In France, on March 22, news commentators held their breath while waiting for the final results of the city council elections which were to serve as a launchpad for politicians in the upcoming 2027 presidential elections. In Lebanon, Iran, Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine… millions of women and men were also holding their breath—fearing yet another bombardment.

Sometimes it feels like we’re living in parallel worlds. But humanity, like the economy, is a unified whole and cannot be separated. The wars that rage on are in fact a threat to everyone. They are a catastrophe for all of humanity.

Contrary to what the government says, we are indeed participating in all these wars. Macron, along with other European leaders, is supporting the war effort in Ukraine. In the Middle East, he has already begun carrying out military operations alongside the United States and Israel, turning a blind eye to the lies they’ve invented to justify their aggression against Iran.

The French government has sent the Charles-de-Gaulle aircraft carrier to the region, and from Abu Dhabi, Rafale fighter jets have fired dozens of missiles to defend the United Arab Emirates’ airspace. A French soldier has been killed in Iraq and others will surely follow. And they won’t die so as to defend international security or freedom, but instead to protect the profits of Total, Dassault and the shipping company CMA CGM.

Whether we like it or not, we too, are caught up in yet another imperialist war, just like all the peoples around the world. We may not yet all be living under bombs, in terror or surrounded by destruction, but millions of people are, and all of humanity is being plunged into a crisis that will have catastrophic consequences.

Skyrocketing gasoline prices is just one of those consequences as the cost of gas increases every time we fill up at the pump. This will have an effect on the price of transportation in general, from shipping containers to airline companies, which will increase as well. There will also be a surge in the cost of natural gas and fertilizer which will in turn affect the cost of agricultural goods and those of the chemical industry. And this is just the beginning of economic chaos—and no country will be able to escape it, not even Trump and the United States, even though they instigated this war!

In India, household access to natural gas has been limited. Certain countries at the heart of the global manufacturing chain, like Vietnam or Bangladesh, lack strategic natural gas reserves and have had to shut down factories and facilities or slow down production. So what additional conflicts and rivalries will that cause?

All peoples are being plunged into war and economic crises by their governments, which are as greedy as they are criminal. Like us, they are all being summoned to sacrifice themselves for the war. On a global scale, the war is swallowing up trillions of dollars. It is madness beyond measure and a complete waste especially when you consider to what extent this money could transform the lives of billions of human beings if it were invested in essential services!

Here, the bosses of major corporations and the government are cutting wages, pensions and hospital funding. But they aren’t counting the number of missiles being fired right now in the Middle East, whereas each one costs a million euros. A Rafale fighter jet costs 20,000 euros to fly for just one hour—that is the equivalent of a year’s salary for a worker or employee earning minimum wage! And the government won’t make the war profiteers like Dassault, Safran, Airbus, or Thales pay for all this: we, the workers, will foot the bill!

Not a single people, not a single worker has any interest in showing solidarity with Western imperialist leaders. They launched this new war to weaken a regime that wouldn’t bend down to them and to maintain their domination over the world at all costs.

Workers, who toil for insufficient wages and sacrifice their health on the job, know all about the capitalist class’s contempt for human life. They know how fanatic they are about accumulating capital and competing in the race for profit.

So, if there’s a war to be fought, it’s a war on the capitalist class and the politicians at its service. Let’s rise up against their imperialist politics and oppose their march to war!

Nathalie Arthaud