The New Dark Age

Tuesday, 10 November 2026 — Radhika Desai

Transcript

Radhika Desai: Hello and welcome to another Geopolitical Economy Hour, the socialist and anti-imperialist conversation that illuminates the fast-changing political economy and geopolitical economy of our times. You’re watching Radhika Desai, Geopolitical Economist, and I’m Radhika Desai. Today we want to discuss the mounting protests in France and, by extension, in the rest of Europe. What is their origin, and what in particular is their potential for radical change in a continent that seems to be logjammed into the current political situation? And to do so, I’m joined by a new guest. Aymeric Monville is a French essayist and political philosopher. He’s the author of many books, including four that have been translated into English. One of them is called Requiem for French Theory, which Aymeric co-authored with the well-known Gabriel Rockhill, and The Poverty of Left Nietzscheanism. Aymeric also used to be a publisher with the publishing house Delga, a Marxist-Leninist publishing house. So welcome, Aymeric. It’s great to have you here.

Aymeric Monville: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Radhika.

Radhika Desai: So, Aymeric, we decided to have this discussion today, on the weekend, because of course on Thursday you were at these huge protests, which included many trade unions. There was a big general strike. Of course, there was the usual contingent of young people and students and so on, but also workers, political parties, etc. And of course, the protests in France have been going on for months already. President Macron seems to be unable to control them. They are making him look more and more powerless and essentially impotent. So there is so much to talk about in this sphere, but let’s just begin with the utterly, utterly subjective. Say something about what happened on Thursday. What did you experience, what did you notice, and what did you take away?

Aymeric Monville: It’s absolutely huge with respect to the size of the population in France. It’s 1.6 million. And I think in my youth, we used to say in France that when a demonstration reaches 1 million, the government must go away. Now, of course, they don’t respect this non-official rule, because politically things have changed. Of course, the record was 68, where almost 10 million people took to the streets. It was the biggest strike, and it lasted a month. It was enormous, but I think it was in another context. For France, this is exceptional, and it is the apex of this movement. I think it will continue, because it’s very, very large. It’s not yet a general strike, but it will transform itself into a general strike. A lot of sectors, private and public, have come out to strike. You know, it started with a revolt of the high school students, and then they were helped by their teachers, and all the teachers and professors went to the streets. And then the major red union, the CGT, called for these strikes. Eight unions called for the strike on Thursday. So it was enormous. It was on a working day. And I think it won’t stop, because the contradictions are too high in France, and of course there is this tradition of protest which goes on in my country.

Radhika Desai: So, I mean, what was the scene like? Where were you, and what did you, as I say, see or experience?

Aymeric Monville: I was on the Place de la République, which is famous because a lot of demonstrations go from there to other places. And it was very difficult just to move at the beginning, because there were too many of us. You could see all these people from a helicopter view. It was enormous. And just entering Paris from the west, at a train station, because I live very near Paris, I knew already that it was enormous, because we were completely blocked at various places in Paris. You know, they tried something on October the 17th. A lot of the TV shows spoke about France, about all these fires, all these kinds of protests, and all these kinds of lootings. But I think it was a kind of provocation by the government, because their strategy at the beginning was to reduce the number of policemen in order to let the looters completely discredit the movement. That was the trick, or it was incompetence. Of course, we cannot discard incompetence. But now it’s impossible, since the movement is going on. They cannot reduce the number of policemen, because of course they will have a backlash if they do it. But on October the 17th, when it shifted from a demonstration of high school students to a demonstration of all the workers in France, they didn’t expect that, or, in order to crack down on it, they put only 10,000 policemen in all of France. And just in comparison, at one of the biggest demonstrations of the Yellow Vests in 2018, there were 19,000 policemen in the streets. In my opinion, they did it on purpose, in order to discredit the movement. And so you saw a lot of lootings, which is normal when there is no protection. These things can happen. I’m very sorry for the people who have their little shops, I know it, but it has nothing to do with the demands of the workers. They thought they could completely nip all the demonstrations in the bud with this trick. But it didn’t work.

Radhika Desai: But it didn’t work.

Aymeric Monville: Yeah, it didn’t work. And now we have this huge interprofessional strike, and 1.6 million. I think it changed everything, and it opens a new window. I think it’s part of the desperation of the French, because when we see the polls, we could expect that the far right could come to power for the first time in French history with the elections. And especially the youth cannot stand it.

