The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Category: Articles

Class Struggle in France in 2025

Struggle for a Breakthrough


22/11/2025

The slow moving but deep political crisis in France has been heating up since September. President Emmanuel Macron’s fourth Prime Minister in eighteen months is stumbling along and could fall soon. Several huge days of action with mass strikes and “Blockade Everything” mobilizations, and the record unpopularity of Macron, contribute to the ongoing unravelling of Macronism.

The situation opens up important questions for left activists, such as the potential and limits of left reformism, the role of trade union leaders, and the tasks of Marxist activists.

The state of play is characterized by a certain paralysis on both sides of the class struggle. On the one hand, the ruling class has not managed to crush any major section of organized workers, nor to demoralize the workers’ movement, and it can now—in 2025—no longer stabilize a governmental system to continue imposing austerity. On the other hand, the trade union leadership has put a brake on workers’ revolt. Every time a mass workers’ movement rises up, the leadership’s conservative stance has prevented a major breakthrough on our side and led to the loss of defensive battles that could easily have been won. The rise of the radical left party, the France Insoumise, has brought hope, but there are innumerable obstacles and pitfalls. Encouraged by endless media fabricated panics about migrants and Muslims, the far right is riding high in opinion polls while whole sections of the traditional right are now thinking that alliances with fascism are the way forward. Moreover, steamroller smear campaigns against the radical left are moving up a gear. Mass involvement, discussion, education and agitation must be at the center of our plans.

Political crisis

In 2022, Macron won a new term as president in a second round runoff against fascist candidate Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN), with many voting for him only to keep the far right out. Ever since, Macron hoped to continue his mission of decisively accelerating neoliberal austerity. By “making France competitive” he hoped to win his place in history as the Margaret Thatcher of France.

This was taking place in the context of rapid political polarization. We saw a sharp rise in support both for the far-right National Rally (which won 8.1 million votes in the first round, and 13.2 million in the second), and for the insurgent radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the France Insoumise party (“France in Revolt,” which won 7.7 million votes in the first round) [1]. Meanwhile, the parties which had most often been in government obtained record low scores, including the Socialist Party candidate who polled only 620,000 votes and the traditional right Republicans who got 1.7 million.

In the next election cycle, Macron’s “centrist” grouping of allies won only 245 of 577 seats in the parliament, so had  to constantly find votes from the traditional right to be able to pass legislation. In 2024, frustrated with this situation, the president called snap elections. All the polls predicted there would be a far right Prime Minister after these elections—and it has since come to light that Macron himself tried to facilitate a far right victory by asking traditional conservatives to stand down in the event of any threeway, second round contests [2].

Fortunately, the most dynamic antifascist election campaign in decades—led by the radical left France Insoumise and accompanied by voter registration drives—managed to push the far right National Rally into third place, in as far as the number of seats in the National Assembly is concerned. The parliament, after these July 2024 elections, was then divided into three groups. The largest was the left alliance (193 MPs), dubbed “the New Popular Front” (although not corresponding to what Marxists usually call a “popular front”) [3]. This included the France Insoumise, the Communists, the Ecologists and the Socialist Party. Its radical program—presented as 150 or so priority policies—included pledges to raise the minimum wage by 14 percent, end homelessness, dismantle the most violent police units, and end arms sales to Israel [4].

The second largest was the center right bloc, Macron’s grouping with his immediate allies with 166 seats. Macron had lost 86 seats in parliament compared with the previous result. This left in third place the far right National Rally, with 123 MPs plus 16 allies who had broken away from the traditional Right.

Since then, President Macron has been running an antidemocratic circus. Instead of appointing a Prime Minister from the left-wing alliance that is the largest single bloc in the assembly, he has appointed a series of center right PMs. The first two, Michel Barnier and François Bayrou, each stumbled along for a few months. They relied on the fact that the far right National Rally (with 123 MPs) and the generally socially liberal Socialist Party (with 68 MPs) would, in the name of “stability, ” withhold their support from a vote of no confidence against the government. A no confidence vote in the National Assembly would topple the government which, with Macron running out of options, would undoubtedly trigger new parliamentary elections.

When Bayrou lost a vote of confidence in September 2025, he was replaced by Sébastien Lecornu. In early October, the new PM Lecornu named his reactionary team of ministers, only to resign just fourteen hours later, in the face of already sharp rows within the cabinet’s ranks. Frantic talks among party leaders ensued until, in a clownish move that stunned commentators, Macron reappointed Lecornu to the position of PM on October 10. The latter quickly cobbled together a team of ministers with even fewer political principles than the previous gang.

To avoid an immediate vote of no confidence, Lecornu made some small concessions to the left while maintaining all the essentials of a vicious austerity budget. The proposed budget, presently debated in parliament, would cancel the indexation of retirement pensions to inflation, make huge cuts to the health service, and increase the yearly military budget by over 6 billion euros totaling 54 billion.

The left bloc in parliament is made up of four significant forces. The France Insoumise with 71 MPs, founded ten years ago, forms the centre of gravity for radical left politics inside and outside of parliament. It has plenty of aspects that Marxists object to (elements of left patriotism, for example), but represents class revolt across France at least as well as Zohran Mamdani does in New York. Then there is the Socialist Party, with 66 MPs. Since the 1980s the Socialist Party has been in government for a total of twenty-four years, during which time it has gradually moved to the right. The vicious neoliberal labour reforms it pushed through in 2012–17 destroyed its electoral base: in 2022 the Socialist Party candidate got less than 2 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections. Since then, it has been trying to revive itself, temporarily joining the left electoral alliance as part of this process.

The Communist Party (17 MPs) is a party in decline. Under the leadership of Fabien Roussel, the party is in search of a space to the right of the France Insoumise, who it often sees as an enemy. The Greens with 38 MPs have left moments and less left moments, but are very much in a left moment right now: since the overwhelming victory for leftist Marine Tondelier to the party’s leadership, the Greens have been more prepared to ally with the France Insoumise and have concentrated on linking ecology and social justice.

The trade union leadership has put a brake on workers’ revolt. Every time a mass workers’ movement rises up, the leadership’s conservative stance has prevented a major breakthrough on our side and led to the loss of defensive battles that could easily have been won.

One of the concessions Lecornu made to the Socialist Party as PM was to propose suspending the process of raising the retirement age and of increasing required years of work necessary to benefit from a full pension. If voted through by the parliament, the process will be suspended until after the presidential elections in 2027. This “suspension” of the pension reform, while wholly inadequate and widely seen as a trick, represents a political humiliation for Macron, who had claimed a definitive victory for this very long battle over his flagship policy; the concession could encourage the present social movement to push hard for a proper reversal of this attack. Watching Macron’s public consolation of right wing politicians whimpering over this threat to their long, noble crusade to reduce our retirement pensions was grimly amusing.

The proposed suspension of the pension reform gave the Socialist Party leadership the excuse they wanted to abstain from the vote of no confidence on October 16, and thus they abandoned the New Popular Front. The no confidence motion subsequently put forward by the France Insoumise (alongside the 17 Communist MPs and the 38 Greens) received 271 of the 289 votes needed to overthrow the government. A subsequent no confidence motion put forward by the fascist National Rally got 144 votes.

However, it is unclear how the suspension will be presented to parliament and there remains every chance it will be bundled up with social budget cuts. For the time being, the new government is stumbling along, with the risk that the Socialist Party might rejoin the revolt, leading to snap legislative elections. This is looking less and less likely as, a month later, in mid November, Socialist Party MPs voted for the first half of Lecornu’s annual budget.

