Even during this vacation period, it’s difficult not to think, and be worried, about what awaits us when we return to work.

In July, Bayrou announced a freeze on pensions, civil servants' salaries, social and unemployment benefits, which he wants to reduce even further. He wants to raise the ceiling on out-of-pocket expenses for medication from 50 to 100 euros per year; to diminish the coverage for long-term illnesses; to increase the number of unpaid days in case of sick leave. He will also increase taxes for certain retirees by eliminating their 10% tax allowance. Finally, by taking away two public holidays, he wants to force us to work two more days without pay!

The 44 billion euros in savings he intends to achieve will be made exclusively at the expense of the working class! But those who have plundered the state coffers are Arnault, Bolloré, Dassault and other members of the capitalist class who have benefited from all sorts of subsidies and tax breaks.

In order to give them hundreds of billions of euros, successive governments have cut funding and staff in hospitals, nursing homes, education, housing, public transport, and other areas. The public services most essential to the population have been sacrificed to fuel the profits of big business. So there’s no reason why workers and retirees, the sick and the jobless, should be made to pay!

While the working class is becoming poorer, the wealth of capitalists is reaching new heights: in France, the wealth of the 500 richest people exceeded 1 trillion euros this year, a fortune that has doubled in less than ten years. This parasitic minority is attacking jobs and wages in order to continue to prosper, while the economy is stagnating if not declining.

Because of their capital, because they own the largest companies, they are the real masters of society: they can dictate their demands to all the parties that aspire to serve them in power, whether they are on the right, the left, or the far right.

It’s those capitalists who must be confronted and forced to pay!

Internationally, we are threatened with being dragged into even more serious disasters. War continues to rage in Ukraine and Gaza. The leaders of all the major states have embarked on an arms race. Knowing that economic warfare could escalate into military confrontation, they are preparing to plunge the world's populations into devastating and deadly conflicts. The future they promise is the nightmare that Ukrainians and Palestinians in Gaza are currently suffering.

Here in France, we aren’t being bombed yet, but we are already paying the price for this march towards war with the increase in the military budget. The billions spent to finance the manufacturing of Rafale fighter jets, shells and tanks are billions that will not go into hospitals, schools or housing!

As long as the capitalists hold power, society will continue to head for disaster. We must overthrow the class of irresponsible profiteers who rule us!

The workers have the strength to do so, because they produce all wealth. By expropriating the capitalists, they would have the means to organize the economy according to the needs of the majority and thus offer a way out for society as a whole.

To defend their living conditions, workers will have no choice but to react. Calls are already circulating to this effect for September 10. And indeed, action must be taken, and not just for one day or by staying at home.

As workers, we must now discuss among ourselves what needs to be done in order to organize and control the outcome of our mobilizations. We will have to set up working-class committees of action wherever possible, first and foremost in the companies where we can directly challenge the power of the capitalists. Within these committees, we will be able to choose our own representatives.

The aim is to build a force that is truly under the control of the workers. There is no other way to make Macron, Bayrou and big business fear us.

Nathalie Arthaud