> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://redflag.org.au/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Turmoil in world politics: we have to rise to the challenges - URL: https://redflag.org.au/article/turmoil-in-world-politics-we-have-to-rise-to-the-challenges/ - Published: 2026-11-01T23:43:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-01T23:43:23.000Z - Description: Our side needs to rise to the challenge. This serious situation demands both concerted mass resistance and the building of a revolutionary socialist movement that is determined to take the struggle against capitalism all the way. - Author: Editors - Tags: International, Far Right “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” The famous opening words of Charles Dickens novel, *A Tale of Two Cities,* set in the Great French Revolution could equally apply to France and much of Europe today. The best of times and spring of hope—the vibrant, months-long school student mobilisations and blockades that have drawn hundreds of thousands of French workers and university students onto the streets in solidarity. All in the face of savage police violence unleashed by President Emmanuel Macron’s government of the supposed moderate liberal centre. Eventually, after weeks of foot-dragging, trade union leaders called a general strike for 5 November—a vital step forward and test for the rebellion. It is not just France. A wave of protest inspired by the French students has swept Europe from Belgium to Portugal to Italy, where students and workers have long endured similar attacks on living standards and democratic rights, the rise of militarism and threatening fascist forces. Spain has also been gripped by revolt over the cost of living and housing crisis sparked by the eviction of 87-year-old woman Maricarmen Abascal. The general strike called for 11 November is set to be the largest in Spain in the 50 years since the fall of General Franco’s fascist government. But it’s also the worst of times—reflected in the scale of support for far-right forces internationally. The majority of the French population sympathises with the protestors’ grievances over the cost-of-living, cuts to public services and education funding. Yet polls indicate Marine Le Pen of the fascist National Rally is set to decisively win April’s presidential elections. Le Pen leads the left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon 69 percent to 31 percent. Large sections of the capitalist class and its middle-class supporters are rallying behind National Rally as the “party of order” to crush resistance not just from unruly students but organised workers and impose harsh austerity measures to boost profits. Similarly in Spain, the right-wing People’s Party backed by the fascist Vox seems set to defeat the discredited centre-left government in the 29 November elections on a program of wage cuts, mass public sector sackings and attacks on democratic rights. Then there is Brazil. An inspiring wave of protests led by young people transformed the course of the elections ensuring the defeat of the far right’s Flavio Bolsonaro. Yet the increasingly violent far right shows no sign of being curbed. Ruling in the interests of Brazil’s capitalist class, Lula da Silva’s Workers Party disillusioned swathes of workers and the poor preparing the ground for the far right. And a re-elected Lula is not about to change course and mobilise workers in mass strike action to challenge the rich and powerful. Politics worldwide has become much more polarised, the product of decades of neo-liberal attacks on workers’ living standards and increasingly authoritarian rule undermining the hold of parties of the centre-left and centre-right. The pattern is uneven, but in many countries it is the far right that so far has been the main beneficiary of the growing discontent. From Spain to France to Germany to Australia, the traditional reformist parties have utterly failed to defend workers’ interests and ward off the far-right threat. It is vital that the militant socialist left and the broader working-class movement is rebuilt to meet these challenges. And there are important opportunities to do just that. There is a much greater opening for Marxist, working-class politics than in previous waves of protests over the last few decades. In Spain, for example, the 2011 movement of the squares provoked by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis was posed as a citizens’ movement that was neither left nor right. There was pronounced hostility to the involvement of socialist organisations and trade unions. This time around, the movement is much more posed as a movement of the left centred on working-class demands with the involvement of revolutionary organisations welcomed. Mass strike action by workers is rightly seen as vital for the movement going forward. In France, it was students from the poorest working-class suburbs that initiated the rebellion and the party most associated with the rebellion is Melenchon’s left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI). But half-way house left reformist operations like Melenchon’s LFI or the Left Party in Germany, which do not want to overthrow capitalism, are not up to the tasks that the situation demands. The LFI to its credit defends the student protests but does not intervene as an organised force in the movement to take it forwards, nor does it galvanise its hundreds of thousands of supporters to agitate in the unions for strikes that go beyond a simple one-day affair. Australia has lagged behind developments in Europe. But here too we see increasing discontent with the mainstream parties and the rapid rise in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. In Victoria, we are set to see the election of a hard right Liberal government, backed by One Nation, out to implement a raft of austerity measures attacking workers. Our side needs to rise to the challenge. This serious situation demands both concerted mass resistance and the building of a revolutionary socialist movement that is determined to take the struggle against capitalism all the way.