Socialist Appeal - International Marxist Tendency
Marxism. Socialism. Revolution.
At the end of last month, on 23rd September, Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (Rebellious France) organised a massive rally of over 100,000 in Paris against the austerity programme of the Macron government. Jérôme Métellus, editor of Révolution, outlines what the Left and the trade unions in France should do next in the struggle to bring down Macron.
Catalonia’s Independence Referendum on 1st October has opened up a major crisis of the regime in Spain. Hundreds of thousands occupied and defended polling stations in order to vote on the day. Those sights are now burnt into the consciousness of the Catalan people. On 3rd October, a national shutdown paralysed Catalonia with huge demonstrations against police repression.
Despite brutal police repression, hundreds of thousands fought with determination yesterday to vote in the referendum on Catalan independence. The real ugly face of the Spanish regime was clear to see. At the same time, Jorge Martin reports, the mass mobilisation and self-organisation of the Catalan people was also on display.
We publish here a statement by the International Marxist Tendency, along with a series of reports from Arturo Rodriguez in Barcelona about the rapidly developing mass movement for a Catalan independence referendum and against state repression.
A political earthquake is the best way we can describe the federal elections that took place in Germany on Sunday 24th September. For the first time ever in post-war history an extreme right-wing party has been elected to the Bundestag. At the same time, the parties that have formed the “Grand Coalition” - lead by Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2003 - have suffered historic defeats.