Geography Archives: France

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.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 2022 (IPS) – Most sub-Saharan African French colonies got formal independence in the 1960s. But their economies have progressed little, leaving most people in poverty, and generally worse off than in other post-colonial African economies. 

Staffed by NATO military officers and former government ministers and notorious for training the West’s top spies, the Department of War Studies at King’s College London is also providing the workforce for many of the largest social media companies. This includes Facebook, TikTok, Google, and Twitter. A MintPress study of professional databases and employment websites […]

Leaders and officials from Russia, France and the United States are vying for influence over the 1.3 billion people living within the African Union’s 55 member-states.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR. Colonial-style currency board arrangements have enabled continuing imperialist exploitation decades after the end of formal colonial rule. Such neo-colonial monetary systems persist despite modest reforms.