Radhika Desai: I want to come to that. And I just want to clarify for our viewers that when you say interprofessional, what you mean is that the CGT, which is the General Confederation of Labour in France, was there, and that means that all the federated trade unions were there, different types of workers were represented, and so on. Let me then take this further, and let’s start the analysis. You said earlier that the contradictions are becoming more acute. And so what exactly do you feel are the contradictions to which these protests are a response?

Aymeric Monville: Yeah, I think in France it’s a bit strange, because we have lost one half of the jobs in industry. Industry in France has completely collapsed because of the Maastricht treaties, because of integration within Europe. And with respect to Germany, we completely lost our advantage from an industrial point of view, and there’s a lot of despair about it. I think it’s because France is entangled in these treaties, with the euro, with Germany, and that’s a part of the problem. But another problem was Macron himself, who was a very neoliberal president. Today there is a very good article published in La Tribune, which is an economic newspaper, very professional, which says that all the gifts he has given to the people who own the factories amount to 1 trillion euros. And you know that the debt he has made is a bit more than 1 trillion euros. They were all gifts to them. And it explains a lot about why they are doing a kind of blackmail with the debt in France, saying that there is no solution to pay the debt other than to tighten our belts.

Radhika Desai: To have austerity, yeah.

Aymeric Monville: To have austerity, exactly. But when you see, for instance, the savings in France, it’s 600% of the GDP of France. And in comparison, in the 70s, and it’s Thomas Piketty with all the figures, I know he’s well known abroad, in the 70s it was 300%. And the 500 wealthiest families in France have seen their wealth multiplied by five in 10 years, the whole period of Macron. They made a lot of money. I think paying the debt is not the problem. The problem is fiscal, it’s taxation, who will be taxed. And there we come to a class struggle, a typical class struggle problem. It’s not the decay of France. It’s a class struggle problem.

Radhika Desai: Exactly. So what you’re saying is that the government is trying to say, we have no choice but to cut social services, to impose austerity, because we need to pay down the debt. And what you’re saying is that people have estimated that savings in France amount to 600% of GDP, and that the ownership of these savings is skewed in favour of the exceedingly rich. So the solution is obvious. Tax the rich, and you will be able to solve the problems, and the government refuses to do that. And there’s one other thing, which is that on the one hand, they want to impose austerity as far as social services are concerned. On the other hand, Macron, like all the other European leaders, is committed to increasing defence expenditure. For what? I mean, what do these protests make of the wars, particularly, of course, the war in Ukraine? But please also comment on how they see the three important wars that are affecting the world today, the one in Ukraine, the one against Iran, and of course Palestine, Gaza.

Aymeric Monville: It’s true that that’s the major contradiction of France. Historically, it is a revolutionary country, and it is an imperialist country as well. And that was the contradiction within the French Revolution, because at the end of the day, it was Napoleon who created an empire, what Hegel called the abstract universalism of the French. That’s a major drawback of all these events, but it’s always intertwined, it’s overlapped. And of course, we have all these traditions. But it’s true that it’s part of the problem, because the budget for war in France, for defence, for the military, has been doubled by Macron in order to support Ukraine. They don’t have any money for the high schools, and you know, there is water coming through the roofs of the high schools.

Radhika Desai: The schools are leaking, the roofs of the schools are leaking, yes.

Aymeric Monville: Leaking, exactly. But they have a lot of money to support this completely silly war, in which a lot of Russians and Ukrainians have been dying for five years. It’s completely, completely silly. And with the integration of Europe, France is coming to sell its military power to Germany, its place on the UN Security Council. So it’s part of the blackmail with Germany. They have impoverished France with respect to Germany, because I think 30 years ago we were equals from an economic point of view. But now, with this gap, this yawning gap between France and Germany, France is compelled to sell its advantage, which is the advantage of the end of the war in 1945. That was due to de Gaulle and to the communist resistance in France, because there were a lot of people who were armed in France, with this capacity to resist. So they created a mixed economy in France, because the US feared the Red Army. So it’s still an imperialist country, but we had a lot of little socialist elements, for instance a welfare state, a kind of welfare state.

Radhika Desai: A state-directed, planned economy, a dirigiste economy, as the French word goes, but we use it in English all the time. Yep.

