The Culture Pass dereferences the Workers’ Struggle Festival: a political attack, solidarity!

Since 1971, the Fête de Lutte Ouvrière has been one of the main meetings of the extreme left in France. Every year, several tens of thousands of people go there to attend political debates and discussions between the different revolutionary organizations.

But this year, the festival was the target of a scandalous attack: just eleven days before its opening, it was delisted from the Pass Culture platform.without notice, 11 days before opening », and «Âon the grounds that it is organized by Lutte Ouvrière“. An eminently political dereference, therefore, which led to the cancellation of reservations validated for several weeks, thus aiming to demoralize supporters and visitors who were planning to go there four days before the event.

This political attack takes place in a context of authoritarian hardening where the government is increasingly marginalizing the left, by criminalizing it with repressive laws on one side, and by opening the door wide to the extreme right on the other, as illustrated by the minute of silence in tribute to a neo-fascist on the other. the Assembly. This time, it is through the organization that manages the Culture Pass that the State intervenes, by imposing two options on Lutte Ouvrière: make this decision weigh on the visitors to the festival, or assume the cost of the operation and mobilize its own finances, a choice ultimately assumed by the organization. In all cases, the signal is clear: the State has its sights set on far-left organizations.

If this offensive marks a leap, the event having been “referenced by the same organization in 2023, 2024, 2025 and again this year”, the Workers’ Struggle Festival has already been targeted by the authorities. Already in 2020, the party had been banned during the Covid-19 pandemic by the Val-d’Oise prefecture and despite reinforced health measures and a reduced gauge, while at the same time, the government granted exemptions to other gatherings well more massive like the Puy du Fou shows. A difference in treatment which already revealed that the celebration is in the sights of the State.

The role played today by the Pass Culture organization is not surprising either. Presented during its creation as a device intended to democratize access to culture, this tool was mainly used to centralize cultural funding while favoring large private groups. As we already wrote at the time, the government had chosen to favor “Deezer and not Spotify », «ÂCanal+ or OCS and not Netflix », au nom du soutien à «ÂFrench industry“, far from favoring independent or alternative structures.

And as austerity policies have accelerated in recent months, the government has also drastically reduced the budgets allocated to the collective share of the Culture Pass, which allowed schools to organize projects with their students, before increasing the envelope from 20 and 30 euros per student to only 2.50 euros, with thousands of students seeing their activities canceled due to lack of resources.

The delisting of the Fête de Lutte Ouvrière thus appears to be the logical extension of a policy relating to the Culture Pass tool combining budgetary austerity, support for large private groups and growing political control over content deemed acceptable: as soon as he allows young people to access an event organized by a far-left organization, he suddenly becomes problematic.

Faced with this political attack, we provide our support to the comrades of Lutte Ouvrière.

We will also be present at the party this weekend, where we will have a stand and host a forum on Saturday May 23 at 4 p.m. at Forum 2 to talk, precisely, about the political crisis and the class struggle in the run-up to the 2027 presidential elections!