The SP leadership faced protest about their decision to save Macron, even from inside their own party. Seven of their own MPs voted with the France Insoumise in October, and the SP youth organization called for all MPs to vote no confidence in Lecornu. The SP leadership are motivated by both a desire to show the capitalists that they are moderates who love stability and by a fear that snap elections now would lead them to lose support to the radical left and facilitate the coming to office of a far right government.

Lecornu’s proposed concessions to the far right include increasing the tax paid by people who are asking for residence permits from 200 to 300 euros, and introducing a silly new “integration test”—previously only applied to people asking for nationality—for anyone applying for long term residency. Applicants will have to show their knowledge of the history of secularism, the role of the three branches of government, the main stages of European integration, and a load of other things that many locals do not even know. This is just grandstanding to please the far right.

Meanwhile, a BFM opinion poll showed early September that 64 percent of citizens would like President Macron to resign. A further major opinion poll in early October showed that only 14 percent of citizens have a positive view of president Macron [5]. The radical left has proposed the impeachment of the president for failing to respect the results of the last democratic election.

International capital is tempted to punish the French state for not squeezing French workers harder. In early September, Fitch international credit ratings downgraded France from AA- to A+. In October, Standard and Poor followed suit. These new ratings are heavily used in propaganda by the right wing as “proof” that defending pensions and public services is simply being unrealistic and living in a fairytale land.

Wider chaos

This crisis in governmental stability as it pursues austerity is part of a wider chaos. As in other developed countries in recent decades, French capitalists have enlarged the share of national wealth going to shareholders and reduced the share going to workers, through both intimidation and legislation in multiple areas. They have facilitated this by using warmongering, racism, and particularly Islamophobia, to dissuade people from uniting to fight back. The left media venue Fakir calculates that over the last eight years in France the total supplementary amount given to the rich and to corporations by the government has been 377 billion euros. This includes their gains from the abolition of the wealth tax, the installation of a ceiling on company taxes, and the reduction of the higher bands of income tax [6]. According to the economics journal Challenges, the total wealth of the top five hundred richest people in France has gone from 300 to 1,100 billion over the last fifteen years; meanwhile the number of poor people in France has gone from eight and a half to ten million over the last five years [7].

Nevertheless, in France the capitalists have been less successful than in many places. Huge social movements, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, have slowed down the march of neoliberal austerity. The number of strike days in France per thousand workers was 171 in 2023 and 161 in 2019. That number has been below 65 only once over the last ten years [8]. These numbers are generally five to ten times higher than comparable figures for the United Kingdom and the United States (although around 2022 there was an upturn in strike days in both states) [9].

There has been a generalization of political class consciousness in France after the mass political strikes of 1995, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2019 and 2023 (against attacks on pensions or on labor protection legislation) and the popular revolts of 2005, 2018 and 2024 (against police violence or rural poverty). Much to the confusion of bourgeois journalists who could not fathom the idea of solidarity, it was quite common to see people on the streets defending labor rights or pensions who were not themselves personally affected.

Popular slogans and songs in the mass demos illustrate this class solidarity. Ten years ago, we had “Social Security belongs to the workers: we fought to get it and we’ll fight to keep it! [10]” More recently, the streets resounded with the following song: “Here we are, here we are! Although Macron doesn’t like it, here we are! For the honour of the workers and to build a better world, although Macron doesn’t like it, here we are!” [11]

If we compare France with, say, Britain, in areas as different as pensioner poverty and education policy, we see that French workers have had some success in defending their positions. University education is still close to free in France, compared to ten thousand euros a year in the United Kingdom, while pensioner poverty is a third of that in the United Kingdom [12]. Although various attacks on union workplace rights have gone through—for example, the reduction of powers of elected workplace health and safety committees and the reduction of facility time allowed to elected staff representatives—trade unions still have considerable protection and rights in France. Bargaining coverage through the system of “conventions collectives” is double what it is in the United Kingdom, and nine times what it is in the United States [13]. Legal protection of union representatives and strikers remains fairly solid.

As in other developed countries in recent decades, French capitalists have enlarged the share of national wealth going to shareholders and reduced the share going to workers, through both intimidation and legislation in multiple areas. They have facilitated this by using warmongering, racism, and particularly Islamophobia, to dissuade people from uniting to fight back.

In the public sector, under twenty percent of workers are members of a union, and in the private sector less than ten percent. However, trade union influence is far wider than these misleading figures suggest. Millions of nonmembers nevertheless vote for and are represented by union candidates for health committees, company councils, regional wages councils, and other such bodies. These bodies negotiate locally, regionally, or nationally on health, safety, bonuses, promotions, transfers, working hours, wages minimums, and pay scales. Agreements signed by trade unions on these bodies apply to all workers, union and nonunion alike. Whether or not the workers involved are themselves union members, many workers see union members as activists, organizers and advisors whose job is to support individual workers and lead various fightbacks. It is very common for nonmembers to join strikes called by a union.

The French ruling class has chipped away at many rights and services, but has not managed to break the spirit of the workers’ movement by destroying the organization of a key section, as Thatcher managed to do with the miners in 1984, or Reagan with the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981. The very fact that, at the beginning of his presidency in 2017, so many commentators spoke of Macron’s desire to be “the French Margaret Thatcher” shows that we have not yet had one.

Trade Union and Movement Fightback

The fightback in recent years against the drive to give ever more of our wealth to the billionaires and place profit before the planet has been multifaceted and revealed itself through traditional workers’ movements, green direct action campaigns, and innovative citizens’ mobilizations (such as the Yellow Vests and the “Blockade Everything” networks). Although the new citizens’ networks have their importance, the workers’ movement is the key actor.

The question of retirement pensions has been a key point of conflict with the state. Throughout 2019, huge strikes and mobilizations succeeded in blocking the government’s plan to raise the retirement age and move to a new points-based national pension scheme, which would have been infinitely easier to privatize further down the line [14]. Instead of the present system—in which pension rights are a proportion of previous wages and the funds are secured by present workers and employers contributing a percentage of salary to fund the retirement of older people—Macron’s proposed reform would have each employee  accumulate points, the value of which could be regularly revised by the government. The move from there to a disastrous reform like the one in the United Kingdom—which made retirement pensions an individual, rather than collective problem—was evident, and the prospect made millions furious.

When the COVID pandemic hit, Macron, frightened by the mobilizations and happy to have an excuse to save face, preferred to shelve the proposed reforms. After much hesitation, he reintroduced an attack on pensions in late 2022. The new reform was less ambitious: the points system to set the stage for privatization was abandoned, the “special” more favourable schemes won by some groups of workers with strong unions were no longer to be abolished for staff presently working, and the standard retirement age was to be raised more gradually from 62 to 64 (rather than 65 as initially planned).

The campaign to defend retirement pensions in 2023 saw a dozen huge days of action with mass strikes and an array of creative acts of resistance [15]. But this was not sufficient to stop Macron; even though a majority of the population supported the idea that the movement should go further, the trade-union leadership’s reluctance to call a general strike, allowed Macron to push through the two year lengthening of the working life by using an authoritarian clause of the French constitution that allowed him to avoid a vote in parliament [16].

As mentioned above, this attack on pensions may be suspended. In the past few weeks, trade unions have mobilized against both the pension reform and the maximum austerity budget proposed. A trade day of action led by the trade unions on September 18, 2025 saw mass strikes, as did a follow up day on October 2. A further day of mass strikes has been called for December 2. Opinion polls showed 56 percent of the population “supported” or “sympathized with” the strikers in October, compared with 25 percent who were opposed. Teachers, hospital workers, energy and bank workers, bus drivers, and local government workers struck. Many factories were closed, and fourteen universities were blockaded. In Paris there were no trains except during rush hour and well over a million demonstrators protested. Students joined the protests en masse. “The State budget will be decided in the streets,” read one banner.

