By Tamara Madrid
The social situation in France is marked by an increasingly clear turn towards austerity, hand in hand with the growth of military spending and support for imperialist interventionism abroad. In the face of these reactionary trends, it is urgent to build a socialist and revolutionary alternative that opposes capitalism, the root of the crisis.
From the pension reform to the “austerity turn”
Since Macron’s second term began, he has taken measures that sparked broad resistance, especially the anti-pension reform movement in 2023. After imposing the law through an authoritarian constitutional maneuver, the government suffered a major blow in the European elections: Renaissance, the presidential party, finished in a humiliating second place, with less than half the votes of the far-right National Rally.
But instead of retreating, Macron accelerated his neoliberal offensive. At the end of June 2024, his government announced a 10 billion euro spending cut to reduce the budget deficit. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire stated: “We are turning the page on whatever-it-takes and opening that of responsibility.”
The cutbacks impact public policies and essential services such as health, education, and transportation. Some examples: the announcement of 700 million euros in cuts to hospitals and 400 million in reductions in support for employment. This provoked reactions such as the emergency workers’ strike at the Robert-Debré children’s hospital in Paris, which warned: “Saving the hospital means saving lives.”
And more cuts are coming. According to Le Maire, the government is already preparing the 2025 budget, which will include 20 billion euros in additional savings. In this way, Macron continues to make working families pay for a crisis they did not cause.
An austerity policy made in Brussels
Behind these cuts is the European Union, which, since the start of 2024, reactivated its budgetary supervision mechanisms suspended during the pandemic. The EU’s Stability and Growth Pact obliges states to keep their deficits below 3% of GDP. France ended 2023 with a 5.5% deficit, so it was included in the list of countries sanctioned by the European Commission.
The irony is that France’s deficit is not explained by excessive public spending, but rather by a sharp drop in state revenues due to tax gifts to the rich and companies, which Macron has multiplied during his time in office. Between 2019 and 2023, the effective corporate tax rate dropped from 20.1% to 14.9%. In other words, the large capitalist groups pay less and less. Yet it is the working class that is being asked to “make an effort.”
The business of rearmament
The same government that cuts essential services boasts of increasing military spending to unprecedented levels. For 2024, the defense budget rose to 47.2 billion euros and will reach 67 billion by 2030. This is an increase of more than 40% in six years.
The justification for this spending spree is the war in Ukraine and NATO’s strategy of strengthening its southern and eastern flanks. In reality, it responds to a broader trend: the militarization of the economy and society to compete in the global race for spheres of influence.
At the head of the French Ministry of Defense is Sébastien Lecornu, one of the most aggressive voices of French imperialism. On July 4, he announced that France would send Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to the Ukrainian army and train Ukrainian pilots starting in 2024. This decision, far from helping Ukraine, only escalates the conflict and raises the risk of a generalized war in Europe.
Meanwhile, the military industry makes record profits. The French arms giant Dassault Aviation, for example, doubled its orders in 2023 compared to the previous year. Its CEO proudly declared: “It’s an incredible year.” It’s incredible for them—disastrous for humanity.
The far right: false opposition, true accomplice
In this context, the far right continues to rise, fueled by social discontent. The National Rally (RN), led by Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, won the European elections and continues to grow in national polls.
Despite their “anti-system” rhetoric, the RN is no alternative for the working class. On the contrary, they support austerity policies, vote for Macron’s budgets, and advocate for greater militarization. Their “sovereignism” hides their defense of the national bourgeoisie and the exploitation of migrant labor. And their nationalism divides the working class and feeds xenophobic and racist attitudes.
That’s why it is a mistake for the left to seek unity with sectors of the far right, as some leaders of La France Insoumise (LFI) have proposed. The necessary unity is not with the RN but with the working class, youth, and oppressed sectors, to build a common front of struggle in the streets and in workplaces.
The way forward: socialist and internationalist
The advance of austerity, the growth of militarism, and the danger of the far right cannot be effectively fought from a reformist logic that only proposes managing capitalism more humanely. Nor by looking backward and nostalgically reclaiming the “welfare state” of the postwar period, which is no longer coming back.
The solution lies in a revolutionary strategy that addresses the root of the problems: capitalist private ownership of the means of production and the state at the service of the bourgeoisie. We must fight to place strategic sectors such as finance, energy, transportation, and the military-industrial complex under public and democratic control by workers and the people.
In France, across Europe, and around the world, we must strengthen a new socialist, anti-imperialist, and internationalist alternative. That is the task we take on from the International Socialist League.
[1] https://www.economie.gouv.fr/decryptage-5-minutes-pour-comprendre-la-dette-publique
3Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (OFCE), en francés. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/07/12/la-baisse-des-prelevements-obligatoires-depuis-2017-responsable-de-la-hausse-du-deficit-public-selon-l-ofce_6620871_823448.html
4 https://lis-isl.org/es/2025/06/cumbre-de-la-otan-la-ue-se-rearma-arrodillandose-ante-trump/
5 https://lis-isl.org/es/2025/04/ue-kit-de-supervivencia-para-quien-y-por-que/
