissive France (LFI) party, also spoke on the elections—hailing his voters in Marseilles who voted for the reactionary Muselier against the neo-fascist, Mariani.

He noted “the abyss of abstention separating the mass of French people from institutions supposed to represent them,” pointing especially to abstention “among youth and workers who, more than others, are turning their backs on what they see as political theater.” He proposed “recognizing blank votes, the right to citizen-initiated referendums and referendums to recall officials” as legal initiatives that could rekindle popular support for the state machine.

Mélenchon cynically applauded the “extremely painful political effort” of his voters in Marseilles who, faced as in the 2017 presidential elections with a poisoned choice between two reactionary candidates, “nevertheless voted to defeat the National Rally.”

There is nothing more superficial and reactionary than the invocations by capitalist politicians and pundits of a crisis of democracy, followed by calls for legislative tinkering and the type of lesser-evil voting that put Macron in power. Totally absent from official analyses of the elections are any account of the political roots of mass abstention and disillusionment with official politics.

Significantly, an Odoxa poll for Le Figaro found that 60 percent of the electorate blamed “political parties and candidates who were unable to interest voters in the elections” for the abstention. Some 37 percent blame Macron, and 20 percent blame “the government, which did not give the French people enough information about the elections.”

In the final analysis, mass abstention flows not from national conditions that can be addressed with one or another legal reform inside France, but by an international crisis of the capitalist system.

The brief regional election campaign was deafeningly silent on the fact that over 110,000 people in France and 1.1 million in Europe have died of COVID-19, due to the ruling elite’s opposition to medical personnel’s calls for a scientific fight against the virus. The European Union (EU) instead gave over €2 trillion in bank and corporate bailouts that raised the net worth of EU billionaires by over €1 trillion. Macron is now debating whether to immediately proceed to further cuts to pension and unemployment insurance to help finance these massive handouts to the rich.

Objectively, this record reveals an unbridgeable class gulf separating the workers from the financial aristocracy and its state machine. Fearing working class anger driven by decades of EU austerity, moreover, reserve and active-duty officers in both France and Spain have threatened to launch military coups.

The fact that a neo-fascist descendant of France’s Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime currently stands a credible chance of ruling France next year is a warning to the authoritarian course pursued by the bourgeoisie. However, Macron’s presidency is an unanswerable refutation to those who would claim that a lesser-evil vote to halt the far right will preserve French democracy. Macron personally hailed Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Pétain, a war criminal and convicted traitor, as a “great soldier” as he unleashed his riot police on social protests and mass strikes.

AIMS NEI Fellowship Program 2021

Application Deadline: 31st July 2021 23:59 CAT.

About the Award: Applications are invited from outstanding female scientists currently residing anywhere in the world. Successful applicants are expected to execute in a suitable African host institution a self-initiated project with the potential to contribute significantly to the understanding of climate change and its impacts, and/or to the development and implementation of innovative, empirically grounded policies and strategies for mitigation, adaptation, and/or resilience.

Established in 2017, the first and second calls for applications attracted highly competitive applications and eventually, six fellowships were awarded to dynamic women scientists working in the area of climate change science and its related disciplines.

By the end of 2021, 20 fellowships in total would have been awarded to outstanding women working on (i) revealing the triggers of our changing climate; (ii) mapping past, current and future climate patterns; (iii) increasing our knowledge of the impacts of these climate patterns on humanity and life on earth; (iv) providing recommendations and solutions on how best to adapt, mitigate or increase our resilience to climate change and its associated impacts, etc.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible, applicants must be:

• female
• in possession before the fellowship start date of a doctorate in a quantitative discipline, including, but not limited to, applied mathematics, climatology, physics, chemistry, computer science, theoretical biology, and engineering
• currently employed, on either a permanent or a temporary basis, in a non-profit work environment, including government
• actively engaged in research, policy, and/or practice relevant to climate change modelling, mitigation, adaptation, and/or resilience
• the lead and/or senior author of at least one refereed publication on a topic relevant to climate change modelling, mitigation, adaptation, and/or resilience.

Selection Criteria: All reviews done by the Selection Committee members and other reviewers will be based on the following criteria:

• Quality of applicant: academic qualifications; quality of publications; experience in climate change-related work; real-world impact & recognition (e.g. through awards) of prior work.
• Quality of proposed project: relevance to climate change modelling, practice and policy; strength of connection to the mathematical sciences; experience of applicant in project topic; quality of project design; feasibility; suitability of proposed host institution environment and of named collaborator; quality and realism of budget projections.
• Potential impact of proposed project on scientific knowledge, practice and policy.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The fellowship is worth up to USD 35,000. The exact amount of the fellowship will be specified at the time of the award. This amount will be paid to the Fellow in three installments in accordance with a schedule that will be defined at the time of the award. Fellows must submit accurate banking details (using the form provided below) to avoid undue delays in receiving their fellowship payments.

How to Apply: To apply, please complete this online application form and submit by the 31 July 2021, 23:59 CAT with the following documents attached:

• a completed personal details form, including a detailed budget for all non-project-related activities;
• a completed project proposal form, including a detailed budget for all project-related activities;
• a curriculum vitae; and
• an electronic copy of a representative publication in climate change modelling, its causes, climate change mitigation, adaptation and/or resilience in which the applicant is the lead and/or senior author.