But the union leadership was in no way up to the job. After the success of September 18, rather than building on the dynamic, union leaders said they would give the government five days to respond, before calling a further day of action. But days of action every couple of weeks tend to dissipate combativity: there were fourteen of them in the huge and eventually unsuccessful movement of 2023! In late October the joint declaration of the national union leadership broke all records in uselessness. It concluded:

Our organisations call on workers and their unions to keep up the pressure and their demands through actions in companies, services and administrations, through various initiatives, the setting up of information meetings, general staff assemblies, etc. The organizations have already agreed to meet again very soon [17].

The leaderships’ statement did not fix a date for future strike action. Workers were simply told to do what they could locally, whereas a national acceleration of the revolt was required.

The French ruling class has chipped away at many rights and services, but has not managed to break the spirit of the workers’ movement by destroying the organization of a key section

In any case, the present showdown with the government had been predicted for many months, but no preparations at all were made by the national leaders for serious strike action. While the level of anger was sufficient to build toward a general strike, no such building happened. Some federations such as the CGT (General Confederation of Labour) and Solidaires are more combative than others, such as the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour). Tragically, the most combative federation leaderships concentrate their efforts on persuading the least combative to join the days of action, rather than building for a grassroots explosion. A national coordinating committee, the intersyndicale, meets after each day of action to mull over the future of the movement. Because of the compromises reached behind closed doors in the intersyndicale, the whole strike movement moves, in practice, at the speed of the least combative organization—however inspiring the radio interviews by CGT leader Sophie Binet might be.

There are some signs of challenges to this leadership strategy within the trade union movement. For example, Unité CGT, a publication from the left wing of the CGT union federation was calling the intersyndicale “the headquarters of defeat” in mid October: “we need to reject the strategy of one day strikes whose only aim is to kill off the movement,” it wrote. Many other groups of workers attempt to bypass the conservatism of national leadership through town and regional meetings of grassroots networks. These are quite common and can help build combativity. Nevertheless, there is the danger of the influence of a sort of anarcho-syndicalist conception that “we don’t need the national leaders.” The fact is that the national leaderships retain overwhelming legitimacy, both in the media and in public opinion, and grassroots organizing must be combined with vigorous campaigning on the theme “we pay these leaders’ salaries: we demand they organize a fight!” Lobbying rallies outside the intersyndicale meetings would be an excellent move.

Macron is also concerned about other forms of citizens’ mobilization. In recent years there have been a series of direct action campaigns on green issues, including a successful campaign against a new airport which was planned at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in the West of France and continuing mass campaigns against industrial-scale water retention projects (which penalize small farmers).

But it was the impressive Yellow Vest mobilizations that took place between 2018 and 2020 that really humiliated Macron and inspired so many people [18]. The very recent “Blockade Everything” initiatives have led people to hope for a repeat of the mass enthusiasm of the Yellow Vests.

While the Blockade Everything mobilizations—which emerged around a social media call with unclear origins—remind us of the Yellow Vest movement, there are a number of important differences. The Yellow Vest movement was concentrated in small towns where political party and trade union structures tend to be much weaker. The far right initially tried to win influence within the Yellow Vest movement, but slow and effective work by trade unionists and left activists eventually made this impossible, and the movement moved leftwards. The government’s deployment of violent repression on a level unseen for decades and the movement’s vocal opposition to police violence encouraged this leftward shift.

The new Blockade Everything mobilization is not as strong in smaller towns, and the mobilization is not as massive as the Yellow Vests yet. An inspiring mass of actions aimed at bringing down Macron were called by the Blockade networks on September 10. Dozens of motorways were blockaded, including ring roads around Paris, Bordeaux and Lyon. High schools, factories, hypermarkets and universities were barricaded, while 280 decentralized rallies were held across the country. [18] The Paris rallies were particularly noted for the crowds of dynamic high school students. It is interesting to note that from the beginning, Marine Le Pen and the far right have distanced themselves from the blockade option.

The left-wing bloc

All political parties are in crisis here. A strong left reformism in the shape of the France Insoumise, made possible by the rise of political class consciousness and the weakness of revolutionary organizations, is playing a very positive role. Nevertheless, considerably more Marxist input into debate would be useful.

The main change in France on the left in recent years has been the rise of the France Insoumise, whose most popular speaker, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, stood at the presidential elections in 2017 (getting 7 million votes) and 2022 (where he gained 7.8 million votes) [20]. The team around Mélenchon has succeeded in building a mass organization, with thousands of local Action Groups resting on the idea of “a citizens’ revolution” defending a radical left program. The program takes climate emergency seriously, insisting on the need for a radical transformation of society (100 percent renewable energy and 100 percent organic farming are among their proposals). The program aims at “a stable job for every citizen,” a “revolution in the tax system” raising money from those who have it, and “cancelling the public debt.” It proposes the imposition of maximum salary in each company, a sharp increase in the minimum wage;  the indexing of all wages to inflation, price freezes on basic food products, and guaranteed basic amounts of water and electricity free for every household, free nurseries, and the lowering of the voting age to 16. The full, crowdsourced program includes 831 measures, far too many to list here [21].

The France Insoumise leadership has not caved in on those issues that usually pull reformist groups back into line: police violence, Palestine, and Islamophobia (this last point is a historic weakness of the French left). When the working class suburbs of France exploded in response to yet another racist police murder caught on video–of Nahel Merzouk in 2023—the FI insisted on speaking of a “revolt” and not of “riots.” [22] Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared “The [media] guard dogs [of the establishment] are ordering us to call for calm. We call for justice!… Suspend the police murderer.”

Mélenchon is the first national politician to put the fight against Islamophobia front and center in his speeches. Among young people and poorer sections of the population, support for the FI is strong and may be rising [23].

With a very few notable exceptions, the revolutionary left has not reacted appropriately to the new mass reformism, despite the fact that the France Insoumise allows people to join its action groups while being members of other left organizations [24]. Many groups see the FI as unwelcome competition, so they stand in elections against the FI and almost never organize debates with its representatives. The worst join in the smear campaigns against Mélenchon.

Because of the compromises reached behind closed doors in the intersyndicale, the whole strike movement moves, in practice, at the speed of the least combative organization

The center of the France Insoumise strategy is to win elections and oppose the dictatorship of profit from within the government. Marxists are very familiar with the massive force capitalists can mobilize to stop such a government from achieving its aims, as well as the impressive means to stop the radical left from ever getting into government in the first place. To me, getting fully involved with this movement “for a citizens’ revolution” while maintaining our indispensable role of pushing for political clarification seems to be the way forward.

Bardella, Le Pen and the other fascists

In this crisis, the far right National Rally and its fascist cadre are not so much “waiting in the wings,” as is sometimes said, but rather comfortably seated in armchairs stage right, sipping cocktails while waiting for a chance to move centre stage. The organization has been trying hard to gain respectability and to appear as a normal party of government. On October 23, the RN published its own “alternative budget.” [25] They do not propose to tax the rich and would cut social budgets by tens of billions of euros. Their proposals include deporting unemployed people without French nationality, ceasing France’s agreed contribution to the European Union, and making huge cuts on investment grants to regional governments. They promise not to impose the wealth taxes presently under discussion. Their “alternative budget” is, in fine Trumpist style, stuffed with lies and incorrect calculations. It is aimed at reassuring racists and capitalists that their priorities are central. Little surprise then that, with the help of the Macronists, two RN members were elected among the six vice chairs of the National Assembly (the lower house of the parliament) in early October.

Opinion polls these days show that 30 percent of people declare they would vote for the far right candidate Bardella if the presidential election took place today [26]. Although the election campaign of 2024 showed the rapid progress the left can make in a very short time and in defiance of pollsters’ predictions, a far right presidency under Bardella is obviously an important danger. Another poll in late October showed that 47 percent of French people thought the National Rally was capable of governing the country [27].

