PAME salutes the workers, school students and university students who filled the streets in more than 255 cities across France yesterday. More than 1500 trade unions and federations called a 24-hour strike that brought rail services, public transport and other sectors to a standstill, while one in three upper secondary schools remained closed.

Millions of workers and young people took to the streets, giving a powerful, collective response to the intimidation and repression used by the government, the state and big business to enforce their policies of war and exploitation.

What brings people out onto the streets in France is what we face here in Greece, too. Soaring prices are crushing working families’ incomes, wages run out halfway through the month, health-care and education are increasingly run for profit as services deteriorate, and class barriers are closing doors for young people.

Across the EU, governments pursue the same policy of making working people pay for wars. Billions of euros for NATO armaments and corporate profits, crumbs for wages, schools and hospitals.

From the historic dockworkers’ strike on 30 October, which made headlines and sparked debate around the world, to the mobilisations across Europe and yesterday’s mass strike in France, working-class struggles show us how we can overturn these brutal policies.