FRANCE The POID is now the Workers’ Party

Address by the National Federal Council of the Workers’ Party

Workers and you, young people, who take the side of the exploited, we appeal to you: together, let us build the Workers’ Party, the necessary tool for ensuring that our aspirations prevail. 

The Workers’ Party affirms that wor kers and young people have their own demands, their own agenda, their own aspirations. First and foremost: peace! 

Gaza reduced to an “open mass grave” (Médecins du Monde) [Doctors of the World] by Israeli bombs, the hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian deaths in a war that never ends, the de solation of Africa subjected to plunde ring by multinationals: these wars, these massacres, and many other disasters, point the finger of blame at one guilty party: the capitalist system. And with it, the governments of the major imperia list powers that serve its interests and their NATO, their European Union, their UN… The Workers’ Party fights for unity between peoples. It rejects all attempts to divide and oppose them. It affirms the right of peoples to live in freedom and to determine their own future. That is why it is fighting for an end to the murderous war in Ukraine, for an immediate end to the massacre in Gaza and, beyond that, for recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own future. As suppor ters of a Workers’ International, we are working towards this together with our comrades in 40 countries within the In ternational Workers’ Committee. 

In France, the Workers’ Party fights in all circumstances for the unity of the working class. It rejects all divisions be tween workers and young people, French and immigrants, and all forms of racism and discrimination. 

The Workers’ Party rejects the calls that have been made for national unity. We affirm that the bosses and the workers do not share the same interests. The Workers’ Party refuses to follow the “left” parties whose National Assem bly members in France voted in favour of hundreds of billions of euros in aid to the capitalists and whose members of the European Parliament voted six times in favour of military spending on the war in Ukraine. We still remember this fact: a few weeks after the cry of “Ma cron, resign!” was heard in the demons trations against the pensions reform, the leaders of the “left” parties accepted Macron and Borne’s invitations to at tend all sorts of “summits”, including the joint dinner of the leaders of all the parties (including the [far-right] Natio nal Rally) hosted by Macron. 

To national unity, we counterpose the need for the workers to protect their independence and that of their organisations. Workers and young people, like us, you know that society is divided into classes. Every day you suffer the conse quences of the social collapse, hunger and poverty that are spreading across the country, while huge profits accumu late in the hands of a few. That is why we are calling on you to build a party that is resolutely focused on the class struggle. Yes, class struggle: the only weapon in our hands for winning our demands, all our demands. Including the demand for a workers’ government that will serve the interests of the wor kers, a government of and by the majo rity that will not hesitate to break with the increasingly anti-democratic regime of the Fifth Republic and with the European Union of war and des truction. 

As an advocate of democracy and socialism – in other words, the collective appropriation of the means of production by the producers themselves – the Wor kers’ Party calls for the election of a Constituent Assembly through which the people themselves will define the form and content of democracy. Workers and young people, many of you know the Workers’ Party from our weekly newspa per La Tribune des Travailleurs [Workers’ Tribune]. This news paper reflects what we are: a par ty that brings together workers and young people from across the political spectrum inside the labour movement, the trade union movement, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, La France Insoumise [France Unbowed], the Trotskyist movement and others with no previous political commitment. 

For the liberation of the pro ducer class, let’s build this party together! Join us!

■ Adopted unanimously by the delegates to the National Federal  Council of the Workers’ Party  meeting in Montreuil (Paris) 

on 10 December 2023.