The mass media assists the continuing rise of far-right influence through its daily foregrounding of “the problems” of immigration, Islam, government spending, and the Palestine movement. In a vain hope to undercut the far right, the government regularly launches campaigns against Muslims, which of course reinforces the fascists. In 2021, the minister for Higher Education denounced the (apparently huge) influence that “Islamo-leftists” enjoyed in the universities. In 2023, the government launched an official campaign against the wearing of North African tunics by high school students, claiming it was a way for Muslim fundamentalists to infiltrate education (Muslim headscarves are already banned in high schools) [28]. The France Insoumise are right to repeat their slogan “Macron and Le Pen—more of a duet than a duel!”

An alignment between moderates and radicals on France’s right seems much more likely than on its left. While the soft left Socialist Party is ever more reluctant to ally with the radical left France Insoumise and often joins in the smear campaigns against it, the leadership of the traditional Right is divided.  However, according to Jean-François Copé, a leading voice in the Republicans, “an overwhelming majority of activists [in the Republicans party] want an alliance with the National Rally.” As the political crisis continues, a governmental alliance between the fascists and the right after the next elections is a real risk.

Antifascist mobilization was huge during the election campaigns of June and July 2024. The result was a tactical victory for the antifascists: Bardella’s bid to be Prime Minister failed despite predictions of the polls. The National Rally is very strong in parliament, but very shaky on the streets and in its local party structures. There have not been mass, far right demonstrations for decades—no doubt because the RN leadership, working hard at detoxifying its image, does not want street fights that would make its hardcore nazi supporters visible [29].

A major weak point of the French left is that antifascist mobilization outside of election campaigns is fairly rare and is generally local in focus. There are excellent local examples of antifascist activity, such as last May’s rally in Paris and a rally early September in Bordeaux against Bardella’s mass meeting [30]. However, left organizations have not made stopping the National Rally from building local structures and cultural presence a national priority. Large numbers of left activists tend to believe either that Macron’s government is fascist (making a particular focus on the RN unnecessary) or that presenting a left alternative in government is the only way to undercut fascist influence (making mass direct action to stop fascist organizing unimportant).

This neglect of antifascist action has not always been the norm. Back in the late 1990s, the campaign Manifeste Contre le Front National’s policy of mass “democratic harassment” had considerable success [31]. Mass demonstrations were called in front of far right meetings, and particular attention was paid to protesting against those politicians of the traditional conservative parties who thought the time had come to ally with the neofascists for electoral purposes. The campaign inspired a generation of young activists and severely frightened “respectable” right wing patrician politicians. One of the results was a split in the Front National (as it was called at the time), which caused severe damage in fascist ranks. We need to bring back mass democratic harassment of the National Rally.

Conclusion

Clearly we are only at the beginning of a deepening crisis. Marxists will need to be dynamic and flexible, working with wide layers of people while constantly looking for spaces to debate fraternally about revolution and reform, fascism and antifascism, trade unionism and class action. The new, mass, insurgent left reformism in the form of the France Insoumise is a very positive development. It would be tragic if Marxists continued to see it primarily as unwelcome competition, rather than as a chance to fight arm in arm and work things out together.

Given that the France Insoumise allows dual membership, I do not see any reason why revolutionaries should not join FI action groups (and some of us do) but even those who feel they have reasons not to do this should put ten or twenty times more effort than currently on working with the organization and debating with the FI on a dozen questions which have been ignored.

This article was originally published in Spectre Journal. Reproduced with permission

Footnotes

1 For reasons more linguistic than political, the best translation of La France Insoumise is France in revolt rather than the France Unbowed used by many journalists. Mélenchon’s latest book has now been published in English. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Now, the People! Revolution in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Verso, 2025).

2 C’est confirmé: Macron voulait gouverner avec le RN en lançant une dissolution, Contre Attaque, September 26, 2025.

3 In Marxist circles, the term “popular front” is generally reserved for alliances not exclusively made up of left parties and including liberal bourgeois parties. This was not the case in 2024.

4 The full 2024 manifesto was reproduced in L’Humanité and is available online. Nouveau Front Populaire, Nouveau Front Populaire! Le Programme Complet, L’Humanité, June 15, 2025. For details of the situation immediately after those elections, see John Mullen, The post-election challenge in France and  Sylvestre Jaffard, The French elections and the defeat of the far right: An Interview with Sylvestre Jaffard.

5 L’observatoire politique, Elabe, October 8, 2025.

6 Cyril Pocréaux, Ils se cachent? Qu’ils se cassent, Fakir, September 16, 2025.

7 Nicholas Framont, Comment Vont les 500 Familles les Plus Riches de France? Frustration, August 19, 2025.

8 Les journées individuelle non-travaillée (JINT) – depuis 2025 (annuelles), Republique France: Dares, accessed November 13, 2025.

9 Labour disputes; working days lost due to strike action; UK, Office for National Statistics, accessed November 13, 2025; Annual work stoppages involving a thousand or more workers, 1947 – Present, U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed November 13, 2025.

10 La sécu aux travailleurs ! On s’est battu pour la gagner, on se battra pour la garder!

11 On est là! On est là! Même si Macron le veut pas, nous, on est là! Pour l’honneur des travailleurs et pour  un monde meilleur, même si Macron le veut pas, nous, on est là! “On Est Là! (La Chanson Officielle), YouTube video, 3:04, posted by “Monsieur Selby,” April 23, 2023.

12 Servet Yanatma, Pensioner Poverty in Europe: Which Countries Have the Highest Rates? Euronews, June 16, 2025, updated June 18, 2025.

13 This OECD report describes in some detail union bargaining in France. OECD, France: Main Indicators and Characteristics of Collective Bargaining (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2025).

14 John Mullen, Where now for the French strike movement,  The Left Berlin, January 24, 2025.

15 John Mullen, “Revolt in France: Macron humiliated, but no victory for workers yet,” Counterfire, April 23, 2023.

16 IFOP Opinion, Les Français, la réforme des retraites et la journée du 7 mars – Ifop-L’Humanité, IFOP, March 6, 2023.

17 Communiqué intersyndical: Retraites – un premier pas qui en appelera des autres,  CGT Services Publiques, October 24, 2025.

18 John Mullen, Macron, Yellow Vests, and class struggle, Counterfire, January 14, 2019.

19 For a useful account, see Curran Vigier, France: ‘Block Everything.’ Catherine Curran Vigier, “France: ‘Block Everything’ a new, radical movement of revolt is emerging,” Rebel News, September 8, 2025.

20 Grégory Bekhtari, The Meaning of France Insoumise, Jacobin, April 23, 2017.

21 Full details of the program are available online. Le Programme, La France Insoumise, accessed November 13, 2025.

22 John Mullen, Rioting across France after police murder teenager, Spring, July 3, 2023.

23 For more details on LFI’s social action organizing, you can browse their website. Homepage, Action Populaire, accessed November 13, 2025.

24 A couple of smaller groups work within the FI.

25 Clément Guillou and Corentin Lesueur, Le RN propose un contre-budget hypothétique et radical, Le Monde, October 23, 2025.

26 Cluster 17, Sondage: Intentions de vote – Election présidentielle (Montpellier: Cluster 17, 2025).

27 Ronan Tésorière, 47% des Français pensent que la RN est capable de gouverner le pays, selon un Sondage Ipsos, Le Parisien, October, 2025,; Gilles Finchelstein, More French voters leaning to the far right, poll shows, Le Monde, October 22, 2025, 

28 John Mullen, French government attacks Muslims again: How will Left opposition hold up? Spring, September 7, 2023.

29 For a recent assessment of the RN, see my interview in The Left Berlin. Marijam Sariaslani and John Mullen, French Fascism and Marine Le Pen, The Left Berlin, February 11, 2025.

