On May 24, socialists and activists from across France and other countries including Germany, the Spanish State, Russia, the United States, Algeria, and more rallied at the Charenton Space in Paris to attend an internationalist rally against imperialist militarism, the international Far Right, and the genocide in Gaza. In addition to the 2,000 people who attended in person, there were another 2,000 individual connections virtually around the world.
Organized by Révolution Permanente — the sister organization of Left Voice and our international organization, the Trotskyist Fraction — the event was a collective shout of defiance against rearmament and austerity in an epoch of imperialist crisis. But it was also a call to organize internationally from below — for students, workers, and leftists to unite against the capitalist class in our own independent organizations and to join our struggles against genocide, the attacks of the bosses, xenophobia, racism, transphobia, and all forms of exploitation and oppression.
The event featured speeches by comrades in the Trotskyist Fraction who are part of the worker and student movements all over the world, who struggle side-by-side with a strategy and program to use the power of the working class from below to fight to tear capitalist up from its roots and build a socialist society organized according to social need, not profit. Speakers came from France, Russia, the United States, Argentina, Germany, and the Spanish State. The TF-FI is formed of groups in fourteen countries across the world; it organizes the international network of socialist publications that publishes in seven different languages.
Below we republish the intervention of our comrade Myriam Bregman. Myriam is Argentina’s most prominent Trotskyist, a socialist legislator, human rights lawyer, and former presidential candidate. A leading figure in the Socialist Workers’ Party (PTS) and the Workers’ Left Front – Unity (FIT-U), Bregman has been at the forefront of the fight against President Javier Milei’s austerity offensive, which includes deep cuts to public services, attacks on labor rights, and intensified repression of social movements. She cofounded the Center of Professionals for Human Rights (CeProDH) and has been instrumental in prosecuting crimes committed during Argentina’s last dictatorship.
Read More Here: “Over 2,000 Socialists From France and Other Countries Rallied in Paris Against Militarism, War, and Genocide”
***
I was told to speak slowly, to pause, and to avoid Argentinian jokes, because the translation system would not understand them. But I hope all of that, which I will try to do, doesn’t hide the enormous excitement I feel to be here. I’m very excited. I am very grateful for the invitation to participate in this internationalist event.
I bring the greetings of my comrades from the PTS in Argentina and at this moment there are dozens and dozens of comrades from different countries who are following us through our network of international leftist publications, La Izquierda Diario.
What we are doing here, what we are doing in the adjoining hall, where other comrades are there following the event, is planting a great seed that makes us dream of recreating the French May that once united workers and students that makes us dream in this land of the Paris Commune, in this revolutionary France. So thank you, thank you, above all, to the comrades of Révolution Permanente, who invited me to be here. In Argentina we follow closely everything that happens in France and especially how our comrades of Révolution Permanente participate daily in all the struggles of the working class of immigrants, of women, of queer people in this country.
Some will already know that for many years I have been a militant and fought in defense of human rights and in defense of democratic liberties and in that fight France always appears to us. But it is France with two faces. On one side, the tradition of the imperialist state, the cruel, colonial, war-mongering tradition which took advantage of what it learned in Algeria to instruct the military — the repressors — in Argentina since the beginning of the 1960s. I just got very proud to know that here, in this room, there are comrades who came from Algeria to witness this event, because we are united in this fight against the same criminals, those French military officers who went to instruct the Argentinian military.
In Argentina, in Latin America, we know very well the role the United States played in the region preparing the dictatorships, with the Condor Plan and all the plans of the School of the Americas. We know everything they did to organize and support dictatorships in the region. But much less known is the very important role played by France in training the genocides that took place in our country during the military dictatorship.
I am going to tell you an anecdote. In the trials in which I participate in the cases of crimes against humanity in Argentina, the trials against the repressors, there was always someone mentioned called “the Frenchman.” The workers and students denounced their tortures, and every now and then someone would say, “I was tortured by the Frenchman.” At first, it was believed that this was a coincidence, that it was someone of French origin. Later it was discovered that it was not, that this term referred to those who had come to learn in France the methods of torture, the methods of disappearances, the methods of the death flights.