Supporting documents should be saved as a pdf in the format: “name of the research program_type of_document_ AIMSentity/centre_monthyear of applying_first and last name of applicant.” For instance, “MS4CR fellowship_application form_AIMS-NEI_July2021_SarahJake”.

Applicants should request that three confidential letters of support be emailed to ms4cr-fellows@nexteinstein.org, using as subject “MS4CR fellowship application support letter-first and last name of applicant” by the application deadline. Two of these letters should come from the applicant’s immediate supervisor at her home institution and the named collaborator at her proposed host institution. At least one letter should come from a referee who is qualified to assess the applicant’s experience in climate change research, practice, and/or policy. You should share with your referees a copy of the ‘Terms of Reference for Fellows’ and the ‘Instructions for Referees’ document. These can be downloaded on the website.

Incomplete applications will not be evaluated.

Applicants are advised to carefully read the following documents:

• Terms of Reference for Host Institutions and Collaborators
• Terms of Reference for Home Institutions and Supervisors
• Terms of Reference for Fellows
• Instructions for Referees
• Personal details form
• Project proposal form

Fellows will be selected by an international selection committee appointed by AIMS-NEI.

• It is important to go through the Application process on the Program Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship 2022/2023

Application Deadline:

• For Students: Consult nominating institution for submission deadline.
• For nominating institutions: Deadline: 2nd November, 2021 (20:00 EDT).

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (country): Canada

About the Award: The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) was created to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and to brand Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. VCS supports students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies in social sciences and humanities, natural sciences and engineering, and health. The scholarship is worth $50,000 per year for three years and is available to both Canadian and international PhD students studying at Canadian universities.

Information for nominating institutions: Nominating institutions are encouraged to consider diversity in discipline, gender, official language, and citizenship when considering which applicants to nominate for the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS) program.

Areas of research:

• Health research
• Natural sciences and/or engineering research
• Social sciences and humanities research

Type: Doctoral (PhD)

Eligibility: Open to Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada and foreign students pursuing a doctoral degree at eligible Canadian universities

To be considered for a Vanier CGS, candidate must:

• be nominated by only one Canadian institution, which must have received a Vanier CGS quota;
• be pursuing your first doctoral degree (including joint undergraduate/graduate research program such as: MD/PhD, DVM/PhD, JD/PhD – if it has a demonstrated and significant research component). Note that only the PhD portion of a combined degree is eligible for funding;
• intend to pursue, in the summer semester or the academic year following the announcement of results, full-time doctoral (or a joint graduate program such as: MD/PhD, DVM/PhD, JD/PhD) studies and research at the nominating institution; Note that only the PhD portion of a combined degree is eligible for funding;
• not have completed more than 20 months of doctoral studies as of May 1, 2022;
• have achieved a first-class average, as determined by your institution, in each of the last two years of full-time study or equivalent. Candidates are encouraged to contact the institution for its definition of a first-class average; and
• must not hold, or have held, a doctoral-level scholarship or fellowship from CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC to undertake or complete a doctoral degree.

Eligibility of Degree Programs

• Doctoral awards are tenable only in degree programs that have a significant research component. The research component must be a requirement for completion of the program, and is considered to be significant original, autonomous research that leads to the completion of a dissertation, major scholarly publication, performance, recital and/or exhibit that is merit reviewed at the institutional level. Clinically-oriented programs of study, including clinical psychology, are also eligible programs if they have a significant research component, as described above.

Selection Criteria:

• Academic excellence, as demonstrated by past academic results and by transcripts, awards and distinctions.
• Research potential, as demonstrated by the candidates research history, his/her interest in discovery, the proposed research and its potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field, the potential benefit to Canadians, and any anticipated outcomes.
• Leadership (potential and demonstrated ability), as defined by the following qualities:
• Personal Achievement:
• Involvement in Academic Life:
• Volunteerism/community outreach:
• Civic engagement:
• Other

Value and Duration of Scholarship: $50,000 annually for three years.

Number of  Scholarship: Up to 166 scholarships are awarded annually.

How to Apply: Candidates must be nominated by the university at which they want to study. Candidates cannot apply directly to the Vanier CGS program.

It is important to go through the Application requirements in the Scholarship Webpage below before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details 

Award Providers: The Vanier’s scholarships are administered by Canada’s three federal funding agencies:
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

TWAS-BIOTEC Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme 2021

Application Deadline: 30th July 2021

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Thailand

Fields: 

01-Agricultural Sciences
02-Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology
03-Biological Systems and Organisms
04-Medical and Health Sciences incl. Neurosciences
05-Chemical Sciences

Type: Postdoctoral

Eligibility:  Applicants for these fellowships must meet the following criteria:

• be nationals of a developing country (other than Thailand).
• must not hold any visa for temporary or permanent residency in Thailand or any developed country.
• hold a PhD degree in any of the following fields: molecular biology, molecular genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, protein crystallography, organic chemistry, biotechnology, bioinformatics, or related disciplines.
• apply for the fellowship within THREE years of having obtained a PhD degree in a fields of the natural sciences specified above.
• must not be more than 40 years old by the date of the submission of their application. NB. For instance, if an applicant turns 40 on 15 June, s/he should make sure not to submit the application later than 15 June.
• be regularly employed at a research and/or teaching institution in their home country where they must hold a research assignment.
• provide an official Acceptance Letter from BIOTEC. Requests for acceptance must be directed to the BIOTEC Research Support Division (e-mail rsd@biotec.or.th) who will facilitate assignment of a host supervisor. In contacting BIOTEC, applicants must accompany their request for an Acceptance Letter with copy of their CV and a research proposal outline;
• provide evidence of proficiency in English, if the medium of instruction was not English.
• provide evidence that s/he will return to her/his home country on completion of the fellowship
• not take up other assignments during the period of her/his fellowship
• be financially responsible for any accompanying family members.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: BIOTEC will provide a standard monthly allowance which should be used to cover living costs, such as accommodation and food.

Duration of Programme: Minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 24 months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Record abstention in French regional elections exposes political establishment

Anthony Torres

Following the first round of Sunday’s regional elections in France, the various slates had until Tuesday to announce new electoral alliances for the second round of voting this Sunday. The first round was marked by a record abstention rate of over 66 percent. The elections have revealed the widespread rejection by the working population of the criminal policy of “herd immunity” pursued throughout the pandemic, as well as the authoritarian and austerity policies of the entire political establishment.

The voting booth for the regional elections in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, Friday, June 25, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Michel Spingler]

An alliance has been announced between the Socialist Party, Communist Party, Radical Party of the Left and Europe Ecology-the Greens, in the regions of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Centre Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire. This did not prevent four separate lists remaining in the second round in Pays de la Loire: François de Rugy of Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move (La République en marche—LREM), with 11.97 percent of the vote, came in behind the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement national—RN) candidate, Hervé Juvin (12.53 percent). They are maintaining their list against the outgoing president Christelle Morançais of The Republicans (Les Républicains—LR), who won the first round on Sunday, with 34.29 percent of the vote.

Under French voting rules, parties that obtained at least 10 percent of the votes cast can stand in the second round, and possibly merge with lists with at least 5 percent of the votes.

In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Ecologists’ Fabienne Grébert (14.4 percent in the first round), Najat Vallaud-Belkacem of the Socialist Party (Parti socialiste—PS) (11.4 percent) and the French Communist Party’s (Parti communiste français— PCF) Cécile Cukierman (5.5 percent) announced on Monday that they would put together a joint list to try to unseat the outgoing LR president, Laurent Wauquiez, who received 48.8 percent.

With 41.39 percent of the vote on Sunday, the outgoing president of the Hauts de France region, Xavier Bertrand of LR, substantially outstripped his RN rival Sébastien Chenu (24.37 percent). Bertrand has ruled out any alliance with Macron’s LREM, which receive only 9.13 percent of the vote and failed to qualify for the second round. Secretary of State for Pensions, Laurent Pietraszewski, who headed the LREM list, has now called for a vote for Xavier Bertrand.

In Île-de-France, which includes the capital of Paris, the lists of the Greens, PS and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France (La France insoumise—LFI) have merged. The Greens’ Julien Bayou won the highest vote in the first round, with 12.95 percent, against 11.07 percent for the PS-backed candidate Audrey Pulvar, and 10.24 percent for Clémentine Autain of LFI. He will face the outgoing LR president Valérie Pécresse.

In the PACA region, the Ecologists’ candidate Jean-Laurent Félizia has withdrawn his list for the second round, after initially refusing to do so on Sunday evening. He has announced that he is supporting LR president Renaud Muselier. Muselier is predicted to beat National Rally candidate Thierry Mariani.

In Brittany, Normandy, New Aquitaine, Occitanie, Corsica and the Grand Est, the PS, the Greens and their pseudo-left satellites such as LFI have not fused electoral lists.

These electoral manoeuvres, through which the established parties attempt to defend their own against the FN, offer nothing to the working class. They will have no legitimacy, because these parties are pursuing unpopular policies of austerity, against the opposition of the population. They have sided with the policy of “herd immunity” pursued by Macron and the EU, which has led to 111,000 deaths in France since the beginning of the pandemic. The international and French financial aristocracy, meanwhile, has reaped trillions of euros.

The abstention in the first round of voting points to the widespread discrediting of the ruling elite, and caught the media and political establishment unaware. A powerful movement of opposition is brewing against all the political parties. Macron himself warned at his Council of Ministers meeting on Wednesday that the “record abstention constitutes a democratic alert to which we must respond.”

A survey conducted by Ipsos/Sopra Stéria for Television France showed that 87 percent of 18–24 year olds did not vote and 83 percent of 25–34 year olds did not vote. In the next age group, among 35–49 year olds, the abstention was 71 percent, with a similar abstention of 68 percent among 50-59 year olds.