Aymeric Monville: Yeah, it’s true. And it explains a lot about why we have lots of savings. I was recently in the US, and when I spoke with a lot of people, okay, their salaries, their wages are higher than in France, but there are lots of things to pay for. They pay for the pension, for health, for everything. They are obliged to pay for everything. In France, that’s not the case. When I was young, when we went to the public system in France, it was perfect. You didn’t have to pay, and it was excellent. And when you were obliged to go to private school, it meant that you had bad marks and it was difficult for you, so the parents helped you.

Radhika Desai: Private schools for the rich kids who didn’t do well.

Aymeric Monville: Yeah, exactly. But now that seems to be changing, because what they want is to privatize. You know, there’s a lot of wealth in all these public services, it’s enormous, and there are a lot of people who want to snatch it, to snatch the wealth that is within it. And that’s why with Macron we have all these reforms. It started with the high school students. It was not by chance. I think it was very rational, very sensitive, because they completely destroyed it. What they want is to privatize the public status of education. And as a result, before Macron, we had one student in five in the private sector, and today it’s one student in four. So, well done.

Radhika Desai: Yeah.

Aymeric Monville: That was done on purpose. They want to destroy this public service. They don’t have the sense of the state. And you know, that is a particularity of France, because it’s completely different from England and the other Anglo-Saxon countries. We used to say in France that it’s not the nation that created the state, it’s the state that created the nation. There’s a sense of administration which is enormous. Whether you are on the right or the left, people like public services. They want to have this sense of administration. It’s another particularity of France, which creates another contradiction within this global capitalism, of course.

Radhika Desai: So in that sense, there is this additional obstacle to accepting neoliberalism in France, because people have historically demanded and expected an essentially prominent role for the state in running the economy. I just want to pick up on something else in terms of the economic analysis, maybe two things, before we go further and look at the character of the political resistance that is emerging. The wars that I was asking about. Why do you think that the Macron government, like all the other European governments, is so committed to the Ukraine war? I mean, what is the interest that they are serving by pushing for this war, even though it has had such catastrophic effects on the European economy? From your point of view as an activist in France, how do you explain that? Different people have scratched their heads, but I want to know especially from you. And then the associated question to me is, you said that France has been deindustrialized quite systematically, and this seemed to have particularly to do with the destruction of a lot of medium-sized companies rather than the big companies. Because it seems to me that the European Union as a structure has always been the enforcer of neoliberalism among the member countries, and key to enforcing neoliberalism is to promote a small number of big corporations, even as that devastates medium and small capital.

Aymeric Monville: Exactly. It’s true that France has this social history, but with respect to Germany, we have a lack of information concerning Russia. If I can compare, I used to live for one year in Berlin. There are a lot of people who lived in the GDR who speak Russian, and you cannot tell them anything about Russia. They knew perfectly well during the events in Maidan in 2014 that there were a lot of people who were paid to demonstrate. They knew the East. In Germany, for instance, with the war in Yugoslavia, there were a lot of people coming from Yugoslavia, from Serbia, so it was impossible to have this scapegoat affair. But France is very far away from Russia and from Serbia, and they can tell us anything. That’s a bit strange, because in the past we had this alliance of France with Russia against Germany. From a strategic point of view, it was normal. And you know that the civilizations were very close. When you read the Russian novels, there are a lot of people speaking French. There were a lot of teachers who went after Napoleon and stayed in Russia. So there were links between the French and the Russians. But they have cut them since we became very much part of the West, and so they have managed to create an anti-Russian feeling, and what is very sad, even among the left. And so when you don’t have this communist culture that I have as a Frenchman, because I studied Russian when I was young, when you don’t have access to Russian culture, you are subject to all kinds of propaganda that is absolutely terrible. It’s Russophobia everywhere. And what is strange is that there is a French left, but it is very anti-Russian. In Germany, maybe there could be less anti-Russian feeling. The problem is there’s not a strong left.

Radhika Desai: Such an interesting contrast, yes.