I wanted to point out that the ruling classes develop a kind of internationalism. They know how to coordinate, they know how to collaborate to crush revolutions, to crush the peoples who rise up. They organize themselves to implement the counterrevolution.
On the other hand, we have the other face of France, the one that makes us dream, that makes us think today that we can fight for a future all together. It is the solidarity of the French people because that is where many, many of the exiles sought refuge, those who were escaping the ferocious dictatorship that existed in our country.
That is how in 1979, three brave women, very brave, who managed to get out of a clandestine detention center called ESMA, Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada in Argentina, came here, came to France and appeared before the National Assembly and gave their testimony, a testimony that became known in the world as the “Testimony of Paris.” The world press covered the courage of those women who, after having been kidnapped, after having undergone the worst tortures, came here and while the dictatorship was still in charge in our country, they stood in front of all of France, they took advantage of the National Assembly to tell what they experienced.
They told of the clandestine births of babies in the Mechanics School, who were later recovered. Today there are still more than 300 people who have not been able to recover their identity in our country. They told how people were thrown alive into the sea. That was the method the military dictatorship had chosen. That method was blessed by the Catholic Church, because it said it was a “Christian” way of death. The flights of death. That is how it is known in our country.
Why do I bring this history that unites us, of course, with the French people, with the French working class? I want to bring it because very few people survived those death flights. And one who survived, who was taken off the plane at the point when he was about to be thrown out, who had already suffered the torture of being in a plane and thinking that in a few minutes he was going to be thrown into the sea, is Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, a figure who defends human rights in our country, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Well, I want to tell you this, because Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, very recently, together with other figures from all over the world has spoken out in defense of our comrade Anasse. He said that Anasse should not be persecuted for his opinions, for his protests. And it seems to me that it is good to bring this up, because in this way we recover the best traditions of the defense of democratic freedoms.
Today that tradition of struggle, that tradition that is so powerful in our country as in so many other countries, makes us say that we all have to make a great international campaign in defense of comrade Anasse Kazib and of all those who are being persecuted for their opinions, for their protests, and for the defense of the Palestinian people who are suffering a genocide as we suffered in Argentina. For that tradition, for that history of struggle, they cannot silence us. We are not going to allow hunger, the hunger that the kidnapped people in the clandestine centers of Argentina suffered to be used today as a weapon of war by the State of Israel, against thousands of children suffering from famine.
For that we are here, Anasse, we are here to tell you that it is our internationalist commitment to accompany you, and all those who today are persecuted in the world for the defense of the Palestinian people. Because when we say that the working class is one and without borders, we are saying this, that we are going to be there every time we are needed, that we are going to be here making a commitment to international solidarity. So today it is for Anasse, but when they touch one of us, they touch us all, as comrade Julia reminded us.
It’s clear that we need this kind of international solidarity. Imagine what the working class in Argentina is going through, what we are going through as women, as LGBTQ+ folks in Argentina, what young people are going through in our country with an extreme right-wing government like that of Javier Milei. It is a permanent attack on the rights of workers, on the rights of queer people. There is a constant and permanent repression.
And these last days, including today, before we entered here, we did a long report for French television and we were talking to different media outlets from here in France who were interested to know, “What is this Milei thing? What’s going on with Milei?” There are two questions that get repeated in almost all the interviews: “How did Milei win?” and “Why doesn’t everybody unite against Milei, doesn’t there have to be a great united front against Milei? Isn’t it time for the Left to learn that we must all unite against Milei?”
It occurred to me that it would be good in this internationalist event if we could exchange a little about this. About the first one. What I can tell you is that if Milei won, it was because of a strong dissatisfaction, a strong disillusionment among the population.
On the other hand, those who have governed our country have led thousands and thousands to a deep anger and disillusionment. They led the country to disaster. And that is what Milei built on. He built on the ruins of the last Peronist government, a traditional party of our country that speaks in the name of the working class and that in recent years has had a discourse that we could call center-left with tinges of reformism in rhetoric. They governed before Milei and led the country to a total inflation, to a permanent price growth that prevented any working family from being able to live off of their salaries, their pensions.
