Geography Archives: France

During the May 2023 Group of Seven (G7) summit, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, near where the meeting was held.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement in China about developing “strategic autonomy” from the United States is empty posturing intended for the domestic French market.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron told Xi Jinping that he opposes the U.S. war drive against China and wants an independent Europe with “strategic autonomy”. But he has made comments like this before, and failed to challenge Washington’s hegemony.

As workers prepare for a long drawn struggle, John Mullen argues now is the time to call for a general strike.

The president of China, Xi Jinping, commented to his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that all parties involved in the conflict in Ukraine “must assume their responsibilities” and “create the conditions” for a political solution and avoid escalation.

“The Party Is Ending for French Retirees.” That’s the headline the Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) went with just days before French President Emmanuel Macron invoked a special article of the constitution to bypass the National Assembly and enshrine an increase in the retirement age in national law.

John Mullen writes from Paris on the background to the current strikes and the very different patterns of union organisation in France.

Since January, more-or-less weekly mass labor mobilizations have continued against a new law that would increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, even after it was rammed through without a vote on March 16.

The recent massive demonstrations against the Macron administration in France forcing through so-called pension reforms reveals the determined attempts of pro-capitalist governments in all the major economies to cut real wages when we are old and can no longer work.

March 23 was a national day of action, a general strike, organized by the labor unions in France. 

On the Threshold of an Uprising?

Videos circulated all over the internet of the brutality that occured between demonstrators and riot police.

French truckers obstruct major roadways in protest against the wildly unpopular pension reform.

Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who leads the Burkinabé government, came to power through a coup d’état in September 2022. He ousted Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had himself come to power through a coup in January 2022. Neither of these coups was a surprise.

Protesters stage a fourth round of nationwide demonstrations on Saturday against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to reform the country’s pension system.

Workers walked out on the second day of industrial action against President Emmanuel Macron’s scheme to raise the French retirement age by two years to 64.

The Macron-led government is making a new bid to push controversial pension reforms, calling to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.

On 21 November 2022, Mali’s interim prime minister, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, issued a statement on social media announcing the government’s decision ‘to ban, with immediate effect, all activities carried out by [French] NGOs operating in Mali’.

Western media fixates on coup supporters waving Russian flags in Burkina Faso’s capital while overlooking the long history of U.S. and French control over the country–and its destabilizing consequences.

French union groups call for a nationwide transport strike as disruptions continue amid fuel shortages and soaring prices.