Aymeric Monville: And the problem is, for instance, the Social Democrats held their primaries, and they elected a guy, Raphaël Glucksmann, who began his career doing the dirty tricks of the US State Department. For instance, he was employed in Georgia to support Saakashvili. And first it was Thatcherism, neoliberalism. Now he’s completely advocating a lot of policy against China, speaking about the so-called genocide in Xinjiang, etc. That’s the man we have to represent the Social Democrats in France. But the good thing with the demonstrations now is that this man is incapable of surviving in a demonstration, because people are so angry at him. We saw on television that he was compelled to flee in his car with an escort of policemen. So it tells a lot, and in my opinion it could change a lot. But I think even Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not so good when it comes to Russia. That’s the problem. He was a former Social Democrat, and for instance, he voted for Maastricht, and he was a senator and a minister under Mitterrand, the social democracy that completely betrayed the left in France during the 80s and 90s. I’m very optimistic when it comes to the workers’ movement in France. I think it’s huge, but it’s only the beginning. And of course, we have La France Insoumise, which is a very strong party, and it’s a good thing, because of course we must vote for it instead of the National Rally, which is completely far right, which submits to what the bosses say in France. It’s completely pro-capitalist and a very racist party. We have to support La France Insoumise. But this kind of party is very liquid. Their way of doing politics is very vague, very obscure. Their leadership is not really elected. They control a lot of things, and at the grassroots it’s a bit haphazard. Everyone does what he wants. So I hope that the far right won’t come to power, but if they are in power, LFI will be the first opposition party, which is good. But then the really difficult things will appear. And of course, all these contradictions. I think this anti-Russian feeling in France is completely ridiculous. It’s the lack of Russian culture, and I think a bit of communist culture, because the social democrats don’t have the culture that we have concerning Russia, and China as well.

Radhika Desai: Yeah. So what you’re saying is that you see the current protests as a kind of process through which, and this is what you’re anticipating, certainly what you’re hoping, and you think it’s a distinct possibility, left forces will reconstitute themselves. Yes, La France Insoumise will remain important, but it has flaws, and you see them as flaws that may be corrected going forward. Yes, that’s really very interesting. So you pointed out that Mélenchon is not great on Russia and the Ukraine war and so on. Well, what about the other wars? Where does La France Insoumise stand on Iran, on Gaza, etc.?

Aymeric Monville: On Gaza, they were very, very bold, very courageous, and all the corporate media in France attacked them all the time, saying that they were antisemites, which of course is a lie, a blatant lie. But it’s always like that. In the previous elections, they were always speaking of Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela. So yes, on this position they’re quite good. On Iran, no, I think there’s no problem. I think it’s this anti-Russian feeling that doesn’t help a lot. And then the French Communist Party. In my opinion, the organization of the Communist Party is always better, because it is an organization, it is a Leninist organization, and so it’s always stronger. Of course I regret it, but the French Communist Party right now is only a shadow of itself, and at certain moments the French Communist Party even voted for the war credits of NATO in Ukraine, which in my opinion is a shame, an absolute shame, because the communists in France and all over the world were always against these bloody imperialist wars, beginning with the First World War. But I know it will change. There are a lot of parties near the French Communist Party trying to redress it, to reshape it, and to refound it. And I think that what we need is a very Leninist, Marxist-Leninist voice in France. I think it will be more serious in putting pressure on La France Insoumise. I understand that they have this very liquid discourse, as I said. Maybe it’s because opinion in France is like that. It’s difficult to mobilize a lot of people. But I think serious things will begin next year, when the far right will be in power. And there’s a thing I didn’t mention, which is the problem of the police in France. Since the Yellow Vests, the repression was so heavy that the way the police is organized in France has completely changed. They are more and more brutal, and they use weapons that are considered weapons of war. For instance, during the Yellow Vests, more than 100 people lost their eyes because policemen were shooting at the heads of the demonstrators, which is completely forbidden. It was a way of deterring people, of forbidding demonstrations. And Macron recently chose to forbid the Yellow Vest demonstrations. And the far right completely disapproved of the Yellow Vests. At the beginning it was a bit strange, because the Yellow Vests were a spontaneous initiative. It started from scratch, you know, and there were people from the left and from the right. But now the far right has completely chosen its camp, which is the camp of the bosses in France. So it’s interesting to have these connections between the movements, between the Yellow Vests, the unions, the youth. I think it’s something that is being created. And what is good is that the far right will be discredited, because they are completely alien to this movement. And that’s a good thing, because France is historically a left country, a revolutionary country, so the changes will move like that. We won’t have a passive revolution, as Gramsci said of Italy or America, for instance.

Radhika Desai: You won’t have that in France. Yeah, that’s very interesting. But did I hear you just say that you expect that next year, when there are elections in France, the far right will win? Is that what you were saying?