They came to power the other way around, promising to put an end to the economic hardships. In Argentina the most popular food is the asado, grilled meat. They said, “with us the asado is going to come back, the asado is going to come back. It’s going to fill the refrigerator, everybody is going to be able to eat.” And it was the other way around, exactly the reverse. Even the president of that government, Alberto Fernández, said that he was coming to put an end to patriarchy, that we women had to get out of the streets, because he, by decree, was going to put an end to patriarchy. Imagine the enormous disillusionment produced by that government, the disenchantment was fierce. And that is how Milei won.
Of course, there is an international content and the wave of Trump and so many others in the world on which Milei rides. But he came, capitalizing on, standing on the great anger there was about that political caste, about the political caste that sank our country. But, of course, afterwards we are also asked, “And how does he continue governing after so many austerity policies and so many attacks?”
And here comes the most interesting thing to think about, because it is useful not only for Argentina, but also for other countries in the world. To be able to govern, part of the political leadership, the traditional parties in our country, went directly to Milei’s side. They criticize him for some small things, but afterwards in the Parliament, they vote for everything. They vote for the adjustment laws, they vote for the laws against pensions. All these laws are approved by majorities given by other parties.
And other sectors, the one coming from Peronism to which I referred before, have refused to confront him in the street, have refused to confront him in the only place where the extreme right can be defeated. And that is also very serious. And from that we also have to learn lessons, because Peronism is not only the main bourgeois opposition party. It also leads the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the largest union federation in the country. It is the central workers’ organization in Argentina, which has done nothing, absolutely nothing in all this time so that the workers can defend themselves against the government of Javier Milei. Why is that? Why do I point it out so emphatically, so strongly?
Because, as a result of social pressure, of social demands, it has had to call some isolated measure or other, even a strike. And every time they did so, the response was very good. The workers of our country stopped. They cannot blame the working class for their own cowardice, for their own complicity. The workers, the students, have come out to fight every time they were called. It is the political leaders of these traditional parties, of these bourgeois parties, who are giving Milei enormous time to advance with the plans of the most reactionary right wing.
And they told me not to make jokes, but there is one that I cannot avoid. Just one little one, let me have just one. Because the leader of the former governing party of Peronism, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her followers have a phrase that says, “Love conquers hate.” And at the marches of retirees every Wednesday in Argentina, which are very repressed, some posters appeared that say, “Love conquers hate, but a general strike is better.” So from the PTS we are much more convinced by that idea. With the PTS and the Frente de Izquierda, we think that love is very good, but the general strike is much better to defeat those who have an enormous hatred towards us, towards the working class, towards LGBTQ people. They hate us deeply, with a class hatred.
So, to defeat Milei, the plan of the International Monetary Fund, and the plans of the ruling classes, the general strike is much better. From the PTS we are very proud in our party of having confronted the extreme right from the first moment in Parliament and in the streets. We are the only political bloc that did not vote for any measure by Javier Milei, the only one. And that is our pride. This led to the president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament, who is part of Javier Milei’s forces, to say that the Frente de Izquierda is “only five deputies,” but we “look like 100,” because we go everywhere and we fight everywhere. And we go out to the streets with Nicolás del Caño, and with all our deputies to fight every day. But we also fight on the floor of the Congress, because if we are elected it is so that our seats are a point of support for the fights that take place outside, for the fights outside Parliament and not for the political careers of those who reach that place.
And our pride is also to have been in the resistance against Javier Milei from the first day, because the repression is very harsh. So, to go out to fight is to face repression. We have a comrade from CEPRODH, the Center of Professionals for Human Rights, which is the organization of lawyers that I am a member of in Argentina, who lost his sight in one eye as a result of the brutal repression. Many of us have suffered consequences in our eyes, in our respiratory system, injuries for participating in the mobilizations. But nothing will silence us, nothing will make us lose our commitment, particularly not those of us who are referents of our currents, of our parties.
