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The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France
samedi 6 juin 2026, par ,
The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France.
The attacks of April 25 in Mali
Although it didn’t make the headlines, labor activists couldn’t miss the news about the crimes of the armed gangs operating in Mali, with the blessing of French imperialism :
On Saturday, April 25, Mali was the scene of coordinated attacks of unprecedented scale in recent years. Perpetrated by the jihadists of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and by the Tuareg separatist movement of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), they simultaneously targeted Kidal, Gao, Sévaré, Mopti, Bamako and Kati - a strategic location for the Malian military authorities in the suburbs of the capital.
JNIM also claimed responsibility for the attacks on Bamako’s Modibo Keïta International Airport, the residence of junta leader Assimi Goïta, who was evacuated from Kati to a safe location, and the residence of Defense Minister Sadio Camara. Camara was targeted in a suicide truck attack.
Launched at dawn, the attacks lasted several hours. "Yesterday was truly terrifying, we were terrified," confided a resident of the capital contacted by RFI’s Fulfulde-Mandenkan service. "We were woken up by heavy weapons fire, and then, after an hour of gunfire, we realized it was a terrorist attack. It all started around 6:00 a.m. and continued into the afternoon. The army reacted quickly, as it was able to repel the terrorists rapidly," he continued.
RFI, April 26
The magazine Jeune Afrique announces the death of Minister Sadio Camara :
Mali’s defense minister, a co-author of the 2020 coup that brought Assimi Goïta’s junta to power, was killed in an attack on his home on April 25. With his death, Bamako loses the man who had established himself as the principal architect of the country’s military strategy against armed groups.
The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) had never before officially declared their alliance. They finally chose to do so on April 25, jointly launching an unprecedented offensive on several major Malian cities.
Mali : Sadio Camara, the man who believed in the Russians
Behind the struggles between the Hu-Pei-Fu and Djan-So-Lin
Were French units or agents involved in the April clashes in Mali ? In any case, French imperialism is a historical player in the region, and imperialism is the financial capital of multinational corporations. Searching for names and photos of French agents is useful, but it doesn’t change the fact that rivalries between competing imperialisms determine these local African conflicts. This is how revolutionaries have analyzed wars in imperialist-dominated countries like Mali for over 100 years, and no other way.
The need to organize an anti-imperialist front is further dictated by the permanent and uninterrupted growth of imperialist rivalries. These rivalries are currently so intense that a new world war, with the Pacific Ocean as its arena, is inevitable unless international revolution prevents it.
The Washington Conference was an attempt to avert this danger, but in reality, it only deepened and exacerbated the contradictions of imperialism. The recent struggle between Hu-Pei-Fu and Djan-So-Lin in China is a direct consequence of the failure of Japanese and Anglo-American capitalism to align their interests with Washington.
General Theses on the Eastern Question (1922)
What we are witnessing in Mali is a struggle of the type between the Hu-Peï-Fu and the Djan-So-Lin, whether French units are present or not !
French imperialism is behind these attacks.
It is no secret that French imperialism has been intervening in Mali for over a century, taking on forms ranging from colonial to neo-colonial. The media, mouthpieces of French imperialism, acknowledge this involvement behind their convoluted rhetoric.
Mali : France’s embarrassment in the face of the crisis
While the military in power, allied with Russia, are openly anti-French, Paris is discreetly observing the advance of the jihadists and Tuareg separatists.
It took three days and two nights for France to officially react to the unprecedented jihadist offensive in Mali—an abnormally long delay by diplomatic standards. Just hours after the attacks by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and their separatist allies in the north against several Malian towns on Saturday, April 25, which enabled them to seize Kidal and profoundly destabilize the ruling junta, condemnations had already poured in from all quarters.
From Russia, which supports the authorities in Bamako, for whom Moscow has deployed some 2,000 paramilitaries, to the United States, which has both expressed its "solidarity" with the Malian people, from the African Union to the United Nations… The major geopolitical players have condemned the attacks by terrorist groups and have expressed concern about the danger they pose to the country.
As its silence raised more and more questions, France finally spoke out on Monday evening, April 27 : in a minimalist statement, it emphasized "its concern and solidarity with" the Malians.
Le Monde, April 28
The two pan-Africanist demonstrations in Mali on May 2nd, boycotted by the social-patriots of May 1st
On May 2nd, Malians in France, through various Malian organizations, called for two opposing demonstrations : one at 2 pm in Duroc, the other at 3 pm in République. In short : the first was anti-French imperialism, the second pro-French imperialism.
The place of revolutionary Marxists was in Duroc on May 2nd, alongside Malians denouncing the massacres taking place in their country. The utter corruption of left-wing and far-left political and trade union organizations, from the Socialist Party to the CGT, Workers’ Struggle, and the NPA, is evident in their absence from these two Malian demonstrations on May 2nd. The "white line" (the term is apt) of the Sacred Union is insurmountable for these organizations, including Workers’ Struggle, Permanent Revolution, and the NPA. These organizations, along with the CGT, are telling Malians : have no hope, demonstrate amongst yourselves ; the French labor movement has been pro-imperialist since 1914, and it still is. The "blacks" whom Malcolm X called "parlor figures," like the singer Aya Nakamura and the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis, were also absent.
