NO TO THE ESCALATION TO WAR! – No to the military budget in France!
On 13 July 2025, Emmanuel Macron addressed the armed forces, the enterprises, the territorial authorities and the population of France. That was to impose his take on the international situation and attune minds to the fact that our country, and the whole of Europe, are now supposedly in danger. The ‘danger’ here is a fabrication that places Russia central stage, labelled extreme threat’ and set to invade Europe before 2030 (&). This is the view that the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Thierry Burkhard, had developed two days earlier during a press conference, presumably to lend more credibility to this speech of the President of the Republic. It is on the basis of this reasoning therefore, that the country should be accelerating its rearmament, its arms sales, and the militarisation of its industrial-economic sectors – to proceed with finding the extra funds necessary to “let our armed forces defend our freedom”. To the detriment of the social needs and the environmental emergency, the defence budget will have to be increased, never mind the enormous public debt which reached €3,345 trillion (nearly 4 trillion) at the end of the first quarter of 2025. France’s President Emmanuel Macron (C) reviews the troops flanked by Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMA), Thierry Burkhard (2nd L) and France’s Chief of Military Staff of the President of the Republic (CEMP) Fabien Mandon (R) during commemorations marking the 106th anniversary of the November 11, 1918, Armistice, ending World War I (WWI), on the Place de l’Etoile, in Paris, on November 11, 2024. //04SIPA_POOL1844/Credit:Eliot Blondet-pool/SIPA/2411111538 The ‘defence of Ukraine’, and the forced march towards war Ukraine must be defended at all costs against Russia, since it has become a permanent threat on the borders of Europe. In the published decisions of the French government’ you read: “Never since 1945 has liberty been so threatened … the liberty of the peoples is being flouted by imperialisms and powers of annexation … freedom is being trampled when the rules of war are erased … the freedom of our Europe was threatened at the very moment when war was brought to our soil by the [Russian] invasion of Ukraine …” Here, the notion of liberty – the first of the three values of the French Republic enshrined in the Constitution – is utilised by the government for the sole objective of confrontation and war. Since contrary to the stated objective, the notions of equality and fraternity have become inexistent. This view of ‘the defence of liberties’ is a collective manipulation. But you find it in the discourse of all the capitalist powers, all in crisis, all looking for scapegoats to criminalise their political opponents. They invoke a so-called “clash of civilizations” allegedly acting against democracy, what they call democracy, to justify the measures they take, measures that lead to their violent clashes with the population. Capitalism introduces totalitarian and fascist-like policies as the only way it has to keep its grip on power. Defence has been the priority of the President of the Republic since his election in 2017. After weeks of debate in the National Assembly and Senate, the 2024-2030 military budget was finally adopted, to the tune of €413.3 billion. The amount going to the armed forces doubled since 2017. It is now set to rise incrementally in the next two years with an additional investment of €10 billion: €3.5 billion for 2026 and €6.5 billion for 2027. Macron calls for a “national effort on behalf of all the French“. Add to this the return to the National Military Service soon. A glimpse of this was already on offer during the SNU days (the Universal National Service); this is a civilian service offered to young people aged 15 to 17 “who wish to make a rich collective experience, useful to others, forging strong bonds, discovering a talent for civic engagement” – in government parlance. Macron is not the only one to accelerate rearmament and announce wartime economic plans. With its “ReArmEurope” program, the European Commission allocates €800 billion to the national industries of the 27 EU member states. This priority public investment will compensate for the present shortcomings in the weapons production capacity of the European countries. And it will give them a measure of independence from the world’s leading arms supplier, the United States. This investment must however cater also for the military support of Ukraine; as well as for the possible conflicts and threats, the new technologies, cyberspace and artificial intelligence. This leads to an explosion in weapons’ purchase plus military hardware more and more sophisticated. It is probable that the European Union will not be able to cover the costs of this rearmament. EU military spending on Ukraine went up from €204 billion in 2022 to €326 billion in 2024. But in the current economic climate, the capitalist countries see their deficits constantly on the rise. The EU had to modify its own rules to facilitate its increased spending and is now appealing to private funding. This is how a ‘defence fund’ has been set up for individuals, drawn from people’s savings, life insurance policies and long-term investments, among other things, and without always consulting the policyholders. NATO is the instrument for the war In his address to the Armed Forces, Emmanuel Macron announced his wish to “build the true European pillar of NATO”. The Hague Nato Summit of June 24 and 25 decided to raise the contribution of its 32 member-countries from 3.5% to 5% of GDP by 2035. For France, this increase means finding an additional €8 billion, while the need to make significant further savings is also being hammered home. With their support for Nato, the European countries of the Atlantic Alliance show their disposition to keep pushing ahead at all costs with war preparations against Russia. And not only Russia, but the other countries on NATO’s blacklist too: China, Iran, North Korea. The way NATO stands at the centre of Europe’s collective defence confirms that it has no aim of achieving peace. It cannot accept Ukraine’s defeat in the conflict with Russia. Nato’s
