"We, the youth in Greece, are taking up the torch from France and strengthening our own struggles"

On Sunday 18 October, Thodoris Kotsantis spoke at an event organized by the Organizations of the KKE and KNE in France, under the title “We, the youth in Greece, are taking up the torch from France and strengthening our own struggles”.

In his speech, Thodoris Kotsantis expressed the solidarity of the KKE and KNE with the magnificent mobilizations of young people and workers in France. He also spoke about the mobilizations of the workers’–people’s movement in Greece, beginning with the nationwide education rallies on Wednesday 21 October, under the central slogan “From Greece to France, we fight for public and free education”.

He also referred to political developments in Greece and called for decisive rallying alongside the KKE in the political battles ahead.

Among other things, he stated:

“We are meeting at a very important time, as France is witnessing the largest mobilizations in recent years, with the mass participation of school students, university students and workers.

Yesterday, here in Paris, we demonstrated alongside hundreds of thousands of young people and workers, expressing the support of the KKE and KNE for their struggles. Members and friends of the KKE and KNE also participated in demonstrations in many other cities across France, while the two MEPs of the KKE took part in an earlier mobilization in Strasbourg.

On Wednesday 21 October, nationwide education rallies are being organized throughout Greece under the central slogan ‘From Greece to France, we fight for public and free education’.

We therefore stand, in every possible way, alongside the school and university students who are struggling, as well as teachers, parents and other workers, together with their trade unions, who are escalating their mobilizations.

Because we believe in the strength of proletarian internationalism and in strengthening international solidarity and cooperation with workers and young people throughout the world.

Because the problems are common to all the countries of the EU of the war economy and war preparations, soaring energy prices and class barriers.

Because the demands against the deplorable situation, the enormous shortages and the cuts in education, for everyone's right to a modern education — for ‘Education for all’ — are just.

Because what drives French youth onto the streets is insecurity about the present and the future, the certainty that the younger generation will live worse lives than previous generations unless the vicious circle of capitalist exploitation and wars is broken. Young people throughout Europe share the same concerns and dreams.

That is why, during yesterday's march, we felt part of this great struggle. We saw clear, determined gazes and raised fists, undeterred by repression and tear gas.

School students full of militant optimism and determination, carrying handmade placards with imaginative slogans, as well as flags of Palestine and flags bearing the image of Che Guevara.

We were deeply moved to hear thousands of young people singing The Internationale, the anthem of proletarians throughout the world, of the heroic Communards, of the Bolshevik revolutionaries, the anthem of tomorrow's victorious socialist revolutions!

These are the images that the bourgeois media in France and Greece chose to bury, focusing instead on incidents of violence and placing the blame on the demonstrators, at a time when the Macron government is resorting to mass arrests and brutal repression, resulting in serious injuries, including a school student suffering an amputation injury to his hand caused by a stun grenade!

(...)

The struggles in France offer valuable lessons for our own struggles in Greece.

They provide a resounding answer to the Greek government and the other parties of the system, which call on us to ‘become Europe’, while in France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and Germany, the peoples are rising up against the consequences of EU policy.

Because in the EU, 92.7 million people, 21% of the population, are at risk of poverty. Because 50% of young people aged 18–34 either still live in their childhood bedrooms or depend on financial support from their parents. Because 50 million people will have to choose between going hungry and freezing in the coming winter, while school students in France are demonstrating because, as they say, ‘we are tired of wearing coats in the classroom because it is so cold’.

This is the European ‘normality’ that New Democracy, PASOK, Tsipras and the rest call on us to accept!

The mobilizations also provide a resounding answer to those who peddle the myth of the ‘Greece–France alliance’ and assure us that the Greek people have found their protector in the French government — the very government that brutally beats the children of the French people themselves and condemns them to a lack of education, poverty and insecurity.

Another conclusion, which is also useful for today's struggles, is that university students and young people do not constitute a separate class with common objective interests.

Their different class origins and, above all, their different class prospects are the decisive factors. The risk of unemployment, job insecurity and the prospect of future proletarianization for many of them have played a role in the developments, the ideological struggle and the radicalization of the university student movement.

It has been demonstrated once again that the decisive issue is the substantial alignment of the university student movement with the class-oriented labour movement, against the policy and power of the bourgeoisie.

The mobilizations also highlight the need for the education of children from working-class and popular families to become a cause of the joint struggle of parents, teachers and workers as a whole.

The support shown by teachers and parents is a hopeful sign. Acting in an organized manner, they formed a protective barrier against state repression, creating chains of solidarity outside schools under the slogan ‘Hands off our students!’

(...)

Under these conditions of major mass mobilizations and historic turning points, the regroupment of the communist movement in France becomes even more pressing and necessary, with a revolutionary Communist Party, strong within the working class and its allied strata, capable of orienting and leading the struggles.

This is the necessary precondition for the working class not to fight under someone else's banner, not to become an appendage to bourgeois objectives, but to assume its vanguard role, lead the anti-capitalist struggle and the social alliance, and strengthen its independent action for the overthrow of bourgeois power.”

He concluded his speech by saying:

“We know that it takes a great deal of work to make the sun turn. But we also know that the darkest hour comes just before dawn.

And so, in these dark times, the mobilizations in France have brought a ray of light. Likewise, in Greece, conditions are developing for anger and discontent over anti-people policy to find expression in militant struggle and in an even stronger rallying alongside the KKE.

We are now devoting all our efforts to the success of the nationwide education rallies on 21 October, which have the potential to draw very large numbers of participants, thanks to the decisive action of the members and friends of KNE, the mounting problems and the impact of the mobilizations throughout Europe.

We are spreading the message of the international dockworkers' strike on 30 October far and wide.

We are preparing to bring the various struggles together into a unified nationwide movement, which can find expression in the nationwide general strike on 25 November.

Because when the people make their voices heard in the streets, cities of light are born everywhere.”

A representative of the Union of Communist Youth and the Communist Revolutionary Party of France also delivered a greeting at the event.