Aymeric Monville: Yes, unfortunately, all the polls say that. But you know what we say in France. We have two rounds in the presidential election in France, and we say that the third round has already begun, because it’s so unbearable. You know that even during the 30s, when all of Europe was becoming fascist, with a lot of fascist coups, France resisted and made the Popular Front. And the far right could only come to power with the help of the occupying forces of Germany. So in the consciousness of the people, it’s linked with the party of a foreign occupation, of the German occupation. And you must know that this National Rally was called the National Front, and it was founded by people from the far right, including people who were members of the Waffen-SS, French members of the Waffen-SS during the war, who were fighting on the Eastern Front. You can imagine. And now they think they are very normal because they wear a tie and they speak politely. And there was a scandal with the president of this party. A newspaper in France obtained some emails from him which prove that he’s completely antisemitic. I don’t mean antisemitic in the sense of the corporate media when you speak about Palestine. I mean in the real sense, like in the Dreyfus affair, a hatred against the Jews, saying that the Jews are controlling everything. That’s this kind of fascist, who has now been re-elected, and all the members voted for him. And you know, in France, during the Dreyfus affair, there was a terrible history of antisemitism which had nothing to envy Germany. But I think we are on the verge of a real clash between these two Frances, and I think it will start next year.

Radhika Desai: That’s exactly so.

Aymeric Monville: I’m optimistic. I’m optimistic.

Radhika Desai: Yeah, no, totally, totally. I now understand what you’re saying, because what you’re saying is that, yes, it is likely that there will be a far right government in France, but that will only be the beginning of a long process in which the left will become more organized, and so on.

Aymeric Monville: Yes. There’s one thing from an institutional point of view that has to be understood from abroad, which is more difficult, and which creates another contradiction, and that is the institutions of the Fifth Republic. You know, it was made during the Algerian War, and France at that moment was on the verge of civil war, I think not only in Algeria but in metropolitan France as well, because this war lasted and lasted. And General de Gaulle was called in to prolong the war, to win the war, and he understood that it was impossible. And that was the problem. Oil had been discovered in Algeria, etc. So it was a major crisis, and they completely changed the constitution, and that’s the Fifth Republic. And it’s something that is very difficult to make Anglo-Saxon people understand when I speak with them, that the French president has much more power in his framework, in his country, than the American president, for instance. Something like impeachment is not possible. In the Fifth Republic you have Article 16. It’s a button. You press this button, it’s fascism. The president can have all the powers in case of emergency. It’s a very Bonapartist, Caesarist regime. And that’s part of the contradictions, because when Macron had all these Yellow Vests all over France, it was very ancien régime. That’s a part of the history of France, a king and his people completely against him, in front of him. But there were no institutional means that could have smoothed things. They couldn’t smooth things. It was impossible at that moment. I don’t know what will happen if Marine Le Pen is president, with all these possibilities, with this new doctrine of the police. But I think one of the main reasons why it succeeded is because high school students were taken onto the streets, and their parents were completely afraid, because the police dare to shoot people in the eyes. They were afraid for their children. The teachers wanted to protect them, and then the parents wanted to protect them. It was absolutely natural. And of course there is this tradition in France on the 1st of May, when families come to demonstrations. It’s something very, very normal. But when they cannot do it in a normal way, with all this fear of the police, it creates anger, and that’s why people are demonstrating at a very high level in France today.

Radhika Desai: So just to explain to our viewers, what you are anticipating is that when there are elections, there will be a right-wing government, and then it will be resisted by this gathering force, because this force is not going anywhere. But how about a simpler scenario? Why don’t you think it’s possible, between now and the election, for there to be greater support for parties of the left, and for there to be a left government instead? Is it that the forces of the right are way too entrenched?

Aymeric Monville: It’s true that you cannot discard this possibility. I think we have to wait six months. In six months, the situation can completely change. Some people even think that Macron could stay in power, like the Ukrainian president, just by pressing this button which I mentioned before. All is possible, because it’s completely complex. I think one thing we have to understand is that France is supposed to be very good on social topics, but it’s completely bad because it’s an old imperialist country. We have to understand that. We need TV shows like yours, Radhika, because you place all the contradictions in a global point of view. And we are suffering from this. A people that is imperial must liberate themselves from this imperialism as well. When we are supporting these fascists in Ukraine, our people are starving. So we have to understand all these connections, it’s something we have to work on. And maybe if we understand all these global struggles, I think we will succeed. That’s why I’m very happy to speak about it in English. We have to learn from each other.

