On March 15, we are called to vote in the municipal elections. Lutte ouvrière is presenting lists in 240 towns and cities, because the working class must make its interests heard and defend its program for social change.

Workers are overwhelmed with problems: how to make ends meet, housing, transportation, underfunded schools, access to healthcare. In some neighborhoods, trafficking and petty crime are ruining residents' lives. Hundreds of thousands of workers face discrimination, racism, and authorities who deprive them of their papers.

All these problems are getting worse, and will continue to do so until workers take matters into their own hands.

The government is only concerned with the affairs of capitalists and their international rivalries. Its priority is to increase the military budget and boost the arms industry. To defend the interests of the French bourgeoisie, it is prepared to send our children to die in Ukraine, Africa, and Greenland.

As for the big bosses who dominate economic life, they prosper only by reducing wages, cutting jobs, and spreading precariousness. More exploitation, massacres, and wars—that is what the leaders of this capitalist society have in store for us!

No mayor, no municipal team can stand up to such a fundamental evolution. But workers can do so if they come together and organize.

Look at how, in Minneapolis, USA, workers opposed the abuses of the immigration police by showing solidarity and organizing against ICE. Their courage and mobilization forced Trump to withdraw his mercenaries.

During the Covid pandemic, workers showed tremendous organizational skills and solidarity, compensating for the negligence of the state and corporate leaders. We see this every time there is a disaster, a storm or a flood.

The Lutte ouvrière lists carry this essential idea: to change their fate, workers must unite and rely only on themselves. This is true where they live as well as in their workplaces. It is true at all levels – municipal, national and international.

The functioning of capitalist society pushes workers into a wait-and-see attitude. In their workplace, they are told to obey, work and keep quiet. And when we want to defend ourselves, we are told that unions can do so on our behalf.

In politics, we are supposed to let politicians take care of everything, whether they are mayors, congressmen, or ministers. Everything is done to ensure that it remains a matter for professionals. But professionals in what? In uselessness, in lying, compromising and betraying? Thanks, but we can see where that leads!

Instead of selling illusions and making promises that can’t be kept, our lists affirm that no problem can be solved as long as society is organized around the exclusive pursuit of profit.

The housing shortage cannot be solved as long as real estate remains an object of enrichment and speculation. Incivility, delinquency and the pursuit of easy money cannot be erased if poverty continues to grow. Nothing will change as long as education, youth care, health and pensions are seen only as costs that increase public debt.

The only expenditures we are invited to applaud are those for the purchase of missiles, Rafale fighter jets and aircraft carriers. This speaks volumes about the future the government has in store for us. We must not accept it. We must organize to fight it!

It is with this in mind that more than 10,000 workers have rallied on the Lutte ouvrière lists. As factory workers, employees, care workers, bus and train drivers, teachers, cashiers, nurses, warehouse workers, security guards, etc., they know how useful their work is to society as a whole.

They have confidence in their class. They proclaim that, because workers are the engines and fuel of capitalism, they can be the engines and fuel tomorrow of a general revolt to rebuild society on entirely new foundations.

Support the Lutte ouvrière lists! Join those who refuse to give up, who want to defend workers' interests and propose a different future for society!

Nathalie Arthaud