Two or three anti-imperialist "whites" represented the revolutionary wing of the workers’ movement : Yellow Vests and a revolutionary trade unionist with a CGT flag, the only trade union flag present, highlighting the corruption of the French trade union movement, first and foremost the CGT and SUD, which claim to be the most radical.
In Duroc, the demonstration towards the Malian embassy was banned. The protesters were trapped on the sidewalk by police vans, pressed into a veritable kettle, while the sun beat down on the asphalt. The pan-Africanist organizers made the mistake of allowing those they had called upon to demonstrate to be treated like cattle, and even thanked the police for "protecting" them. Yes, the pan-Africanists are, at heart, petty bourgeois and pro-imperialist, but only the wing of the labor movement that stands alongside them to denounce the crimes of French imperialism in Mali will be able to expose them to the Malians demonstrating behind them.
At République, there was no police cordon in sight ; the demonstrators were enjoying the favor of the French state. Plainclothes police officers even grumbled under their breath, noticing that the organizers had hung portraits of their election candidate on the statue, despite being forbidden to do so. They seemed to have received instructions : do not intervene at République, but crack down at Duroc.
The strike at 65 Boulevard de Strasbourg
The fact that the opportunistic far left was absent from the May 2nd demonstrations, purely out of submission to the bourgeois leadership of the unions, is illustrated by their similar absence from the purely economic strike at the hair salon in the 10th arrondissement. This salon, located at 65 Boulevard de Strasbourg, is decked out in CGT (General Confederation of Labour) colors. The strikers (4 men and 9 women) are being used as pawns by the CGT, whose aim is to obtain a court ruling that will mention the "trafficking" of workers. This will allow the CGT to have a seat at the conferences of UN-linked union bodies, organized in large international hotels on this very subject. This is the CGT’s sole objective. Dozens of hair salons in this neighborhood practice this overexploitation of workers, but the fact that African bosses are exploiting African workers, with the blessing of the left that governs the 10th arrondissement, runs counter to the "anti-racist" ideology that the bourgeois left uses to ward off any class struggle.
On this May 2nd, 2026, two economic and political struggles of African workers were underway, separate, divided, and stifled by pro-imperialist French organizations and falsely anti-imperialist pan-Africanist organizations. The role of Marxist revolutionaries lies in both of these struggles.
It is on these two grounds that the revolutionary activists present can combat these bourgeois currents of the workers’ movement and internationalism.
The French far left denies imperialism in order to rally to it.
The first obvious flaw of political and trade union movements claiming to represent the working class in France, while sporting a left-wing or far-left electoral label, is their failure to recognize the difference between Mali and France from the perspective of imperialism. Otherwise, these organizations would have demonstrated on May 2nd.
A party with a Marxist program must remember today that Lenin and Trotsky asserted :
In accordance with its essential aim - the struggle against bourgeois democracy, whose hypocrisy must be unmasked - the Communist Party, conscious interpreter of the proletariat in its struggle against the yoke of the bourgeoisie, must consider as forming the keystone of the national question, not abstract and formal principles, but :
(...) the equally clear and precise division of oppressed, dependent, protected - and oppressive and exploiting nations, enjoying all rights, contrary to the bourgeois and democratic hypocrisy which carefully conceals the enslavement (characteristic of the era of the finance capital of imperialism) by the financial and colonizing power, of the vast majority of the world’s population to a minority of rich capitalist countries.
It is not only states that are imperialist or not, it is the entire nation united behind them.
No, not all workers have exactly the same interests
Let us recall the basics of the Leninist doctrine of imperialism :
Is the actual situation of workers identical, from the point of view of the national question, depending on whether they belong to oppressive nations or oppressed nations ?
No, it is not identical.
1) Economically, the difference is that parts of the working class in oppressive countries benefit from the crumbs of excess profit made by the bourgeoisie of oppressive nations by exploiting the workers of oppressed nations twice over. Furthermore, economic data shows that the percentage of workers rising to the "master class" is higher among workers in oppressive nations than among those in oppressed nations, and that a greater percentage of the former rise to the level of the labor aristocracy. This is a fact. The workers of the oppressive nation are, to a certain extent, complicit with their bourgeoisie in the latter’s plundering of the workers (and the mass of the population) of the oppressed nation.
2) Politically, the difference is that workers in oppressive nations occupy a privileged position in a whole range of areas of political life, compared to workers in the oppressed nation.
3) Ideologically or spiritually, the difference is that the workers of oppressive nations are always educated, both through schooling and through life, to despise or disdain the workers of oppressed nations. This is what, for example, every Great Russian who grew up or lived among Great Russians has experienced.
Lenin (1916) Works, Volume 23
Let’s replace "Great Russian" with "French," and Lenin’s terms still hold true. And Lenin concluded : "We demand first and foremost from the workers of oppressed nations something different—this concerns only the national question—than what we demand from the workers of oppressive nations."