Radhika Desai: Of course. I mean, I think this is very much for the rest of the world to understand what’s going on in France. But here’s another question. What is the left’s attitude, La France Insoumise and also the workers’ movement and the young people, the students, etc.? What do they make of the European Union? I mean, what is the critique of the European Union that’s emerging? Because on the one hand, you already have the anti-EU, or at least supposedly anti-EU, policies of the Rassemblement National and Marine Le Pen and so on. But of course, Meloni softened her views very considerably after coming to power. So what do you think is going to happen vis-à-vis the EU in the coming months?

Aymeric Monville: In 2005, the French people rejected the EU constitution, but the parliament voted against the people.

Radhika Desai: Correct.

Aymeric Monville: And you know that we are in a very Bonapartist republic, and the trick of the Bonapartists is to organize referendums. I choose the question I will ask, and you have to answer. But since then, they haven’t dared to ask us for a referendum. There are no more referendums. From the end of the war until 2005, there were 13 referendums. Now, none since 2005. So that’s part of the problem. The European Union is completely rejected. And it’s a big difference from Italy and Germany. I think in Italy, people are much more, well, it’s a country that doesn’t have this long construction of the state like France. It’s a recent state, like Italy, so they think that a lot of good things can come from Europe. In France, we are used to doing things by ourselves. And from a political point of view, we have a lot of sovereignty, and sovereignty is a concept of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It’s part of our constitution. They want to say that it is a far right concept. Absolutely not. It’s the independence of the nation. So from this point of view, when they ask people about the European Union, it’s a rejection. But they don’t ask. And there’s Moscovici, Pierre Moscovici, who was a European Union commissioner, who came from the Socialist Party, which, as you know, in France is the party of people who reject socialism, who are against socialism, the social democrats. And Moscovici said that the European Union was made on purpose to avoid socialism.

Radhika Desai: Yes.

Aymeric Monville: Because all the chancellors, all the governments know that France is a special country that has to be entangled within the European Union because of its socialist history, of course. When you study Marx, you see there are three influences on Marx, German idealism, English political economy and French socialism. So it exists, it is there, and it could have consequences. But of course, it has nothing to do with xenophobia. Just to give you an example as a Frenchman, it’s impossible to buy decent German beer, because we don’t have decent beers in France, and in Germany it’s impossible to buy decent French wine. So this kind of construction doesn’t work. When I was young, a lot of people studied German, which is very good, but now only a quarter of them do it. It’s English everywhere. It’s Europe in English, and since Brexit, so it’s completely, completely silly. It’s not about friendship between the Germans and the French. Of course, we needed that after two world wars and the Franco-Prussian War. It could be a good thing. But they’re dividing people with all these discrepancies between the economies, with the help of the euro. It’s something very, very terrible. But I think France could, like the Chinese, control its currency, have sovereignty over the currency, sovereignty over the direction of the economy, how to recreate, how to refinance the economy, like they did at the end of the war, a controlled economy, in order to have some prospects, to have investment. It’s something that we need in France. And France is a wealthy country. With this blackmail of the debt, they want to say that we are becoming completely poor and in despair. It’s not the case. There’s a lot of wealth, and the GDP is enormous compared to the past.

Radhika Desai: You know, there have been instances in the history of the European Union, or what is today the European Union, where, I mean, many, many decades ago, Ernest Mandel wrote a book called Europe Versus America, in which he argued that the project of the EEC, as it was then, was actually pitted against the United States, creating a countervailing power to that of the United States. There was, of course, under Jacques Delors, all this talk about a kind of social Europe and so on. But this has always been undermined in favour of neoliberal Europe, so that the Europe you have finally got is this type of neoliberal Europe. And of course, as neoliberal Europe, it’s not worth keeping. But if you could transform it into something else, a larger collective European project to plan a European economy, a socialist European economy, that would be quite interesting. But clearly you don’t think it’s going to happen tomorrow.

Aymeric Monville: No, no, no, absolutely not. Why especially Europe? Because I think, as a Frenchman, I have much more in common with an Algerian, for instance, from a historical point of view, from the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. And of course, I am an internationalist. We have to create a lot of links with Cuba, with Venezuela, with all the countries. But this integration of Europe, in France, reminds us of the speeches of Adolf Hitler during the occupation of France. He said, you have to be under the German boot, but we will create a Europe.

Radhika Desai: Interesting.