30 Le Monde and Agence France-Presse, A Paris, la justice valide l’interdiction d’une manifestation antifasciste, mais autorise celle d’un group néofasciste, Le Monde, May 9, 2025, . Juliette Cardinale, “Rentrée du RN à Bordeaux: une manifestation prévue en centre-ville contre l’extrême droite et ses idées,” Actu Bordeaux, September 13, 2025.

31 Interestingly, it was led by a left faction of the Socialist Party.

Deportation at any cost

How the German government justifies and executes an inhumane asylum acceptance policy


A crowd of protestors are holding up a anti deportation signs including a large banner that says "Stop All Deportations"

On 15 October, “We’ll Come United” activist Yerro Gaye was deported to Gambia. His deportation is a prime example of the German government’s inhumane deportation practices.

Gaye had been living in Germany since 2019 and had built a life here with his partner, friends, and political activities for the rights of migrants and refugees. He had worked for Hermes for two years before the immigration authorities revoked his work permit.

Gaye wanted to marry his French partner. But the authorities blocked the marriage at the registry office—even though he had submitted all the documents for the wedding.

On 30 September, the police then surprised him during a routine appointment at the immigration office in Haldensleben. They arrested him without warning and detained him for two weeks in a deportation prison in Dresden.

Deportation enforced despite protests

Numerous activists, lawyers, and some politicians tried to prevent Gaye’s deportation. Yet, the authorities questioned his engagement and claimed to have no knowledge of it, despite evidence to the contrary. The court also agreed with the authorities.

“The actions of the authorities clearly show that they did not investigate the case carefully, but rather enforced a preconceived position,” said Gaye’s lawyer. Saxony’s Minister of the Interior ignored an application for a “Härtefall”—a hardship relief. Also Gaye’s decision to leave the country voluntarily was not granted.

On 7 October, around 80 people protested in Haldensleben against Gaye’s detention. The local police harassed the rally with arbitrary restrictions and eventually used batons and pepper spray against peaceful protesters, injuring six people.

Death in the Mediterranean

Yerro had reached Europe via the most dangerous border in the world—the Mediterranean Sea. He was rescued by sea rescue services. According to the UN, 3,530 people have drowned or are missing in the Mediterranean Sea in 2024 alone.

The number of unreported cases is much higher—as is the number of people who never even reach the Mediterranean but die on the way there in the Sahara, as the EU has been blocking safe transport routes for years.Even after managing to cross the Mediterranean Sea, European authorities falsely charge and detain people for years for smuggling, like the three teenage boys of “El Hiblu 3” in Malta or many young Sudanese in Greece.

It is our right to live together and pursue our careers. I don’t deserve to go through this just because I am a migrant or black. I promise you that I will remain strong and never let myself be intimidated. My only crime is that I am a migrant.

Yerro Gaye

Deportation is common practice

Unfortunately, Gaye’s story is not an isolated case. The inhumane practice of deportation has been going on in Germany for a very long time. And no one is spared, not even people who have lived here for many years and built their lives here, often with children.

However, the authorities are currently making a special effort to deport as many people as possible. The Mediendienst Integration reported a 20 percent increase in deportations compared to 2024.

Only 1 – 2 % of asylum-seekers are granted asylum

Time and again, refugee councils and human rights organisations report brutal, often night-time attacks by the police, with deportations to unsafe and unknown destinations: Georgia, Iran or Iraq, Turkey, and various countries in Africa.

People are being deported even though these countries often persecute, imprison, torture and even murder minorities and politically active individuals. Political asylum in Germany is a years-long, gruelling and costly battle against the authorities, usually unsuccessful.

According to Mediendienst Integration, only 1 – 2% of asylum seekers actually receive asylum under Article 16a of the Basic Law. “Human dignity is inviolable”—Article 1 of the German Basic Law—does not apply to all people in Germany.

Deportation at any cost

The right to asylum, like other fundamental rights, was enshrined in the Basic Law after the experience of German fascist terror. However, the federal government has already shown on several occasions that it does not shy away from using illegal means to enforce its inhumane, racist policies. Policies that only help fascism.

The list is long: the black-red coalition knowingly violates EU freedom of movement law by maintaining border controls within the Schengen area. It has abolished support for sea rescue operations, family reunification and faster naturalisation. It knowingly supports deaths in the Mediterranean and at other EU external borders with the help of Frontex, the EU border surveillance agency.

Government cooperates with dictators

Germany and the EU are cooperating with dictatorial regimes to keep refugees out. These include countries such as Tunisia and Libya. Germany also concluded the “Turkey deal” back in 2016. Under this deal, the authorities can deport people who have been in Turkey during their flight—which is very often the case for Syrians, Iranians, and Afghans, among others—without thoroughly reviewing their asylum applications. There are repeated reports of abuse and pogroms against refugees in Turkey.

Now the German government is also pushing for a joint agreement with other EU states to enable the deportation of people to “safe third countries”. The model for this is the British “Rwanda deal.” The Netherlands, among others, has drawn up plans to deport people to Uganda.

Systematic criminalisation of refugees

In addition, the black-red coalition is attempting to expand the list of countries considered “safe countries of origin.” Asylum applications from these countries can be rejected across the board.

Because the Bundesrat has rejected the classification of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco as “safe countries of origin,” the federal government is now trying to overturn the requirement for the states to approve such regulations.

Violation of human rights

In 2026, the legislative reforms of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) will come into force. These were drafted during the “traffic light” coalition government with the then Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party. They virtually abolish the individual right to asylum and even provide for the detention of children.

However, this is not enough for the current federal government: based on the GEAS reforms, the CDU/CSU and SPD now want to convert some accommodations into “special facilities”—effectively prisons. According to the government’s plans, refugees will not be allowed to leave the premises if another EU country is responsible for their asylum procedure under the “Dublin Regulation.”

Just recently, the UN Social Committee reprimanded Germany for the first time because refugees in the “Dublin procedure” have been deprived of accommodation, food, and health care. This new procedure violates social human rights, reports Pro Asyl.

Although the German government has denied basic human rights for refugees and many migrants, there are at least still some non-governmental institutions offering help—if one has the financial means and enough mental strength to seek it. Yet, experienced lawyers, counselling agencies, and NGOs are highly overloaded and even scams have been reported. People seeking protection then need to rely on the support and energy of activists who often fiercely try to fight this inhumane system. Yet, even supporting refugees and migrants is already criminalized in many European countries like Poland and it is rumoured that there are plans to implement similar repression in Germany.

Altogether there are no real safe passages to reach protection and asylum in the EU—not even for people escaping genocides like in Gaza, Sudan, or the DRC. Germany is often celebrated as a country that would have learned from its horrific genocidal past yet, the recent developments, experiences of the people who have been re-traumatized by the system, and those who have perished or disappeared tell another story.

 “I observe a huge gap between the activists of Die Linke and the position of the party in general”

Interview with Théo from Berlin Insoumise, whose room booking for a meeting with Flotilla activists was cancelled by Die Linke


21/11/2025

Hi Théo, thanks for talking to us. Could you start by introducing yourself. Who are you?

I’m Théo, an activist at Berlin Insoumise which is the Berlin Section of the French left radical party La France Insoumise.

We’re a section of 200 registered activists, organise monthly events like conferences and debates, and are active in local campaigns. French people settled abroad have designated MPs, Senators, and local councils to the embassies. Our district consists of Germany and 15 other Central European Countries. I am the joint spokesperson of our section for the district.

This week you organised a meeting which was supposed to take place in Karl Liebknecht Haus, centre of Die Linke. What was the meeting about and who was speaking?

