CS June 2023 | Page 9

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People ’ s Protests in France – the Continuing

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Global Financial Crisis ( 2008 ) of Capitalism

The inherent crisis of Capitalism that once again unfolded in 2008 as the Global financial Crisis in USA is continuing to haunt the world . The imperialist countries who have hegemony over the world and are pushing their crisis on to developing countries , but they are unable to escape from its impact due to its inherent class contradictions within the capitalist system . Europe is divided into North and South . Ireland and southern European countries such as Portugal , Italy , Greece and Spain are drowned in the debt given by northern European countries such as France , Britain and Germany through ECB and IMF . Greece defaulted . The burden of helping their fellow European Union members made the Northern European countries so despise the South that their media started addressing them as PIIGS ( pigs ).

Southern European countries are forced to implement Austerity Rules ( 2008-2010 ), first and then ‘ Adjustment Programmes ’ for their survival . These include :

Increase in individual income tax rates , Cuts in public pensions , special tax on pensions , freezing of nearly all social insurance benefits and pension reform of the pension system , raising the retirement age , deep cuts in welfare spending at national and local level , increase in VAT taxes .

The experiences of the third world made the people of the south aware of the exploitation and oppression that would befall if these neoliberal measures are implemented . They protested vehemently . These lead to frequent political crises and governments in these countries fell frequently . Yet the Adjustment programs went ahead . No matter how fierce the protests are , unless people topple this capitalist system they have no alternative within . These neoliberal

June - 2023 policies gradually increased poverty in those countries .

By October 2012 , the IMF said that its forecasts for countries which implemented austerity programs have been consistently overoptimistic . This means that the neoliberal polices have been doing more damage than ‘ expected ’ and countries which implemented fiscal stimulus , such as Germany and Austria , did better than expected . Austerity programs for the South , Fiscal Stimulus for the North !

Even after these reviews , the programs of persecuting those people did not stop .

In 2016 , Britain felt that it was not profitable to stay in the European Union due to the crisis in Europe . It held a referendum ( BREXIT ) to leave the EU and people leaned towards it . The BREXIT process saw many political upheavals , took 4 years and finally concluded in 2020 . Britain ’ s escape from the capitalist crisis led to internal political crises ; it saw five Prime Ministers in the past six years . This is the fate of Britan which along with USA used to change the heads of weaker countries as per its will !

Reforms in France :

France has been struggling with unemployment since the 2008 capitalist crisis , as have other EU countries . Since 2012 , France has been seriously implementing neoliberal policies in the name of reforms in their country . These include minimizing regulatory barriers to competition ; improving the labor market- reducing the difference between what companies spend on labor and what the worker receives ( i . e . lowering taxes for company owners ); unemployment insurance reforms ; and tax reforms .

It should not be forgotten that all these neoliberal reforms were previously applied to Latin American countries as part of World Bank and IMF mandates . After 30 years of reforms under right wing US puppet governments , many countries including Argentina , went bankrupt . As a result , people in Latin America are leaning towards parties claiming to be leftwing parties since a decade . After Latin America , neoliberalism spread to Asian countries . Today Sri Lanka , Pakistan , Nepal and other countries are either bankrupt or on the brink of bankruptcy because of the neoliberal reforms that mask the capitalist exploitation . Now that capitalism is turning towards its own people , they are often taking to the streets to fight against these neoliberal policies .

Protests in France :

Since 5-6 years , every year at least two lakh people are coming on to streets to protest against the deteriorating living standards .

In September 2017 , the French government introduced labor reforms that would reduce damages for fired workers and favor companies in negotiations with workers . ( In our country , in September 2020 , 29 labor laws were undemocratically reduced to four labor codes . Such things started three years earlier in France )

In March 2018 , railway unions staged large-scale protests against cuts in retirement benefits , unemployment insurance reforms and against permitting competition in the railways ( privatization ).

In November 2018 , the Yellow Vests movement brought over three lakh French public to the streets . It then spread to other countries . The trigger for the Yellow Vest uprising was a fuel tax , ostensibly designed to finance France ’ s transition to a green economy – though it soon became apparent that its proceeds would mostly be used to plug a budget deficit widened by the government ’ s tax cuts for businesses . The levy infuriated motorists in rural and suburban areas where public transport and other