Yes, we used the grandiloquent term "Leninist doctrine," which may seem rather pompous. It is because it is behind this kind of label, "Trotskyism," that the bourgeoisie promotes in its media currents that do not actually adopt Lenin’s ideas on imperialism, while pretending to do so. The Trotskyists of BFM and Lutte Ouvrière have nothing to do with true Trotskyism. These fake Trotskyists claim that the European working-class aristocracy is the same working class as the proletarians of the Third World, exploited by their own bourgeoisie, but also by our imperialist bourgeoisie.
The proletariat will only stop imperialist wars by transforming them into civil war.
Faced with the impending "war," no party took up the idea that the working class should not wait for the imperialist bourgeoisie to provoke a 1914, which would then lead to a 1917. Even before 1914, at the congresses of the Second International, its left wing led the propaganda campaign about the war. No far-left party popularized among the proletariat the ideas defended by Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg, and Lenin.
The bourgeoisie deceives the masses by disguising imperialist brigandage under the old ideology of "national war." The proletariat denounces this deception by proclaiming the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war. This is precisely the slogan indicated by the Stuttgart and Basel resolutions, which envisioned not war in general, but the current war, and spoke not of "defending the fatherland," but of "hastening the fall of capitalist domination," of using the crisis brought about by the war for this purpose, of following the example of the Commune. The Commune was the transformation of a people’s war into a civil war. (...) Refusal of military service, strikes against the war, etc., are nothing but pure folly, a miserable and fearful dream of a struggle without weapons against the armed bourgeoisie, a wish for the destruction of capitalism without one or more bitter civil wars. In the army, too, a socialist has a duty to be a propagandist for the class struggle ; action aimed at transforming the war of peoples into a civil war is the only socialist action in this era of armed imperialist conflict between the bourgeoisies of all nations. Down with the naive sentimentality of pious wishes about "peace at any price" ! Let us raise the banner of civil war !
Lenin (1914) , Works, Volume 21
Conclusion
The economic and political struggles led by the African proletariat in France are taking place right now. The May 2nd demonstrations in Mali, the hairdresser’s strike suppressed by the CGT union, are opportunities, on a small scale, to build the party of the world socialist revolution. Any party in France that misses such small-scale opportunities will be absent from the large-scale opportunities that imperialist wars will offer. Any group of activists, however small, that lays the groundwork will acquire the capacity to lead large-scale struggles. It is not "anti-racist" parades that will tear down the walls between the proletariats of different nations, but a united anti-imperialist front, combined with the struggle against the French and African bosses who rule over the African proletariat in France.
Messages
1. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 15, 6:47 AM , by Karim
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Mali : The government in Bamako is surrounded…
This is not the Tuareg people against the Malian people, but once again one imperialism against another : France against Russia !
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article8759
2. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 18, 5:33 AM , by Murielle
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Although it has left Mali, France is providing operational support to Ukrainian soldiers on the ground, former members of the Foreign Legion, who are cooperating with the Tuareg rebels.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa8l286
In fact, French imperialism is manipulating not only Ukrainian troops but also Tuareg troops ! And it’s playing with jihadist terrorism...
3. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 19, 10:15 , by Karim
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Yes indeed ! France is manipulating the Ukrainian army and the Tuareg army of the Sahel, allied with jihadists, against the anti-French Malian military regime !
French troops have officially withdrawn from the Sahel, but they are not far away, particularly in Mauritania and Nigeria, ready to resume their military occupation of the region as soon as the alliance between Tuaregs and jihadists destabilizes the Malian regime...
4. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 21, 6:37 PM , by Alex
The fact that the CGT’s goal in the Strasbourg Boulevard strike is to put its logo in a case "against trafficking" is illustrated by the triumphalist press release (even though the struggle achieved almost nothing).
taken up by friends of the union leadership.
NPA-R
and LO :
https://www.lutte-ouvriere.org/portail/breves/coiffeuses-paris-greve-victorieuse-194440.html
While 4 men and 9 women are on strike, they become, for LO, "the fifteen women" ! This shows the interest LO has in the African proletariat !
5. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 23, 6:41 AM , by Florent
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With France’s help, the war in Ukraine is being exported to Mali...
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa8l286
It’s already a world war... And French imperialism isn’t the last to enter the war...
In France, neither unions, nor political parties, nor associations, nor even the far left denounce this military action by French imperialism ! Quite simply, they don’t talk about it...
6. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 25, 5:32 AM , by Mina
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France’s involvement in the Ukrainian intervention in Mali is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal...
But the left continues to support French imperialism in Mali, and the far left pretends not to know it...
You have to go back to 2013 to see Lutte Ouvrière denounce the French intervention in Mali...
7. The fight against the crimes of French imperialism in Mali requires class struggle in France, May 26, 09:24 , by Karim
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The French military intervention in Benin, jointly with Nigeria, to avoid a scenario like in Mali or Niger, ends with the installation of a president "friend of France" (or at least of French imperialism)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romuald_Wadagni
https://www.afrik.com/au-benin-macron-felicite-romuald-wadagni-et-mise-sur-la-continuite
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