The BMFTV news channel reported: “According to the Ipsos/Sopra Steria survey for France Television, 75 percent of employees and workers abstained, but so did 69 percent of the so-called upper category (71 percent of craftsmen and tradesmen, and 69 percent of executives). According to another Ifop-Fiducial survey for TF1 and LCI, the rate is similar among intermediate professions, with 73 percent abstaining.”

These surveys expose the rejection of the political establishment by workers and young people, and also sections of the middle class whose social position has been reduced and even ruined by the policies dictated by the financial aristocracy. Using police repression, Macron was able to suppress the “yellow vests” protest movement, but the social discontent that underlay it is taking root and intensifying.

While polls suggested that RN would be the victor of the elections, the first round showed the failure of the far right to present themselves as being independent of the political establishment. Marine Le Pen called the election “a civic disaster, which has largely distorted the electoral reality of the country, and gives a misleading vision of the political forces present.” She called on her voters to mobilise because they had not taken “five minutes” to go and vote.

The media has attempted to portray the recent threats of a military coup in France by far-right officers as enjoying broad popular support. Marine Le Pen herself called on the officers to support her presidential campaign. Yet seven out of 10 Le Pen voters (71 percent) subsequently turned away from the polls.

Le Pen, like the rest of the political establishment, is complicit in the deadly health policy and social attacks pursued by the ruling class throughout the European Union. The RN has been able to demagogically exploit the anger provoked by the right-wing policies of Macron, the Socialist Party and former President Nicolas Sarkozy. But its growth is part of a broader shift to the right of the entire ruling class, which will keep fascistic, chauvinist policies at the centre of political life, regardless of Le Pen’s electoral results.

Isolated and hated, the ruling elite remains in power mainly because of the absence of a perspective and leadership in the working class to overthrow it. The regional elections underscore the bankruptcy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, LFI and other pseudo-left forces, which represent no alternative to Macron. Three-quarters of Mélenchon’s electorate abstained from voting, according to an Ifop-Fiducial survey. Indeed, the trade union apparatuses linked to Mélenchon have been at the forefront of the implementation of Macron’s health policy.

South Africa’s pandemic resurgence fuels opposition to the ANC government

Jean Shaoul

The African National Congress (ANC) government of President Cyril Ramaphosa has been forced to implement partial lockdown measures as Africa’s most industrialised country faces a third wave of the pandemic.

It takes place amid mounting anger over the ANC’s handling of the public health crisis and vaccine rollout, systemic corruption within the ruling party and the escalating economic crisis.

Health workers arrive with a patient at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital's COVID-19 facility, in Johannesburg, Monday, June 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Shiraaz Mohamed)

South Africa has reported more than 155,000 new cases in the last week, double the number of the previous week, as the official total of deaths approaches 60,000 following two earlier waves of the pandemic that peaked in July 2020 and January this year. This latest surge has already affected four of the country’s nine provinces and is likely to be far worse than the first two, coinciding with the onset of the southern hemisphere’s winter.

South Africa has been the worst hit country on the African continent, even according to official figures that are widely believed to be a gross underestimate given the lack of testing and standardised reporting procedures for registering deaths. Excess mortality figures indicate that another 100,000 people, if not more, have died directly or indirectly due to the pandemic.

Gauteng province, the economic powerhouse of the country that is home to South Africa’s two most populous cities, Johannesburg and Pretoria, is the centre of the latest surge, accounting for 60 percent of new cases. Speaking on Monday, David Makhura, Gauteng’s regional premier, said, “The house is under fire” and hospital admissions were rising rapidly.

Ramaphosa was forced to admit the country’s healthcare system is collapsing when introducing a few totally inadequate restrictions that include the closure of non-essential establishments such as restaurants, bars and fitness centres by 10pm, a one-hour extension of the curfew, a 250people limit on outdoor gatherings and 100 indoors, and a ban on alcohol. He said, “Our priority now is to make sure there are enough hospital beds, enough health workers, enough ventilators and enough oxygen to give the best possible care to every person who needs it… The massive surge in new infections means that we must once again tighten restrictions on the movement of persons and gatherings.”

One large hospital was forced to close earlier this year after a fire, while other large facilities have had to close due to a shortage of trained staff, with doctors making dozens of telephone calls to secure a bed for their critically ill patients.

The army’s medical personnel are to be deployed to Gauteng province to help healthcare workers and carry out community testing and contact tracing. Last year at the start of the outbreak, the ANC government deployed more than 70,000 soldiers to enforce one of the world’s strictest lockdowns with extreme police brutality in a bid to stem the fall in corporate profits and the country’s pending insolvency.

Like most African countries, South Africa has suffered from the global shortage of vaccines. This has been exacerbated by the World Trade Organization’s refusal, at the behest of the US, UK, Germany, France and Sweden on behalf of Big Pharma, to lift patent restrictions on vaccine production, as well as the “vaccine apartheid” whereby the rich countries bought up most of the available doses and far more than they needed.

With only about 500,000 people of the country’s 60 million population vaccinated, mostly healthcare workers in a trial for Johnson & Johnson, the government is belatedly trying to vaccinate 5 million people by the end of June with the Pfizer-BioNTech jab and 40 million people by the end of 2022.

