PAME expresses its solidarity with the struggle of railway workers in France, who are going on strike on June 10 demanding wage increases, protection of their income from rising prices, against the liberalization and commercialization of the railways, and for safe, regular, affordable and exclusively public transport.

Railway workers in France, like all workers, are facing the explosion of high prices, the soaring cost of living, low wages, and the ongoing attack by capital, governments and the EU on working time, labor and social rights. They are being called upon to live on frozen wages, while billions are being directed to military armaments, NATO, war preparations and the war economy, in order to support the profitability of capital.

High prices in electricity, fuel, housing, food and transport are not a natural phenomenon. They are the result of a policy that sacrifices people’s needs for the profits and wars of monopoly groups. Governments, whether liberal or social-democratic, place the cost of imperialist rivalries and the wars of the USA, NATO and the EU, from Ukraine to the Middle East, on the backs of the peoples.

The struggle of railway workers in France is a struggle against the EU policy of commercialization and liberalization of railway transport. This policy is being implemented in all EU countries. The railways are being handed over piece by piece to business interests, with profit, not safety and the needs of the people, as the criterion. That is why railway crimes such as those in Tempi, Spain, Czechia and Slovakia, as well as crimes in transport more broadly, such as those in Germany and Sweden, are nothing but the normal outcome of the policy of cost-benefit calculations.

In the face of this policy, it is necessary to strengthen struggles everywhere, in every country and every sector, against the policy that sacrifices lives and rights for profits and wars. Let it be heard loudly everywhere: workers will not pay for high prices and wars for the profits of the capitalists!

PAME, the trade unions and the workers of Greece salute the railway workers of France. Victory to their strike and their struggle! We stand by their side!