{"id":10421,"date":"2026-04-30T09:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/10421\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:12:49","slug":"energy-shortage-macron-wants-to-use-war-on-iran-to-wage-class-war-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/10421\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy shortage: Macron wants to use war on Iran to wage class war in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

French President Emmanuel Macron reviews the troops during his visit to the nuclear submarine navy base of Ile Longue in Crozon, France, Monday March 2, 2026. [AP Photo\/Yoan Valat]<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s blockade of Iran and his threat to exterminate Iranian civilization mark a new era in the international class struggle. The setback suffered by Trump\u2014whose war of aggression has not yet succeeded in imposing a neocolonial regime on Iran\u2014is evident. But the European bourgeoisie is responding by preparing a social and economic offensive targeting workers\u2019 rights and living standards.<\/p>\n

This is perhaps most clearly the case with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has condemned neither the war against Iran nor the blockade cutting off Europe\u2019s energy supply. Ignoring the threat of economic depression, his government is preparing to use it as a pretext to impose austerity measures already overwhelmingly rejected by the French people.<\/p>\n

A glaring contradiction exists between his comments and those of TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyann\u00e9, who stressed the looming energy crisis on Friday at a conference organized in Chantilly by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) think tank.<\/p>\n

France, Pouyann\u00e9 said, risks entering into \u201can era of energy shortages, like those already being experienced by some Asian countries. \u2026 If this war and this blockade last more than three months, we will begin to face serious supply problems for certain products, such as kerosene.\u201d He added: \u201cThe shortage is not yet present in the Atlantic basin \u2026 but we cannot afford to leave 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil and gas reserves [i.e., those of the Persian Gulf region] inaccessible without major consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Various experts confirmed Pouyann\u00e9\u2019s remarks. \u201cShortage is at Europe\u2019s doorstep,\u201d warned Thierry Bros, a professor at the Political Sciences Institute, on France Info. Pointing to \u201cships passing through only in dribs and drabs,\u201d he added: \u201cTo govern is to foresee.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Macron government acts as if governing means foreseeing nothing. It has not condemned Trump\u2019s strangulation of Europe\u2019s energy supply, any more than it condemned his genocidal threats against Iran. Travelling on Saturday to Athens, Macron was instead downplaying the economic risks posed by the war and implicitly criticising Pouyann\u00e9.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked by a journalist about the danger of an energy shortage, Macron replied that he had nothing to say on the subject: \u201cWe are not in the scenario that is one of the worst-case scenarios you have described, which is not today the most probable and which I need not comment upon \u2026 I think I can tell you at this stage that the situation is under control, and today the situation does not lead us to envisage any shortage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the energy crisis very much threatens shortages not only in Asia, but also in Europe. While it takes, for now, the form of soaring prices rather than a generalised shortage, it is because on March 11 the International Energy Agency\u2019s 32 member countries\u2014including the US and European powers\u2014released 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves. It was the largest release of reserves in IEA history. But this will not resolve the crisis if the war continues and, within a few months, these strategic reserves begin to run out.<\/p>\n

The war is genuinely blocking France\u2019s energy supply, but Macron implied that Total\u2019s concerns were panic that could create a crisis out of thin air. He said, \u201cThe worst thing, in these moments of tension and geopolitical uncertainty, is for those tensions to be heightened by panic behavior. \u2026 And quite often, shortages are created by panic itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, the risk of energy shortages and economic depression is not an alarmist fairy tale invented by scaremongers. Trump\u2019s war against Iran is creating a real crisis. The current surge in oil prices and the shortages at certain gas stations in France are the forewarnings of a wider economic and military earthquake that will shock the world if workers fail to stop the war.<\/p>\n

The warning from the CEO of Total\u2014a company that plays a central role in the French stock exchange as well as in the French state\u2014reveals that Macron is covering up these dangers not out of ignorance, but knowingly. He decided this behind the backs of the French people; indeed, shortly before the start of the war, he sent a private text in English to Trump, calling to do \u201cgreat things together\u201d in Iran. With breathtaking irresponsibility, he is gambling with his country\u2019s economy and jobs.<\/p>\n

His relationship with the genocidal lunatic in the White House constitutes the greatest, though least commented, act of betrayal since P\u00e9tain, who claimed that collaborating with Hitler would regenerate France through a National Revolution. Macron tramples underfoot what bourgeois commentators normally call France\u2019s \u201cnational interests,\u201d such as its energy security. This confirms a central tenet of Marxism. Indeed, the \u201cnational interests\u201d invoked by the bourgeoisie are nothing but a mystification concealing the pursuit of class interests.<\/p>\n

If Macron covers for Trump while the latter grips Europe\u2019s economy by the throat, it is because Macron defends imperialism. French imperialism does not want a US defeat, at least for now, as it fears the impact of such a defeat on its own military bases in the Middle East, its arms exports to Arab sheikdoms, and the role of its banks in the world oil trade. Condemning Trump\u2019s genocidal threats against Iran would also call into question Macron\u2019s friendship with the Israeli regime amid the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The military crisis of French imperialism is inseparable from the social crisis it wishes to resolve at workers\u2019 expense. Since the sellout of the strikes against pension cuts by the parties of the New Popular Front and the union bureaucracies in 2023, Macron has ruled openly against the people. A series of minority governments has tried to impose drastic austerity. But this policy, based on a refusal to tax the wealthy, has not managed to reduce the deficit, as Paris is also increasing military spending by tens of billions of euros.<\/p>\n

The French government is now trying to use the crisis provoked by Trump\u2019s war of aggression against Iran for its domestic political agenda of class war. Rather than condemning the genocide and US military aggression, the government is exploiting them to create a political framework to intensify austerity against workers.<\/p>\n

This is clearly indicated by the statements of Prime Minister S\u00e9bastien Lecornu. Last week, he declared in a letter to his ministers that \u201cthe total cost of this crisis could therefore amount to at least 6 billion euros, to date.\u201d Public Accounts Minister David Amiel responded by declaring that \u201cany new public expenditure that might be made necessary\u201d by the energy \u201ccrisis\u201d would entail \u201cthe cancellation of previously planned expenditure, euro for euro.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron is thus seizing on the Iranian crisis to enshrine the principle of zero increase in net spending, which, without taxation of the wealthy, inevitably means draconian austerity.<\/p>\n

To fight this policy, workers must draw the lessons of the sellout of the 2023 strikes. Workers will need to wage a long-term struggle and, to do so, organise independently, at the level of the rank and file, to wrest control of their struggles from the union bureaucracies. These bureaucracies refused three years ago any struggle that could bring down Macron. However, without such a struggle, it will be impossible to stop the war and the economic crisis.<\/p>\n

Above all, workers in France and internationally must unite: all face the danger of an economic depression and a generalised military conflagration. The decisive question is the building of an international anti-war movement in the working class, based on a perspective of stripping power from the warmongering capitalist oligarchies and building a socialist society.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French President Emmanuel Macron reviews the troops during his visit to the nuclear submarine navy base of Ile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8062,8063,544,8059,8058,5,50,561,8061,8060,1035,3238,960,584],"class_list":["post-10421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-austerity","tag-class-struggle","tag-energy","tag-era","tag-extermination","tag-france","tag-iran","tag-macron","tag-pouyane","tag-shortage","tag-strike","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}