If we are elected as referents, if we are elected as deputies, it is for us to be there, in the street. And that is what has made a great part of the population have a lot of respect for the Left and a lot of respect for our organization.
And now, let’s get to the second question, which is more complex. “Why don’t you all unite to confront the extreme right? Shouldn’t we leave differences aside and confront the extreme Right in all together, united?” That is what I have been told and they say it in France too. Well, you know what happens? In Argentina we have already seen that movie. In Argentina that has already happened. Everyone united against Macri’s right-wing government. Trade unionists, feminist leaders, governors of the Peronist right wing joined together. Those who call themselves left-wing Peronists and progressives joined too.
Do you know what happened? They governed and disenchanted the people, because they carried out the adjustment and austerity plans of the IMF. And Milei won. Milei won with that policy because Milei won by saying that they are all the same. There is no way out with those parties. And that is how they built that ultra-Right that today the working class of our country suffers under.
So don’t talk to us about a movie that we have already seen in Argentina. Do not tell us in other countries about a movie that we have already seen in Argentina, because it is a horror movie, it ends very badly. That “unity” that only aims at winning an election, without principles, without values, without deeply defending the interests of the working class, end up strengthening the right wing, because they are governments that do not break with the system, that do not break with capitalism, and end up producing a disenchantment that leads to the rise of these right-wings governments.
Perhaps our comrade Julia can say the same about Biden. Right? She’s going to say “I saw that with Biden.” He also said he was different from Trump, and then Trump came back, with Elon Musk and the whole reloaded ultra-Right.
So it’s an interesting debate, very interesting to be asked here because it is a debate that we like to have and we like to tell our experience because the conclusion is that there is no electoral alchemy, there is no electoral magic that avoids the struggle, that avoids the revolutionary organization, that avoids fighting in the streets, that avoids talking to hundreds and hundreds of comrades, to tell them that we have to organize and that we have to give a common fight.
This fight is in the unions, it is in the student centers, because it is the only way to defeat the ultra-Right, the Right, and all the enemies of the working class. That is why, from the perspective of our party, while we fight in Congress, we fight in the streets, we also give a lot of importance to the fact that we have a Marxist publishing house, the most important in the Spanish language, to spread our ideas that we have a network of newspapers that many of those who are here are part of, the network of La Izquierda Diario, because that allows us to fight for the consciousness of millions, allows us to fight for our ideas, allows us to sow that seed that makes us dream that the socialist revolution can be possible, and that we do not always have to think of being pressure groups of other projects.
It seems to me that all that we are doing is very important. And from our party I also want to point out, because it is one of the big discussions we are having now, that we are putting all our strength to build an organic force of the working class, to recover the unions from the hands of those bureaucratic leaderships that do not want to fight against Milei, just as before they did not want to confront the Peronist government when it was implementing austerity because nobody fights against their own government.
So we believe that it is a great moment, with all the energy that we have, to fight to win the student centers, to organize the student movement, to fight to recover the unions, because it is the only way we will be able to defeat the austerity plans, as you say, we call them the plans of the IMF and the ultra-Right, with all the bourgeoisie.
I want to read you a phrase that I know many will know, but it seems to me that it sums up much of what we think, and it would be good for us in this internationalist meeting for us to read something by Leon Trotsky. Right?
Dear friends, we are not a party like any other. We do not aspire only to have more members, more newspapers, more money, more deputies. All this is necessary, but it is only a means. Our aim is the total material and spiritual liberation of the workers and the exploited through the path of socialist revolution.
And that is what we are working for, that is what our internationalist fraction is working for, and that is what each one of our parties that make up our international fraction are working for. And that is why we are here as well, no? That is why we are here, because it is not enough to resist, it is not enough to resist. I also believe that many of us are clear about this, that it is not enough to resist the onslaught of the extreme Right. That is why we want to fight in the international arena.
Clearly some governments, as I was talking about with Milei, join the so-called “reactionary international,” with constant attacks, with very violent speech against workers, immigrants, women. They call us “zurdos,” or Zurda as I titled my book. Zurdos, leftists, communists, “Oh how can they be communists?” But it is not only the reactionary international that persecutes us. There is also the international of those who say they are democrats and promote war, rearmament, and austerity plans.