TACTICAL RETREATS: Why the Venezuela’s revolution still stands
Just as the false claims of betrayal made on 3 January are now easily disproved, so too are the claims of betrayal in the two months since. The Posadists Today agree wholeheartedly with the article below. Its analyses demonstrate with clarity and argumentation that the United States have not managed to change the Bolivarian revolutionary regime. Tactical Retreats, why the Venezuela’s revolution still stands, is an article written by Manolo De Los Santos, on 3.2.2026, exactly 2 months after the US kidnap of the presidential couple in Caracas. Posadists Today have drawn this article already translated into English from: https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/03/03/tactical-retreats-why-venezuelas-revolution-still-stands/ Here goes Manolo De Los Santos: The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandoned the Bolivarian project and socialist transformation, surrendering the country, its economy and its resources to US imperialism. In foreign relations, the Venezuelan leadership has abandoned its historic anti-imperialism. Taken together, these claims amount to a proclamation that regime change has succeeded in Venezuela. They are each false, reflecting an amateurish and superficial approach to politics, reactive “hot takes” rather than real analysis or investigation, which provides a left-wing echo of Trump’s own presentation. To understand Caracas’s current trajectory requires a sober appraisal of what took place on January 3, a close look at the facts of Venezuela’s financial and commercial situation, and an honest assessment of the international correlation of forces in which Venezuela operates. It requires understanding what has changed in this new situation. To sort through the complicated reality of the present, certain examples in the history of socialist states can serve as a guide. A close look at the facts will prove that what we are witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming force for which there are clear analogies in revolutionary history. The main claims that supposedly reveal “betrayal” are examined and refuted below, but before beginning, an important theoretical distinction must be drawn between government and state power. Government offices and ministries set and execute a range of policies, issue declarations, and so on, and temporarily change hands from “left” to “right.” The permanent institutions of state power (the military, the courts, and the police) represent the real power in any society. Almost all the leftist governments of the region have been elected to hold office in recent years, but they did not hold state power. Presiding over policy but with the same capitalist state in place (especially in the military), there is a clear limit to how much these governments can actually contest the capitalist order and transform social reality. The Bolivarian project likewise emerged as an electoral movement, with Chavez initially just holding government office, but with an important difference. Decades of US-funded coup attempts, internal struggles, and other crises have step by step led to the replacement of the forces loyal to the old order in the judiciary, police, and military with forces formed by and loyal to the Bolivarian Revolution. The United Socialist Party maintains its mission to advance working-class power and build socialism. The struggle may proceed in zig-zags, advances and retreats, based on the correlation of forces, but at every stage, the party works to preserve its gains and minimize its losses. This is important because Venezuela’s concessions are primarily being made at the level of government, not at the state and party level. Claim No. 1: The success of the US operation on January 3 indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. The so-called “evidence” No US service members died in the operation that abducted Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores. More than 150 US aircraft penetrated Venezuelan airspace without being shot down by the country’s advanced air defenses obtained from Russia. The “peaceful” extraction of Maduro and Flores could have only occurred due to “collaboration” from Maduro’s inner circle. There was no immediate military counter-escalation by the Venezuelans. The reality: Resistance in the face of overwhelming military superiority Much more is now known about the events of January 3 than was initially clear. Contrary to the narrative imposed by Western media and repeated mindlessly by some on the left, there was resistance. Testimony from survivors and statements from President Trump himself confirm that the presidential security detail, alongside Venezuelan military units and a contingent of Cuban internationalist fighters, engaged the attacking forces in a firefight. Thirty-two Cuban combatants fell alongside more than 50 Venezuelans in the security forces and presidential guard, who defended the president with their lives. First, US electronic warfare systems totally disabled the country’s air defenses and communications infrastructure. According to Venezuela’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, the US used Venezuela as a “laboratory” for weapons technologies never used before. Padrino is well-known as the military leader who consistently exposed US efforts to corrupt and bribe the military to turn on Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution, as well as prior US assassination attempts. He personified the country’s “military-civic union” that blocked years of regime change efforts under the banner of “always loyal, traitors never.” An official Venezuelan account of January 3 still has not been released, given that the country remains militarily surrounded (more on that later). But unofficial reports from witnesses and survivors back up Padrino’s comments. They recount