We organised a public meeting about the situation in Gaza. Emma Fourreau (one of our MEPs) contacted us because she’s doing a tour of European universities to meet young activists. We, as the local section of the party, decided to use this as an opportunity to give further visibility about the Gaza situation.

Emma participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla this summer, so we thought this could be a great angle. We gathered in total five people: alongside Emma were Adrien, Leslie, and Mahé who are activists of the flotilla and also tried to breach the blockade this summer. The final speaker was Anissa Eprinchard, a Berlin-based activist who created the account @HomoSwipiens.

We discussed the history of flotillas, what happened during the last one, the situation in Gaza and the state of sanctions against Israel.

And yet at the last minute, Die Linke cancelled your room booking? Why did they cancel and when did you hear about the cancellation?

We have built connections with Die Linke for some years now, and started some months ago to use their logistic support for our events. We had asked them to host our public meeting at their headquarters in Karl-Liebknecht-Haus.

They have conference rooms in house, managed by an “external” institution called Tagungszentrum am Rosa Luxemburg Platz, mostly owned by Die Linke. This would have been our third meeting there since August.

At midday on the day of the meeting, we received an email cancelling our reservation even though the room had been booked for more than 10 days already. The cancellation mail said the following:

“Der kürzlich öffentlich durch Sie bekannt gemachte Inhalt Ihrer Veranstaltung (siehe Screenshots anbei) weicht erheblich von den uns gegenüber im Zusammenhang mit dem Vertragsabschluss gemachten Angaben ab. Zudem sind mittlerweile Protestveranstaltungen vor unserem Tagungszentrum gegen Ihre Veranstaltung in Aussicht gestellt worden. Beide Tatsachen rechtfertigen u.E. ohne Zweifel den Rücktritt vom Vertragsverhältnis.”

(“The content of your event, which you recently made public (see attached screenshots), deviates significantly from the information provided to us for the contract. Furthermore, protests against your event have now been announced in front of our conference centre. In our opinion, both of these facts claearly justify the termination of the contractual relationship.”)

The screenshot that was sent to us as a “proof” was simply our instagram post communicating about the event, where the Freedom Flotilla was mentioned, and pictures of Emma and Anissa, two of our guests.

Die Linke helped organise the demonstration for Gaza on 27th September. Around the same time, party chair Ines Schwerdtner said that the party had learned from the mistakes it had made by not joining the Palestine movement earlier. Do you think they have learned from their mistakes?

Unfortunately I don’t think so. The email cancelling our event directly came from the Geschäftsführer of the Tagungszentrum, Mathias Höhn, even though we had previously been in touch with other people from their organisation. Mathias Höhn is directly involved in Die Linke and has occupied various party positions.

We see and deeply condemn the fact that to this day, it is still impossible to talk about the Palestinian genocide in Gaza in Germany.

Ferat Koçak, Abgeordnete of Die Linke in Neukölln, tried to intervene in our favour and called directly Herr Höhn, even offering to host our conference under his name, without success. In a statement, Ferat offered support: “It is serious that our sister party La France Insoumise, and in particular MEP Emma Fourreau, has been refused the use of our premises. We need spaces to discuss Palestine”.

I would add that this event was also not organised by an organisation that is absolutely foreign to Die Linke. We’ve been working together for a long time, and sit in the same group at the European Parliament. They basically cancelled an event with one of their comrades and colleagues, Emma Fourreau.

How does this affect the relationship between Berlin Insoumise and Die Linke? At last year’s Left Berlin Summer Camp, Asma Rharmaoui-Claquin (co-speaker of La France Insoumise in this district and parliamentary condidate in the last two elections) said that she couldn’t envisage working with the party because of it’s stance on Palestine. Things seem to have improved since then, and people like Ferat are playing an important role, but has enough changed for you to continue to collaborate?

To clarify Asma’s position, we had stopped working with Die Linke because of their lack of support for the Palestinian cause. With it starting to move internally, we started to collaborate more.

I’ll just speak in my name on your question because we have not discussed it yet with the Berlin comrades. It does come with great disappointment. However, I observe a huge gap between the activists of Die Linke and the position of the party in general.

I meet comrades of various Die Linke sections on a monthly basis to work on digital tools for left radical organisations, and see some openness about the Palestinian topic. We also got support from comrades from Neukölln and Tempelhof Schöneberg. On the day of the meeting, Emma met comrades from Die Linke Jugend who disapproved of the decision to cancel our meeting.

I think it is essential to support comrades there that share our positions and help them move the lines of their party

There are elections in Berlin next year, and there is a reasonable chance of the next Berlin mayor being from Die Linke. As a result, pro-Palestine motions have been withdrawn from conferences in the name of “party unity”. What do you think of this strategy ?

I think that this is a moral failure and a political mistake. There have been 200 breaches of the “ceasefire” in the last month, and people are still being killed in Gaza, while Europe watches without taking any action. The CDU wants to restart delivering weapons to Israel. This genocide is far from over, and we need to stand against it.

Berlin is a city with a left heart and a mixed population. This will not benefit Die Linke.

We are conducting this interview on Thursday 19th November. In 2 days’ time, Palestinian activist Ramsis Kilani is appealing his expulsion from Die Linke. Has Berlin Insoumise discussed this case and what do you think?

We have not discussed his case unfortunately, and I’m afraid I don’t know everything about his exclusion.

Nonetheless, I can only pay tribute to his bravery for deciding to fight his internal party structures and not quit in silence. I hope he wins this appeal and manages to move party lines internally. He stands for a single, secular state, with guaranteed rights for every citizen, of every religion, which is also my personal position.

What’s next for Berlin Insoumise? And if people read this interview and want to get more involved how can they contact you?

First of all, I’d like to thank comrades from other organisations who helped us find a plan B in 2 hours and maintain our event. This proves how important and effective it is for all our radical organisations to stay connected and help each other.

We will keep on doing what we do best: organise events and actions! Most of them are in French but some are also bilingual in French and German.

Funnily enough, the next one is also organised with an organisation of Die Linke: we are organising a conference about the situation and massacres in Sudan with Aurélien Taché, French MP of LFI and Roman Deckert (Sudan expert for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung).

On January 3rd, we are hosting a conference about our hopes for the 6th French constitution with Pierre-Yves Cadalen, French MP for Brest.

We are also getting ready for our next campaign in June, for the councils to the French embassies.

People can reach us any time on Instagram @BerlinInsoumise or by email contact@berlin-insoumise.org.

Or just come to an event 🙂

Is there anything you’d like to say that we haven’t covered already?

We’ve been consistently supporting the rights of Palestinian lives in France when all other left parties were calling us antisemites. We’re on the right side of history and the whole French Left has finally joined us—too late—after 2 years.

I hope for the same for Germany, and wish success to the comrades in German organisations that are fighting for Palestine.

A representative from Berlin Insoumise will be speaking at the rally in support of Ramsis Kilani’s appeal against his expulsion from Die Linke, on Saturday, 22nd November at 11.30am outside Karl Liebknecht Haus.

The revolution will not be televised

Sudan’s long road to freedom


19/11/2025

A photograph of a street mural depicting Alaa Salah, whose image became a widespread symbol of the Sudanese revolution.

I would like to start this article by honouring the Sudanese revolutionaries, the unsung heroes of Sudan’s long road to freedom and democracy; the victims of the El Fasher massacre, the disappeared, the indigenous, the women, the children, the Kandakas, the Neighbourhood Resistance Committees (NRCs), the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), the Forces for Freedom and Change, the journalists, the doctors, the human rights defenders, the displaced, the boys in Greece and the Sudanese diaspora.

Just days after images captured in space recorded the blood spilled during the El Fasher massacre appeared on smartphones across the world, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), responsible for the atrocities, called for a three-month ceasefire while the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) refuse to accept any deal recognising the RSF as an equal political actor.