South Africa has fallen behind many poorer countries, including neighbouring Zimbabwe and Angola as well as Ethiopia, after suspending the use of the Astra Zeneca vaccine in February and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in April—over exaggerated safety concerns—while exporting vaccines manufactured under licence in the country. This was compounded last week by the need to discard two million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine manufactured in the US due to contamination of one its components, following a ruling by the United States Food and Drug Administration

Public anger is mounting over the endemic corruption of the ANC. Funds intended for the victims of the pandemic have been systematically looted by the party and its allies. Earlier this month, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize was forced to resign as an investigation into his alleged “impropriety” in the awarding of Covid-19 contracts gets under way.

Last November, Ace Magashule, the ANC secretary general and, as one of the party’s top six most important members, Ramaphosa’s main rival, appeared in court charged with corruption, money laundering and fraud in relation to the looting of public funds under former President Jacob Zuma. Some $32 billion was reportedly stolen during Zuma’s period in office, with Magashule implicated in several other corruption scandals. Zuma is facing corruption charges over a 1999 deal arms deal brokered when he was deputy president.

Ramaphosa, the billionaire and former trade union leader who was elected president in 2017 making noises about opposing corruption, has overseen an escalating transfer of wealth from the working class to the top layers of society. The pandemic has exacerbated South Africa’s already serious economic recession that has hammered the mining and manufacturing sectors.

While the economy was in recession before the first coronavirus wave, the pandemic has vastly exacerbated the crisis, forcing five to six million people (15 percent of adults), mainly manual workers, to leave the townships and go back to their home villages. Many households ran out of money for food, doubling the rate prevailing in 2017, even as the government’s special grant, set up to help those without social security, expired in January.

The economy contracted 7 percent last year amid the impact of the global recession, the fall in demand for minerals and raw materials, South Africa’s main exports, and lockdown restrictions. It follows a years-long decline in GDP per capita as growth failed to keep pace with the increasing population. The government’s budget deficit for 2020-21 reached 11 percent of GDP, with more than a fifth of the budget going to servicing debt that has reached nearly 65 percent of GDP.

With one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world, South Africa’s most affluent 20 percent of the population take more than 68 percent of income. Income per capita in Gauteng is almost twice that in mostly rural provinces like Limpopo and Eastern Cape. According to government statistics, around one third of South African workers are now unemployed, trapping millions in poverty and contributing to the obscene levels of inequality that persist nearly three decades after the end of apartheid and the start of ANC rule in 1994.

The government faces a militant working class that is vehemently opposed to its pledge to freeze public sector wages—one of the conditions it must meet to reduce the budget deficit and secure new loans—with the courts upholding the government’s decision not to pay out a wage increase due from April 2020 under the 2018 three-year agreement. This is the subject of ongoing talks with the trade unions that, like their counterparts elsewhere, act to police the working class in the interests of the financial elite. The ANC itself faces industrial action as its staff picket offices throughout South Africa, with staff walking out in protest over the late payment of wages, insurance fund arrears, and the lack of a pay increase.

Growing homelessness in New Zealand

Tom Peters

The latest Knight Frank Global House Price Index showed that New Zealand house prices in the first quarter of 2021 were an astonishing 22.1 percent higher than 12 months earlier. The average global increase was 7.3 percent, the fastest rise recorded since 2006, in the lead-up to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.

A modified container in Wellington, advertised for rent at $390 a week. (Source: Twitter)

According to the Real Estate Institute of NZ, the situation is even worse: house prices increased by a median $200,000 between May 2020 and May 2021, 32.3 percent, to reach $820,000. In Auckland, one of the least affordable cities in the world, the median price is now $1.148 million.

Since 2017, when Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party-led government was first elected, its promises to address New Zealand’s housing crisis have proven again and again to be completely fraudulent. In fact, the out-of-control bubble is fueled by the government’s policies, including ultra-low taxes for property investors, along with the Reserve Bank’s record low interest rates and quantitative easing policies that have pumped billions of dollars into the commercial banks over the past year.

KPMG reported that NZ banks made a record $1.64 billion in total profits in the first quarter of 2021, largely driven by home lending. Meanwhile, it has become impossible for most working-class people to save for a deposit on a house. Home ownership has dropped from 74 percent of households in 1991 to just 64.5 percent in 2018, the lowest level since 1951.

Rents are also soaring. The New Zealand Herald recently reported that, adjusted for inflation, residential rents in Auckland have risen by 45 percent since the year 2000, reaching an average rent of $564 a week in March this year. In Wellington, the increase was 53 percent, to an average of $517.

The lack of affordable housing is a major factor fueling anger among workers, including nurses and healthcare workers who recently held a nationwide strike against the government’s pay freeze.

The number of people waiting for public housing has quadrupled under Labour to 23,687 households. The real extent of homelessness, however, is much greater. Estimates based on the 2018 census, by University of Otago researchers and the Ministry of Housing, found that 102,123 people, 2.2 percent of the population, are “severely housing deprived,” almost half of them under the age of 25.

This included 41,724 people “living without shelter, in temporary accommodation or sharing accommodation,” and 60,399 “in uninhabitable housing that was lacking one of six basic amenities: tap water that is safe to drink; electricity; cooking facilities; a kitchen sink; a bath or shower; a toilet.” Researchers said the figures were likely to be underestimated, given that homeless people would have had difficulty taking part in the mostly-online census.

