The festival of one of the largest worker organizations in France, Lutte Ouvriére (LO), organized regularly since the start of the 1970s was held this year on May 27-29. The event had thousands of participants and made a showcase of working class internationalism by hosting workers and other worker organizations from abroad.
Our sister organizations have been taking part in this festival since 2015 by the invitation of LO and this year MTL joined them. We distributed the May Day statement of Christian Rakovsky international socialist center as well as booklets introducing our parties. Our comrades from DIP and EEK gave presentations to an audience of about 40 people. The youth and the workers in the festival received our theoretical journals, statements, booklets and speeches with interest. With the participation of MTL, we became the voice of working class internationalism from Finland.
The workers who came to our stands were deeply interested about the possibility of Finland joining NATO and asked how the communists fought against this. Such discussions continued throughout the festival, with subjects including our policies against NATO and imperialism, the rising fascism in Europe and how we argue that the only antidote to this is doing working class politics inside working classes. Our experience during the festival proved once more that these opinions resonate with the European working classes.
Our parties also garnered a lot of attention with the palestinian flag and pictures of our demonstrations against the racist Zionist entity of Israel. Many people of middle eastern origin came to our stands to discuss these issues and listened to what we had to say with attention. We gifted a copy of our latest theoretical journal to Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese communist illegally kept in prison in France due to his support of Palestine, through the “Freedom to Georges Abdallah” campaign organizers.
The three day festival hosted many interesting discussions on working class struggle and politics. Ending with slogans for the unity of working classes in all corners of the world.