The news from the RSF, that many see as tactical deception, will provide little respite for the Sudanese population who have fallen victim to a vicious landgrab of their resource-rich country once again.

‘For any kind of peaceful solution, the RSF has to disarm themselves. What we have seen is that you cannot trust the RSF with weapons. They kill civilians, they rape women. They loot and destroy food and crops,’ says Sudanese analyst Yasir Zaidan.

The war that has been widely and deliberately ignored for over two and a half years—while other more Eurocentric wars have taken centre stage—is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our age.

It has cost an estimated 150,000 people their lives, with some figures suggesting the death toll may be much higher. It has forced 14 million people to leave their homes, has pushed 24 million people into food insecurity and famine, and has left 30 million in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The paucity of coverage of the war, global aid cuts, political and ethnic elitism, racism and international interest in the country’s resources have forsaken the Sudanese population and have contributed to global inaction to prevent the escalation that has at long last put Sudan on the agenda.

Despite warnings of possible genocide, the UK opted for the ‘least ambitious’ plan to protect civilians and prevent atrocities due to aid cuts over a year ago. USAID cuts left 80% of emergency kitchens unfunded, forcing 1100 kitchens to close. Although the UK has recently pledged to allocate £120 million in aid, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact reports that aid budget reductions in previous years have damaged relationships with partners and ‘calls for the UK to increase direct funding to local organisations and simplify its complicated compliance procedures to better support Sudanese-led responses’.

To put the urgency of the situation into context, the country blighted by the 30-year dictatorship under Omar Al-Bashir until 2019 already had some 1.1 million refugees and 3 million internally displaced people in September 2021, prior to the start of the war in April 2023. The day the war broke out, telecommunication systems were damaged and still remain unusable for the vast majority of the population. This has contributed to the difficulty of getting information out, exacerbated the logistical challenges of getting aid in and compounded the vulnerability of the civilian population, many of whom feel attacked by both sides—the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

A great number of our Sudanese comrades here in Berlin fled Sudan between 2003-2008 when the Arab nomad militia group, the Janjaweed, committed genocide in Darfur. To quell an insurgency by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement (led by indigenous ethnic groups in Darfur fighting structural inequality and economic marginalisation), the Janjaweed, under the al-Bashir government, killed 200,000–400,000 non-Arab Darfuri people.

As news of the thousands killed by the RSF in El-Fasher in recent weeks reach our shores, reports on social media frequently call for a boycott of the UAE over its support for the RSF militia group through the supply of weapons and mercenaries in exchange for gold.

Meanwhile, other reports accuse the national army—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)—of being the other side of the same coin, a claim that has been fiercely refuted by some Sudanese commentators on social media platforms.

So, what happened to the 2019 Sudanese Revolution, who are the RSF and the SAF and how did Sudanese civilians get trapped between them?

After years of economic discontent, ethnic and gender inequality, and decades of conservative Muslim Sharia law, when Omar Al-Bashir announced he was running for an unconstitutional third term, the protest movement organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella organization of doctors, lawyers and journalists, started to gather momentum.

A revolution led by women

Following popular protests demanding an end to the 30-year long dictatorship and its sexist and oppressive laws, in which an estimated 70% of protesters were women, the SAF toppled Omar Al-Bashir in a coup d’etat in April 2019.

Sudanese women’s rights activist Asha al-Karib remarked:

‘The world-admired Sudanese revolution is marked by unprecedented contribution and participation of women throughout the country, including women from all walks of life. The participation of women is not a by chance event, as Sudanese women own a strong history of resistance in the face of dictatorships and patriarchy.’

The old guard

The subsequent self-appointed head of state Lieutenant General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, having previously served as the Defense Minister and Vice President in the toppled Al-Bashir government, refused to extradite Al-Bashir to the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes, leading to continued widespread protests.

The Transitional Military Council (TMC), the military junta that was established on the same day to govern Sudan, was equally denounced by activists. Leading anti-government protesters, the SPA, stated ‘the regime has conducted a military coup to reproduce the same faces and entities that our great people have revolted against,’ continuing ‘those who destroyed the country and killed its people want to appropriate every drop of blood shed by the great people of Sudan during their revolution’.

Auf resigned the following day and on 12 April 2019 Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the former Inspector General for the Al-Bashir army, was announced as head of state.

Al-Burhan formally headed the TMC following the resignation of Auf and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, was appointed the deputy head, promoting the commander of the RSF to a key position in Sudan’s political sphere.

The aforementioned Janjaweed, responsible for up to 400,000 deaths in the Darfur genocide of 2003–2008, is a direct predecessor of the RSF—the new name being a simple rebrand.

The SPA and other democratic opposition groups called for the TMC to step aside in favour of a civilian-led transitional government, resulting in many attempts to disperse sit-in protesters outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. The TMC worked to end the peaceful sit-in with excessive force and violence and several people, including a pregnant woman, were killed.

What followed was a pivotal moment in the fight for democracy and a sign of things to come. In what became known as the Khartoum Massacre, on 3 June 2019, 120 protesters outside the military headquarters in Khartoum were killed and hundreds more went missing, with actual figures concealed with the help of internet blockages and the deployment of brutal military forces across the capital.

Unrelenting protesters took to the streets again on 30 June, finally prompting the international community to pressure the military into sharing power with civilian politicians in August.

Hope on the horizon

The Forces of Freedom and Change, a committee that coordinated the nonviolent resistance movement, and the TMC agreed to a 39-month transition period in July. On 20 August 2019 the FFC-nominated Abdalla Hamdok, who was appointed Prime Minister of Sudan.

The high aspirations for Abdalla Hamdok to bring about democracy in Sudan, however, weren’t to last. Though described as a ‘diplomat, a humble man and a brilliant and disciplined mind’ by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa who agreed to implement a peace deal hailed as an ‘historic achievement’ by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the senior Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank, Jonas Horner warned, the ‘devil will be in the implementation’.

Horner noted that ‘Sudan’s economy is in freefall and there has been limited international assistance, and none pledged specifically to support the implementation of the [peace] agreement’.

Moreover, researcher Ahmed Soliman stated that offering government jobs to rebel chiefs could ‘lay the foundations for democratic transition and economic reform’. Soliman said: ‘This requires the forces of change to share responsibility for implementing peace above their own interests and will also necessitate a commitment to devolve genuine authority to communities and people at the local level.’

Apparently unable to do so, the RSF committed atrocities across Darfur as a reprisal for the 2019 uprisings and the TMC’s military chiefs ‘undermined and side-stepped’ Hamdok’s leadership.

‘The armed Arab groups—the RSF as well as many less organised militias—have seized lands, livestock, and goods and see these as payment for their military undertakings to the Khartoum regime,’ Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College and a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute research group told Al Jazeera.

Another coup dashes hope for democracy

And so, it wasn’t long before the Sudanese military under General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan led another coup and took over the government in October 2021.

The majority of the Hamdok cabinet as well as pro-government protesters were detained and the prime minister, who called for the Sudanese to ‘defend their revolution’ was besieged in his home and pressured to support the coup.

The Prime Minister’s Office, along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information, refused to recognise a transfer of power to the military. The African Union suspended Sudan’s membership, pending the reinstatement of Hamdok, while Western powers stated they continued to recognise the Hamdok cabinet as the constitutional leader of the transitional government.

The SPA, the FFC and the Sudanese resistance committees refused to cooperate with the military coup organisers, leading further protests and strikes which spanned the country. Security forces retaliated by killing 15 members of the Sudanese resistance committee on 17 November 2021.

On 21 November, Al-Burhan signed an agreement reinstating Hamdok to restore the transition to a civilian government. This was met by fierce opposition from pro-democracy protestors who now refused any deal involving the military.