In March (the most recent available figures), 5,315 homeless people were living in motel rooms subsidised by the government as “emergency housing.”

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with Carol (not her real name), who is in her fifties and has been living in a two-room motel unit with her adult son for seven months. She explained that she lost her house following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Like thousands of other people, the money she received from the government insurer, the Earthquake Commission, was not enough to pay for repairs.

After also losing her job, Carol said, “I went all around Canterbury looking for work. I did everything I could to keep my house.” Finally, “I sold my house of 30 years that was valued, pre-quake, at $350,000. I walked away with $150,000, and $20,000 went to pay bills. I’m just one of many who got ripped off.” In the years since then, she has suffered serious mental health issues, and spent some time living with family before eventually moving into emergency housing.

The government deducts one quarter of the income of every adult in emergency housing, and provides large subsidies to motel owners. Carol said the owner was “making at least $1000 per room a week,” but refused to provide decent services. “Even though we’ve asked for extra things like washing machines, we don’t get it. You pay for your storage, you pay for your laundry. The fridge is a minibar fridge, you can’t freeze anything.” The motel has just one washing machine shared between more than 20 units, several of which have more than one occupant.

Carol continued: “People in emergency housing have no rights. They can change the rules whenever they want… many people here feel like this place is nothing more than a prison.” She said the owner, as well as getting thousands of dollars from the government, is hoarding food and other items donated by locals to help the residents.

“The people here are no different from other people, we come from all walks of life,” Carol said. “Some of us work, some don’t, one woman has just split up from a violent relationship. It annoys me when people say everybody in emergency housing deserves to be there. We’re just an unlucky bunch.”

Carol’s son works for just $21 an hour; barely above the minimum wage and not enough to pay for a private rental. They are also spending nearly $100 a week to store their belongings. Both are on the waiting list for public housing, but Carol had no idea when, or if, they would be given a place.

Carol said she preferred the Labour Party to the National Party, but added that Labour was “offering people a bandaid for a broken leg.” She said Prime Minister Ardern should learn from the first Labour government, which built tens of thousands of state houses during the 1930s and 40s.

The Labour Party long ago abandoned such reformist policies, which were enacted to stave off the very real threat of a revolutionary movement of the working class. The government says it will increase public housing from 67,200 units in 2018 to 81,300 in 2024; but even if the target is reached, this would only accommodate just over half those currently on the waiting list.

Another resident and former staff member at the motel, who we will call Valerie, told the WSWS: “I worked here for about six months as a cleaner on minimum wage. It started out good but then it got sloppy. We weren’t being paid on time and we’d go for days without pay… My automatic payments weren’t being honoured, and [the owner] just didn’t really care.”

She said people in emergency housing were “looked down upon like we are scumbags, and we’re not. We’re just stuck in a rut and there’s nothing for us to rent.” Valerie had applied for public housing “but because I’m a single person with no dependent children, I’m not a priority.”

The motel residents included a mother with six children, who had been there for several months. Valerie explained that the overcrowded environment was totally unsuitable for children. “Not everybody gets along… The kids are exposed to violence and it’s hard for kids to watch domestic arguments going on left, right and centre. You’ve got nowhere to shelter your children from this.”

Valerie said she had “given up following what the government is doing.” She felt that the rich were getting richer, and the government was giving too much taxpayers’ money to property owners who were exploiting the emergency housing system for profit.

Turkish TPI workers sacked after rebelling against union-backed contract

Hasan Yıldırım

TPI Composites workers in Turkey, who were preparing to go on strike on June 22, are facing layoffs after the Petrol-İş union affiliated with the Türk-İş confederation secretly signed a sellout contract at the beginning of June.

Those who were dismissed were workers who came to the fore in mass protests against the agreement, who came into conflict with the union and resigned from it. These layoffs were imposed by the company in open collaboration with the union.

The union betrayal and mass protest by workers at TPI, a US-based global wind-blade manufacturer, comes shortly after Bedaş workers in Istanbul went on a wildcat strike, defying an official ban on strike activity in the electricity sector to oppose poverty wages imposed by a contract negotiated with a pro-company union.

The surge of militancy among workers in Turkey is part of an international resurgence of the class struggle. The Volvo strike in the US is leading this global upsurge, where workers formed a rank-and-file committee to advance their demands and conduct the fight independently of the pro-company United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

The collective bargaining process at TPI started more than five months ago, and workers carried out workplace actions for 60 days after the negotiations failed. During this period, the workers took actions such as walking in the factory, not working overtime and making noise in the cafeteria. The union aimed to appease the workers with such ineffective “actions.”

At the end of May, due to the failure to reach an agreement in the contract negotiations for the TPI factories in Çiğli Sasalı and Menemen Free Zone, Izmir, where a total of 3,800 workers are employed, the union announced that the strike would begin on June 22.

