On January 12th, eight former employees of Goodyear, including five elected members of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT, one of the largest trade union confederations in France), were sentenced to two years in prison, of which at least 9 months must be served.

The regional elections of December 6th and 13th accentuated trends already observed in recent municipal (March 2014), European (June 2014) and departmental (March 2015) elections. Faced with the economic crisis, a soaring unemployment rate and the austerity policies of a "socialist" government, the frustration of millions of voters has expressed itself mainly in two ways: abstention and voting for “le Front National”.

The year 2015 was marked by an unleashing of war and terrorism. Dozens of armed conflicts spread death and destruction in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Millions of people have been killed wounded or forced into exile. On the borders of Europe, Ukraine has descended into a civil war that, according to the UN, has killed almost 10,000 people and injured more than 20,000. The list of countries affected by terrorism has continued to grow. The barbaric events in Paris could be repeated in London, Brussels or any other European city.

In the first round of the French regional elections the right wing nationalist party, National Front, came out as the largest party. Here we publish the first comments by the French Marxist journal Révolution.

The French ruling class have cynically used the recent terrorist attacks as an excuse to clamp down on any dissent whatsoever across the country. The attacks by ISIS have been used opportunistically by president Francois Hollande, the most unpopular president since the 1950s. Increasing austerity and the deepening crisis has led to tensions reaching boiling point, as seen with the recent dispute at Air France, where bosses were chased out of their offices by workers facing redundancy. Although the declared aim of the State of Emergency is to combat terrorism, the French state has wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to attack those on the left.

In the recent days a number of Departmental Unions of the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and at least one Federation have come out clearly against the idea of national unity promoted by French president Hollande and by the French ruling class and have rejected the state of emergency which has been declared.