The 500,000-800,000-strong demonstrations across France at the weekend were followed by riots. That's nothing new. But the huge scale of these protests and the anger of the protesters meant the scale of these riots was also huge. French prime minister Lecornu chose to make a "brave" stand on Monday, after the event, declaring melodramatically that "France will not be ruled by 'thieves and thugs'"!

    And of course, for him, this violent behaviour could never be a "true" reflection of the feeling of "good French" youth. No, "far left fringe organisations" were responsible!

    However, the protesters know that they're already ruled by thieves and thugs! It is Lecornu and Emmanuel Macron behind him - president for the past 10 years - who have presided over the theft of the future, of jobs - and it's under their rule that the cost of living has shot up sky-high!

    So, try as he might to deflect attention from the real cause of protesters' anger Lecornu was bound to fail. What's more, he had absolutely nothing to offer, except curfews and more police clamp-downs and arrests, in addition to the 2,800 already handcuffed by the cops on Saturday!

    in fact, if the riots against the police are "unprecedented", one should not be surprised at all. Because it was the armed riot police who started it, when they were sent to attack protesting high school students. And they did so with unprecedented aggression and violence! One student had his hand blown off by a stun grenade. Another lost an eye. Some were badly burnt. Many more have cracked skulls. On the big day of student mobilisation on 6 October, as many as 5,060 were arrested.

...from France to Albania, to India!

Let's not forget either, that the violence of deprivation of youth and workers is a permanent social feature today - and not just in France. There have been similar protests and riots in Spain, Belgium, Albania, Italy, Germany - and even in India.

    In Delhi, Prime Minister Modi had the young leaders of the new Cockroach Junta Party arrested, after their protests against his amendment to electoral law, which aims to prevent at least one third of the Indian population who identify as "Muslim", from voting (against him!) in coming elections.

    The ruling classes of these countries may look different, but at the end of the day, they're all the same. Not one of them can offer any future - to neither youth, nor workers... They're defending a rotten system which cannot be reformed - it needs to be overthrown and replaced!

    This obviously also applies to the political establishment here in Britain. It is defending a system which has nothing to offer unemployed youth who are now generally referred to as "NEETs" - as if they were some kind of insect!

...and so, what about us?

So, on Monday, Andy Burnham came out with an apparently "impassioned" intervention, obviously very worried that protesting and rioting could spread across the Channel to towns and cities over here! After all, there's ample cause!

    So he made sure he was heard condemning the existence of a million NEETs as "an economic catastrophe and a moral failure". But whose? He claims it's a failure of politicians. And why? He writes in the Times, that "Today, the welfare system provides an assessment, a payment and, after that, goodbye... Too often there is no support, no offer of skills and no opportunity to get a job".

    That may be true. But why blame the welfare system? Surely the problem is that the jobs don't exist? But here, in black and white, is the clue to Burnham's "different" approach. It's no different at all from the other political parties to his right! He will cut benefits, just as he is being urged to do, whether it's in order to fund increased defence spending, or to cut the government's large budget deficit.

    It's really amazing that he is prepared to take the blame for something that is entirely the fault of the capitalist class and their failing system - the real "economic catastrophe"!

    And the huge scale of their job cuts and closures is not the only problem. Even what should be a good thing - i.e., technological advance - is used by them to put workers out of a job. All the more reason to dump a system which can't progress without chronic and growing unemployment!

    Yet not one Labour politician has spoken up and admitted that their sticking plasters to keep an obsolete economic system alive, are bound to fall off!

    The truth is that the youth can only lapse back into NEET-hood, in the absence of a socialist revolution, which would have the aim of building a future based on a completely new kind of economy - whereby production is collectively "owned" and planned: from each according to ability to each according to need... It's a fight for profound change and it's in the interests of all youth and workers, right across the world!