In his statement on the negotiations, Petrol-İş Izmir head Orhan Zengin said: “We have reached a consensus on almost all items [in the contract] except the wages, but we have a problem on the wages. … We asked for a 30 percent raise, but the offer was 20 percent.” He also added “Our strike will begin on June 22. Until then, we are open to negotiations.”

In Turkey, where the official inflation rate is 16 percent and the real rate is over 30 percent, a 30 percent wage increase would only prevent a decline in real wages. However, on June 3, the union hurriedly signed a contract with the company without informing the workers or holding any votes.

As a clear sign of contempt to workers, the union did not even bother to explain to them that it had signed a contract: the workers learned of it from a shift supervisor in the factory.

The union’s betrayal caused great anger among TPI workers.

Zengin made a statement to appease the workers at a factory, claiming that they signed the contract in Ankara under the authority of the Labour Ministry. The union bureaucrat baldly demanded total submission to the state: “Since we are conducting the negotiation in the eye of the Ministry, there is no opportunity for discussion. You have to bow down. ... We are the most numerous, we have the power, but you bow to the law and order there. There is nothing else to do.”

The workers, angry at the union’s betrayal, protested and stormed out before Zengin could finish his speech. Petrol-İş announced on its website that it had signed the agreement two days later, on June 5, but refrained from giving any details on the content of the contract.

A worker told the daily Evrensel: “There is great anger at the factory ... Everyone is waiting for the resignation of the local head, Orhan Zengin. They want the representatives to resign. There is chaos in the factory, we feel betrayed. We want the union leadership, including the representatives in the factory, to resign and to have an early election.”

TPI Composites is one of the world’s leading wind blade manufacturers, having facilities in the US, Mexico, Denmark, Turkey, China and India with nearly 15,000 workers in total. According to its own reports, TPI Composites “accounted for approximately 32 percent of all sold onshore wind blades on a MW-basis globally excluding China in 2020.”

Amid a raging global pandemic, it “reached a record high” in 2020, “with nearly $1.7 billion in net sales and more than 10,600 wind blades produced,” in collaboration with the unions to keep workers on the job to create profits despite unsafe conditions.

After the pro-company contract was signed, TPI Composites took action to punish workers who dared to challenge their collaboration with the union. Workers said a total of 32 workers in the two factories were sent on unpaid leave. In addition, two workers in one factory were dismissed for the “crime” of disrupting production; another three were dismissed without any explanation. The total number of laid off workers is said to be 10.

Workers showed their reaction on a Facebook page named the Association of Petrochemical Workers. One worker wrote, “We have to show that we are not slaves. If we are workers, we must nail what is rightfully ours. … We will be strong and organized! Then there will be no voices of threats, pressure, or other fears.”

Another one stated, “The management and the union lords stole our children’s happiness, stole their needs. Moreover, one [union] is getting rich with our dues and the other [company] with our sweat. Let’s get into action now!” One other TPI worker also announced their new demands: “Take back those who were fired. 10 percent additional raise. Orhan Zengin should resign. Working conditions should be improved.”

One worker accused the union of giving a list of workers who should be laid off by the company. “We were fired because we opposed [the union-backed contract]. The union gave our names to the management as trouble makers, and then the company fired us.”

Another worker wrote, “The sole purpose of trade union officials in the 21st century is to fill their own pockets.”

As the social onslaught of the ruling class escalates amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused millions of deaths due to their herd immunity policy, the working class everywhere is entering into struggle in defiance of corporatist unions.

Against transnational corporations like TPI Composites, which organize production and plan strategy against workers on a global scale with the full support of capitalist governments, workers need an international strategy based on a socialist perspective.

Migrants killed and wounded by far-right attacks in Spain

Alice Summers

On Sunday, June 13, Moroccan migrant Younes Bilal was murdered by a retired soldier in the Spanish town of Mazarrón, in the southeastern region of Murcia. The 52-year-old assailant, identified only as Carlos Patricio B.M., reportedly shouted “fucking Moors!” (a slur against people of North African origin) as he shot Bilal three times in the chest at point-blank range.

The border of Morocco and Spain at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, May 18, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy]

Bilal had been meeting with friends at a café in Mazarrón when B.M. allegedly began verbally abusing one of the café’s waitresses, screaming at her for speaking “with a group of Muslims.” After Bilal got up to defend the waitress, Carlos reportedly stormed out, returning 20 minutes later with a gun and shooting Bilal dead.

Only a couple of days later, an Ecuadorian woman was stabbed as she queued outside a food bank in the town of Santa Lucía de Cartagena, also in Murcia. The attacker allegedly screamed: “Sudaca! [A derogatory term for a woman from South America] Immigrants are stealing our food!” as she drove a knife into the woman’s back. The unnamed victim had to be hospitalised, but fortunately survived.

Yesterday, it was reported that Momoun Koutaibi, a 22-year-old Moroccan auto mechanic, is still in a coma after someone struck his head with an iron bar on the job on June 5. Another 40-year-old Moroccan citizen was also stabbed last Tuesday in Cartagena.

The “progressive” Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government bears political responsibility for the recent upsurge in xenophobic, anti-migrant attacks in Spain. Their brutal crackdown on immigration has provided a fertile breeding ground for far-right, racist agitation against refugees, and given unofficial state backing to fascistic forces to turn to violence with increasing frequency.