That is why we are in France, because here too there is persecution, although they want to pretend that they are different, they are democratic. The weapons of these wars kill just as much as the hunger they promote in these children, they kill just as much. We want things the other way around, to unite what they divide. We want to stand up for what they detest, what they hate — an International of the working class and of the oppressed peoples of the world, that reclaims the banners of the Fourth International.
And in virtue of that internationalism, we want to propose to all comrades, to all comrades of the countries represented here, to join us in a great international campaign against the International Monetary Fund. Argentina and all the oppressed countries suffer the presence of the International Monetary Fund, which has total veto power. You know what we can discuss in the Parliament of Argentina is then sent to the offices of the International Monetary Fund in the United States, and they decide whether this can be done or not, whether a pension can be increased or not, whether the Education budget can be increased or not. This is decided in the United States, by the IMF.
So, first of all, to the comrades from France, but also from all the countries present, we ask you to join us in a great campaign to say “get out!” to the IMF, “out!” to the Monetary Fund and to take up the campaign for the cancellation of the debt of Argentina and of all the oppressed countries in your hands. We need you to help us with that. Our country has no way out with the boot of the IMF on our necks. And today those loans from the IMF, those are the real mechanisms of domination that they use over countries like Argentina. So this is a request that I bring in virtue of this great internationalist event that we are building today.
Just to finish, as I was saying, to resist is not enough. I want to tell you something that my comrades from the PTS in the Frente de Izquierda say every time we have the opportunity. We take advantage of the spaces that are given to us for free, the few that are left in the electoral campaigns to say that we who are in every struggle, we who are in every fight. We do not hide that we are anti-capitalists, that we are socialists, that we believe that we really have to change this system from its roots. We say it openly. That is why they call us “zurdos,” that is why they attack us.
But we believe that it is a great flag to raise, and that all of us have to say it directly: Yes, we are anti-capitalists, we are socialists. We are communists and we want to transform this society from its roots. We want to fight for a new order, where the economy is not designed for the profit of a few multimillionaires who, under their tyranny, starve millions and take away the rights of the working class. We want a society where the whole economy can be planned according to social needs.
Take Argentina as an example. Argentina is a great food producer, but the population goes hungry, most of the children do not receive all their daily meals. In this capitalist world, 30 percent of the food produced worldwide is thrown away, food is thrown away. Well, we want to transform society from the root, because we are not going to accept that this is something natural and that we have to accept it as it is.
Another issue that we always take up, that we denounce, that we made a very big study of in Argentina, is the working day. We know that here in France some people work less hours, but that precarious work is also growing in France and all over the world. In Argentina, our economists of La Izquierda Diario made a study. They studied the 12,000 main companies. Only by reducing the work day in these 12,000 major companies to six hours. In Argentina, we have a working day of eight hours, five days a week. We could generate 1,200,000 jobs, with rights, with a living wage. 1,200,000 families that today do not have jobs or have precarious jobs, they could have access to that. But of course, nobody wants to do this, because dividing the working hours between employed and unemployed, between employed and precarious, implies affecting the interests of the capitalists.
That is why the force that we have to build has to be profoundly anti-capitalist, so that it is determined to attack those interests of the big multinationals, of the big businessmen who plunder our countries and plunder the working class.
That is why I want to tell you, to close, that they are not going to convince us that we have to bow our heads before the IMF, or that we can only resign ourselves to being pressure groups of other people’s projects, as I said before. Or that we can only choose between forms of savage capitalism or progressive neoliberalism, that these are the only options. Our struggle is revolutionary so that the young generations have a future, and can enjoy a life free of exploitation and all oppression.
Again, thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much for allowing us to dream that it is possible to unite in a great internationalist struggle and that this is the seed to stand up and raise high again the banners of the Fourth International. Long live Internationalism! Long live the working class! Long live this huge meeting we have had today! Thank you, thank you very much!