France: La Via Campesina’s solidarity statement following the election outcomes
Bagnolet, 11 July 2012: For several weeks, La Via Campesina, the international peasants movement, has been following political events in France with concern. After the second round of parliamentary elections, we join in the sense of relief and congratulate the French people for having succeeded in putting a stop to the extreme right.
Wherever the far right comes to power, it sets people against each other, denies human rights, persecutes ethnic, religious or gender minorities, attacks social policies and defends the privileges of the richest. Peasants and rural workers are often among the first victims of these anti-social and authoritarian policies.
We are concerned to note that, throughout the world, the far right is using the distress caused by decades of neo-liberal policies in rural areas to capture the rural vote. We call on social movements to take seriously the need to restore hope to people in the rural areas and small towns, by demanding and proposing policies based on food sovereignty, agroecology, peasant rights and public services.
A new political phase is now beginning in France. We call on the democratic and progressive political forces in France to break with neo-liberal and neo-colonial thinking and to build coalitions with other countries, particularly those of the South, in favour of social and environmental justice, human rights and international solidarity. In particular, we call on the new French government to be formed in the next few days to join the countries that have recognized the Palestinian state and are working for a ceasefire in Gaza. Additionally, it should initiate a process of reparations to address the illegal debt imposed on Haiti at the time of its independence. The government should also reject the interventionist actions of the “Core Group” in Haiti (a group of ambassadors that has exerted disproportionate influence over Haitian political life) and withdraw from it. Furthermore, it is important for France to resume constructive dialogue with the Kanak people, to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural People (UNDROP), to support the initiative for a new international conference on agrarian reform and rural development (ICARRD+20), to support the Binding Treaty on Transnational Coorprations and to participate in efforts to build a new international trade framework based on food sovereignty.
La Via Campesina expresses its unwavering commitment to solidarity between peoples. The values of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” must not be empty words, but compasses for public policies.
Globalize the Struggle, Globalize Hope!