Under the aegis of the PSOE-Podemos government, migrants and refugees who make it to the Spanish Canary Islands on makeshift rafts and boats are held in appalling conditions in camps. Children are separated from their mothers, and underage migrants are subjected to invasive “medical” tests to determine their age—including forcing them to strip naked and undergo examinations of their genitalia.

At least two minors have died in Spanish centres for unaccompanied and underage migrants in recent weeks. One of the minors, a 17-year-old boy from Morocco housed in a centre in Écija, Seville, for three years, died of a “pulmonary edema,” elDiario.es reported. The other young man, whose age was unknown, apparently committed suicide at the Miguel de Mañara de Montequinto centre in Seville.

The brutal attacks in Murcia are only the latest in a series of increasingly violent assaults targeting migrants and refugees in Spain. In February, a mosque in the Murcian town of San Javier was defaced with graffiti reading “Death to Islam.” The attacker also attempted to set fire to the building, but was arrested before the blaze could catch hold.

Earlier this year, several migrants trapped on the Canary Islands were injured when fascist thugs attacked them with pellet guns, machetes, rocks and metal batons. At the time, various WhatsApp chats and videos were leaked to the press in which far-right individuals discussed plans to kill and maim migrant workers. One used the messaging platform to declare: “The Moors are gonna die, I’m telling you this straight.”

The immediate spark of the assaults on the Canary Islands was a campaign of far-right hoax videos on social media and WhatsApp, falsely purporting to show migrants in the Canary Islands robbing shops, churches or restaurants. These efforts to depict migrants as criminals were promoted by the fascist Vox party, which launched a xenophobic “Stop Islamicisation!” campaign on Twitter, blaming a supposed wave of crime on a migrant “invasion.”

While these horrific acts of violence are incited by the far right, they have been facilitated by vicious anti-migrant policies of the PSOE-Podemos government. It built a vast network of concentration camps across Spain, and particularly on the Canary Islands, in which migrants are deliberately imprisoned in unsanitary, inhumane conditions pending deportation.

In mid-June, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Doctors of the World issued a scathing report on the conditions inside detention camps on the Canary Islands, denouncing the overcrowding, poor nutrition and spread of disease in these facilities. According to the report, many migrants in these centres suffered from anxiety attacks, insomnia, constipation, vomiting, diarrhoea, outbreaks of scabies, fungi, chilblains, headaches or back pain.

Overcrowding, lack of medical attention and poor sanitation facilities had made these camps ideal environments for the spread of COVID-19. Doctors of the World emphasised: “In the majority of these Emergency centres … people sleep 30 to a tent without the minimum safety distance of a metre and a half [being respected], while the lack of hygiene conditions means there is a significant risk of contagion.”

Separately, anonymous workers at an immigration centre run by the NGO Fundación Responsabilidad Social Siglo XXI wrote to the Mogán City Council (Gran Canaria) on June 10, claiming sexual and physical abuse of minors and adults was widespread at the facility. They alleged that prostitution of underage migrants was occurring and denounced site management for “allowing repeated and unjustified psychological and physical attacks on young people, ranging from insults and harassment to intimidation and physical restraints.”

The squalid living conditions and proliferation of sexual violence are not accidental consequences of a sudden influx of migrants or of the excesses of unscrupulous camp staff. They flow directly from the policy pursued by the PSOE-Podemos government, backed by the European Union, based on the reactionary notion of a “pull factor”—i.e., that humane treatment of migrants should be discouraged, as it would only encourage more to come.

Only weeks before the attacks in Murcia, the PSOE-Podemos government, backed by the European Union (EU), deployed the army to drive back migrants seeking to cross the border between Morocco and Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. Thousands of migrants attempted to cross into the enclave in only a few hours, with most swimming around the six-metre fence that juts out into the sea, or walking across at low tide.

In response, the Spanish government sent in hundreds of soldiers in armoured vehicles, and mobilised over 200 riot police to reinforce the 1,000-strong police force already stationed in Ceuta. Soldiers and police used batons to clear migrants from the beach and threw smoke bombs to discourage others from crossing. At least one migrant drowned in the sea.

Echoing the rhetoric of Vox, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez denounced the influx of migrants as “an attack on Spain’s borders.” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo accused Morocco of “aggression.”

The PSOE-Podemos government already has the blood of thousands of migrants on its hands. With the Spanish ruling elite effectively shutting off any legally sanctioned migration route into the country, the Canary Island sea crossing has become the most deadly route into Europe, surpassing the Mediterranean Sea crossings to Italy and Greece, which have claimed tens of thousands of lives over the last years.

According to the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) charity, at least 850 migrants died trying to reach the Canary Islands in 2020—fully 60 percent of the 1,417 who died on the way to Europe last year.

Horrific as these figures already are, they are widely acknowledged to be a significant underestimate of the true scale of the slaughter. Other NGOs calculate that over 2,000 migrants died on the Canary Island route alone last year. According to CEAR’s figures, four times as many migrants drown attempting the sea crossing to the Canary Islands, as a proportion of all the migrants arriving on the islands, than on any other route to Europe.