After two more were killed in pro-democracy protests and the already weak Sudanese economy steeply declined, Hamdok resigned as prime minister in January 2022, dashing hopes for democracy in Sudan.

Two war criminals fighting for supremacy

Oscar Rickett explains both Al-Burhan and Hemedti were fierce, reliable lieutenants of the Al-Bashir regime that had ‘plundered the resources of Sudan for decades’. Fearing a shift of power from the military elite to a civilian-led government, both ‘had to’ carry out the coup in order to cling to power and prevent being investigated and charged with war crimes.

With the prospects of a civilian-led transition to democracy eliminated, Siddig Tower Kafi, a civilian member of the Sovereign Council, commented that ‘it was becoming clear that the plan of Al-Burhan was to restore the old regime of Omar al-Bashir to power.’

And while Al-Burhan sought to centre power back to the elite ethnic groups around Khartoum, Hemedti, a Darfuri Arab, had become the leader of a powerful and brutal paramilitary force and had built a vast business empire. He had taken control of Darfur’s biggest artisanal gold mine in Jebel Amir, and his family company, Al-Gunaid, became Sudan’s largest gold exporter.

Writing for Al Jazeera, Jérôme Tubiana explains:

‘This is not just a war for power between two generals, but rather one between the two heirs of the not-yet-defunct regime: the legitimate and illegitimate sons of one father, at the head of two fundamentally different forces. On one side, an army long headed by officers hailing from Sudan’s ethnic and political centre (the northern Nile Valley); on the other a paramilitary corps that is the latest avatar of Darfur’s Arab militias.’

Arabs and non-Arabs caught in the crossfire of supremacy

Omar, from the capital of Hemedti’s Mahariya tribe, Ghreir, an ‘old Arab settlement and stage post for nomadic camel herders’ where Arabs and non-Arabs long lived side-by-side, explains that the region became the heartland for Janjaweed recruitment in 2003.

Omar and some other members of the Arab tribes rejected joining the Janjaweed and joined the rebels instead. Feeling manipulated by the government and not wanting to be associated with the Janjaweed, he explains how students understood that ‘the government was instrumentalising their communities to kill their non-Arab neighbours.’

When Hemedti, who attended school in Ghreir but dropped out of primary school to become a trader around the age of 8 or 9, rose to the ranks of leader of the RSF in 2013, he continued aggressively recruiting from his own tribe and taking rebel territory.

International vultures and hypocrisy

Foreign interests, extraction and colonialism—spanning over a hundred years, with Anglo-Egyptian control over Sudan spanning from 1899 to 1956—continue to this day.

The complex web of support for the two warring parties, as explained in this article include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Algeria, Libya, the UAE, Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Russia, China, Chad, and South Sudan, have further complicated peace talks and neglect the interests of Sudanese civilians.

Recent evidence showing UK manufactured weapons have surfaced in Sudan proves the UK’s complicity in the atrocities. In breach of its own arms trade rules the UK continued to sell weapons to the UAE, known for being a diversion hub for weapons to conflict zones.

The UK’s failure to invite any of the principal Sudanese actors or members of civilian society, while inviting the UAE to the ceasefire conference in April, is symptomatic of the wider neocolonial narrative. Such actions make the call for peace by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy ring hollow:

‘The biggest obstacle is not a lack of funding or texts at the United Nations; it’s lack of political will. Very simply, we have got to persuade the warring parties to protect civilians, to let aid in and across the country, and to put peace first.’

While we all seek to differentiate between the ‘bad guys’ and the ‘good guys’, ultimately the horrors that are unfolding in Darfur reflect the story of centuries of colonialism, supremacy, capitalism and land appropriation.

Silencing the voices of the indigenous, peaceful resistance and of the ancestral owners of the land perpetuates the supremacist violence that has cost so many Sudanese people their lives and loved ones.

Their resilience untold.

Trans Day of Remembrance

On mourning and the need to fight systemic transphobia


20th of November 2025, marks the 26th Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR). In this day, we honor the memory of the trans people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-trans violence.

The Trans Day of Remembrance was established on the 20th of November 1999 in the United States by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, in the memory of Rita Hester. Rita Hester was a Black trans woman and an active member in the trans community of Boston, providing education around trans issues.

Back then, Gwendoly Ann Smith declared: “Trans Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-trans bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase trans people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.“

These words still resonate with the situation of trans people 26 years later, then trans people are still exposed to a multifactorial violence, which makes their existence a (political) fight.

Indeed, the Trans Murder Monitoring project reported 281 murders of trans and gender diverse people in the world between October 1 2024 and September 30 2025.  Moreover, this research project has identified, analyzed and reported more than 5000 murders against trans people in the world since 2009, and 118 in Europe. Trans women are even more exposed to this violence: they constituted at least 53% of the murder cases identified by the TGEU. Trans BIPOC were also highly targeted, as they represented at least 73% of the murdered trans people. Moreover, 23% of the murders were identified to be against sex workers. Finally, the data from 2025 reveals that trans activists are becoming a specific target of trans murder.

These numbers are however only the tip of the iceberg, as murder of trans people are highly underreported. This is partly due to the fact that these murders are not categorized as murders of or against trans people, as trans people are often misgendered and their gender not recognized by the state institutions responsible of establishing criminality statistics. Moreover, violence against trans people is also multifaceted and often results in severe mental health consequences, including high rates of suicide among trans people.

Indeed, trans people are exposed, in the public as well as in the private space, to discriminations, harassment, insults, psychological as well as physical and sexual violence. In a survey conducted by the EU Agency for Fundamental rights in 30 European countries among more than 100 000 LGBTQ+ individuals, more than 60% of trans of 51% on non-binary and gender diverse respondents reported having lived discrimination in the past year.

Moreover, 26% of trans women and 23% of trans men declared that they have been attacked in the last five years, while 2 in 3 trans and non-binary respondents declared that they had experienced harassment the year before taking the survey.

However, less than 20% of the respondents declared that they had reported this violence to a state institution.

This is because trans people also face violence from the institutions that are, in the states’ narrative, supposed to help them, for example, the police institution. Moreover, in the study cited previously, more than one third of trans respondents declared that they had experience discrimination from the health care system the year before taking the survey.

The systemic discrimination and violence that trans people are exposed to -whether in the private sphere from family members, in the public sphere, or through state institutions- result in severe mental health consequences and higher suicide rates among trans people. Current research findings estimate that between 18 and 45% of trans young adults and youth have attempted suicide in their lifetime. Moreover, in the survey conducted by the EU Agency for Fundamental rights, more than one in two trans and non-binary respondents declared they have had suicidal thoughts the year before taking the survey.

As already mentioned, numbers on crimes against trans people are lower than the reality. Moreover, this summary does not exhaustively mention the different forms of violence trans people have to face every day. However, it depicts how violent states and societies still are toward trans people, 26 years after the first Day of Trans Remembrance. It is all the more important to acknowledge and remember this systemic violence as anti-trans laws, state-driven persecution, and measures that increasingly aim at the erasure of trans people continue to grow, as illustrated by the in anti-trans legislation in the US, and, for example, the German law project to register trans people and make their data accessible to states authorities.

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we gather, mourn, and honor the memory of the trans people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-trans violence. Some also consider this day as a day of fight, as being trans is, in fact, an act of resilience and fighting. In Berlin, several events are organized today. Here is a non-exhaustive list of events you can attend to mourn and fight:

  • Berlin, S+U Neukölln. 17:30 à Rally, 18:30 Start of the protest. More infos here.
  • Berlin, Alice-Herz-Platz, 18:00. More infos here.

Note: Time and locations might be subjected to changes, follow news from the organizers to be up to date.