Aymeric Monville: It’s impossible to obey this. And it’s true that one of the founding fathers of Europe was Jean Monnet, and Jean Monnet was the man of the Americans, like I said about Raphaël Glucksmann today. Jean Monnet was the same kind of guy, the founding father of Europe. And he played against de Gaulle during the war, because, you know, in France the Americans wanted to negotiate only with the Vichy collaborationist government, because it would be more subservient to the US after the war. So all the forces of the resistance in France, I mean the Gaullists and the communists, always rejected the building of the EU.

Radhika Desai: Interesting. Yes.

Aymeric Monville: And the problem is that during the 80s, the far right movements, for demagogic purposes, voted against the treaties and campaigned against Maastricht. And on this ground, a lot of people said that it was far right to reject Europe. But it has nothing to do with that. It’s only about the independence of France. And something that must be added is that, of course, Marine Le Pen doesn’t want at all to get out of the European treaties. But the problem is Mélenchon as well, and he knows that, because his last programme at the last election was a bit halfway, half we stay, half we don’t stay. I think it will frighten people, especially elderly people, if we get out of the euro, out of Europe. It’s true that at the beginning, when we get out of the euro, we will suffer. Of course, it will be difficult to regain our independence. There are a lot of economic attacks that we could be subjected to, and we have to rebuild industry, which is an absolutely enormous task. But that’s the main contradiction of La France Insoumise, its attitude towards the European Union. But I think it won’t last, because if they are in power, all the contradictions will pop up.

Radhika Desai: Accumulate.

Aymeric Monville: Absolutely.

Radhika Desai: Absolutely. So maybe a final question, because we should bring our conversation to a close soon. In terms of the different forces that are involved, the spontaneous movement of students, the trade unions, La France Insoumise, other political parties, how do you see them coming together and perhaps working together in the coming months, maybe a year or two?

Aymeric Monville: It’s true that I think people know that La France Insoumise is the only party which is able to win the elections, to be the second party in the first round and maybe to win the second round. So of course there will be an alliance with them. But I think we have to deepen the level of political consciousness.

Radhika Desai: And to be prepared to change La France Insoumise from within?

Aymeric Monville: Yes, from within or from outside, from outside within the left. But it’s the same, with respect for a lot of people and for all that they’ve done. For instance, in the defence of the Palestinian cause, they were absolutely perfect. We owe them a lot of respect. And it was so important for organizing the struggle. But I think we have to do political economy and study more Marxism.

Radhika Desai: Indeed, indeed. In fact, there is one further quick question I have. A lot of people argue that France is exceptional. You know, people just love demonstrating in France, and they will come out onto the streets for no reason whatsoever. Do you think that France is exceptional? As you know, protests are spreading across Europe, and while they may be triggered by different things, they are broadly against austerity, against the wars, etc. So where do you think France stands in relation to all these other protests?

Aymeric Monville: I like your question. Of course, I’m a patriot in a sense, a left patriot, but France is an imperialist country. We must not forget it. It’s something that we have to tell the French, because they are suffering from these wars they create, like in the US. But we are very different from the Anglo-Saxon world. From the beginning, there have been two completely different ways of thinking. And it’s something I wanted to say from the beginning. When I saw all the TV shows on Fox News and these kinds of media presenting France as having lootings everywhere, burning places, burning shops, etc. France is a very, very nice country. There’s a German motto which says to live like God in France. But that’s because people have struggled. There are 1,000 years of revolts against power, the French Revolution, all these republics. They never ceased to protest, and they created a very decent public space, public services, and a way of protecting people. I went to the US, so I could make the comparison. We are not obliged to think about the future every day, about our pensions, about health, about education, about people being shot, with a lot of guns in the US. People are really afraid. So when they present France as a violent country because it makes for big images on TV shows, it’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s one of the nicest places on earth, for various reasons. And of course, there was this imperialist wealth. I couldn’t deny it. But there was also, and this is part of the contradictions of France, the resistance of the French workers against oppression, which created these socialist elements within France that are absolutely undeniable.

Radhika Desai: Great. Aymeric, thank you so much. I think this has been an amazing and rich conversation, and I’m pretty sure that these protests are not stopping anytime soon, and very, very complex developments are going to unfold in France in the coming months and maybe a year or two. We have a presidential election next year, so I’m sure you’ll be back, I hope you will be, to discuss all those developments with me again. But for now, I want to thank all the people who joined us. Thank you all for joining us. I want to thank you, and folks, until next time, goodbye.

Aymeric Monville: Goodbye. Thank you very much.