Bulletin No45 avril 2024 Emmanuel Macron, engaged in the European election campaign, continues his line aimed at anchoring France within the Euro-Atlantic imperialist alliance. After his speech on Europe at the Sorbonne on Thursday April 25, the President of the Republic took advantage of his trip to Strasbourg on Friday to answer questions from a dozen hand-picked young Europeans, during a interview organized by the Ebra press group, made up of nine regional press titles [1] , and broadcast on Saturday April 27. During this interview, E. Macron further accentuated his warlike position by suggesting the provision of the French strike force to the defense of the European Union within the framework of NATO.
At the Sorbonne, he placed great emphasis on defense issues. Here is what the newspaper LeMonde reports : “ In terms of defense, Emmanuel Macron said he wanted to create a “powerful Europe” which “enforces its respect” , “ensures its security” and regains “its strategic autonomy” . He will invite the Europeans to build a “European defense initiative” which will “perhaps” include a European anti-missile shield He also called for the creation of a “European cybersecurity and cyberdefense capacity” . a new “European loan” to finance the defense effort with a “European preference in the purchase of military equipment” . This idea of a defense Europe is not very new. Already in 1953 the European Defense Community [2] was on the agenda. It was a requirement of the United States and placed under American command within the framework of NATO. Its major function was to fight the USSR by allowing, among other things, the rearmament of Germany. The treaty establishing the CED was rejected, without debate, by the French National Assembly on August 30, 1954 by 319 votes to 264 [3] .
Today, using the imperialist war on the territory of Ukraine as a pretext [4] , E. Macron is trying to revive the idea of European defense, within the framework of NATO. The only power within the European Union to possess atomic weapons, imperialist France intends to play a major role in this system by monetizing its nuclear firepower. This device is not to displease the United States which is focused on the preparation of a major conflict in Asia against China and intends to subcontract , obviously under its control, what it calls the defense of Europe against Russia (read their major interests in this region of the World). Note that France is deeply involved in US military projects in the Indo-Pacific region since it is participating for the first time in military maneuvers called Balikatan [5] , joint with the United States in this region.
This sharing of responsibility for the nuclear fire raises fundamental questions from which it is impossible to escape. The concept of nuclear deterrence is that if its vital interests are attacked, France's response is nuclear fire. The credibility of deterrence is based on a postulate: an enemy who would like to attack us must know that in return we promise him the apocalypse. This decision of nuclear fire cannot, by definition, be shared. It is the ultimate tool of sovereignty and in the event of aggression, it is in the hands of the President of the Republic. Sharing the nuclear fire would amount to accepting a federal Europe with the defense of its territory as one of its prerogatives: in other words the complete erasure of France as a sovereign nation!
The nuclear deterrence doctrine does not provide room for an anti-missile shield. What, for its part, Germany aims to build on the model of the Israeli “ iron dome ”, but France, the leading missile manufacturer, is not associated with it, so there is an industrial aspect, Paris cannot stay away from such a structuring project. This explains the increasingly strong pressures exerted by those in power to accelerate the transition to a war economy [6] . This is evidenced by the interventions of the Minister of Defense to rapidly develop the production of Aster 15 and 30 missiles co-produced with Italy with the objective of positioning itself to conquer market shares. Because this is the case in imperialist wars, they are a means of promoting arms production on the battlefield and ensuring significant profits for capitalist companies. By choosing to develop war efforts with an increase in military budgets, States including France intend to place themselves in this deadly competition at the expense of the social needs of their population.
This is what we wrote in a recent article [7] : “ Capitalism is war .” Macron's recent speeches confirm our analysis. He intends to accentuate France's participation in the war escalation and to put the European elections under the control of his demands and he is not the only one with the RN, the Republicans, the PS, EELV and all those who have sided in the wake of support for the Euro-Western camp, against that of capitalist Russia to wage the intra-imperialist war in Ukraine.
Calling for resolute struggle against imperialist wars, for a break with NATO, to put an end to nuclear weapons and to organize collective security on the basis of the independence and cooperation of nations, our list of the COMMUNIST Revolutionary Party , led by Olivier Terrien and Martine Moreau intends to contribute to the union and the struggle of all those who constitute the immense peace camp.
[1] The Ebra group (Crédit Mutuel) holds the titles L'Alsace , Les Latest News from Alsace , L'Est Républicain , Le Républicain Lorrain , Vosges Matin , Le Bien Public , Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire , Le Progress , Le Dauphiné Libéré .
[3] The vote of August 30, 1954 definitively dismisses the CED without substantive debate, since the anti-CEDists propose the vote on a preliminary question, posed by General A. Aumeran adopted by 319 votes against 264. Among these 319 votes, we counts the communist and Gaullist deputies, a part of the socialists (53 deputies out of 105), half also the radicals (34 deputies out of 67) or the UDSR (10 deputies out of 18), but also 9 MRP or related deputies. This rejection also led to the failure of the European political community project, which had been associated with it. The day after the vote, the SFIO excluded three parliamentarians, who voted on the preliminary question, D. Mayer, J. Moch and M. Lejeune.
[4] https://www.sitecommunistes.org/index.php/monde/europe/1805-ukraine-la-face-apparente-d-un-conflit-plus-profond-et-plus-large-au-sein-du- globalized-capitalist-system
[5] https://ph.ambafrance.org/Participation-francaise-a-Balikatan-22-avril-au-10-mai-2024# :~:text=From%252022%2520avril%2520au%252010,military%252C%2520majority %2520am%C3%A9ricains%2520and%2520Filipinos.
[6] Les Echos April 30, 2024: Ukraine: the French government raises its tone with industrialists