The 54th CGT Congress: A Resolute Call for Class Unity and Action
« Camarades », le plus beau mot de la langue française
Français
Chers camarades,
Nos métiers, nos parcours, nos origines et nos religions sont très différents… mais nous partageons ce qui compte le plus, et c’est ce qui fait notre force : la solidarité, le refus de l’injustice et le courage de tenir tête au patron.
Chers camarades, quel plaisir d’être tous réunis ici au Congrès ! Oui, le Congrès de la CGT est un événement social majeur pour tous les travailleurs de France et bien au-delà. Nous pouvons être fiers d’accueillir ici, à Tours, nos organisations sœurs, qui nous font l’honneur de venir des quatre coins du monde !
Demain, nous accueillerons également les dirigeants des principales organisations syndicales françaises. Saluons aussi ceux qui ont contribué à donner vie à notre organisation. Je tiens à remercier chaleureusement nos anciens secrétaires généraux, Philippe Martinez et Bernard Thibault, qui are parmi nous cette semaine !
Je souhaite dédier ce Congrès à tous ceux qui se battent. Camarades, faites autant de bruit que possible pour :
• Les coiffeurs du boulevard de Strasbourg : on travaille ici, on vit ici, on reste ici !
• Nos camarades des cliniques du groupe Elssan (66) : après trois semaines de grève, ils viennent d'obtenir des augmentations de salaire !
• L'Ehpad des Feuillants : ils entament leur third mois de mobilisation !
• Fibre Excellence : mobilisés pour sauver les sites de Saint-Gaudens, Tarascon and Chapelle-Darblay.
• Carcassonne : défense des subventions aux travailleurs face à l'extrême droite.
La CGT ne se laissera jamais évincer ! Vous pouvez compter sur la solidarité de toutes les régions et de toutes les professions ! Cette semaine, Tours sera la capitale des luttes !
Profitons pleinement de ce congrès. Profitons des débats, mais aussi des pauses, des repas, des soirées. Rencontrons-nous. Parlons. Organisons-nous. Car, OUI, un congrès de la CGT, c’est aussi ça : ce sont 1 000 luttes potentielles !
Fixons une règle : la culture du débat CGT. Cela signifie mener tous les débats, poser toutes les questions, sans caricature, sans posture, sans tirer de conclusions hâtives. Nous avons trop de questions urgentes à traiter pour inventer de faux débats !
Il n’est pas question de reproduire entre nous la logique d’exclusion contre laquelle nous luttons à l’extérieur. Il n’y a pas de "traîtres" ni de "gauchistes" dans cette salle, seulement des camarades. La force de nos débats réside dans le fait qu’entre nous, on ne peut pas se jeter de la poudre aux yeux.
Nous le savons : une mobilisation ne se décrète pas d’en haut; elle se construit. Et c'est là tout l'enjeu: aller de l’avant collectivement pour parler franchement des difficulties and possibilities d’une mobilisation efficace.
Pour gagner.
English
Dear comrades,
Our trades, our backgrounds, our origins, and our religions are very different… but we share what matters most, and that is what makes our strength: solidarity, the rejection of injustice, and the courage to stand up to the boss.
Dear comrades, what a pleasure to be all together here at the Congress! Yes, the CGT Congress is a major social event for all workers in France and well beyond. We can be proud to welcome here, in Tours, our sister organisations, who do us the honour of coming from the four corners of the world!
Tomorrow, we will also welcome the leaders of the main French trade union organisations. Let us also salute those who have contributed to bringing our organisation to life. I want to warmly thank our former general secretaries, Philippe Martinez and Bernard Thibault, who are among us this week!
I want to dedicate this Congress to all those who fight. Comrades, make as much noise as possible for:
• The hairdressers of the Boulevard de Strasbourg: we work here, we live here, we stay here!
• Our comrades from the clinics of the Elssan group (66): after three weeks of strike action, they have just obtained salary increases!
• The Ehpad of the Feuillants: they are starting their third month of mobilisation!
• Fibre Excellence: mobilised to save the sites of Saint-Gaudens, Tarascon and Chapelle-Darblay.
• Carcassonne: defending subsidies for workers in the face of the far right.
The CGT will never let itself be sidelined! You can count on the solidarity of all regions and all professions! This week, Tours will be the capital of struggles!
Let's fully enjoy this congress. Let's enjoy the debates, but also the breaks, the meals, the evenings. Let's meet. Let's talk. Let's organise ourselves. Because, YES, a CGT congress is also that: it is 1,000 potential struggles!
Let's set a rule: the culture of CGT debate. This means conducting all debates, asking all questions, without caricature, without posture, without drawing hasty conclusions. We have too many urgent questions to deal with to invent false debates!
There is no question of reproducing among ourselves the logic of exclusion that we fight against outside. There are no "traitors" or "leftists" in this room, only comrades. The strength of our debates lies in the fact that between us, we cannot pull the wool over each other's eyes.
We know it: a mobilisation is not decreed from above; it is built. And that is the whole challenge: to move forward collectively to speak frankly about the difficulties and possibilities of an effective mobilisation.
To win.
SACP condemns xenophobic attacks and threats and calls for working-class unity and solidarity
Friday, 5 June 2026: The South African Communist Party (SACP) overtly rejects and opposes the xenophobic violence and threats of violence against immigrants. There is no justification for the abuse of any migrant, regardless of their legal status.
As the SACP, we call for unity, not division of the working class and poor. We call for peace and not violence or vengeance. We need more working-class solidarity and not mutual elimination of workers, not destruction. We also call for the implementation of a sound and humane migration policy, not abrupt witch-hunts and abuse.
The SACP, of course, recognises the pervasive crisis of illegal immigration as a legitimate political issue for South Africa, with state authorities over time unable to effectively deal with the crisis. We thus call for proactive and effective state mechanisms to deal with the matter in line with the law.
Migration has been a persistent challenge over time, occasionally surfacing at key moments and at other times remaining dormant under the surface but still consistently present. At all these times, however, there has not been a predictable, measurable, effective and consistent all-encompassing policy response to it at the state level to address it or even to understand it fully. Any interventions that have been implemented have been misaligned, unstructured and inconsistent, leading to a distorted view of both its nature and its gravity. For the average working-class person residing in areas with high poor migrant populations, this crisis was always likely to spring up and escalate into an uncontrollable disaster.
At this critical juncture in South Africa’s history, one characterised by a crosscutting capitalist crisis that has led to mass unemployment, poverty and a severely diminished state apparatus unable to effectively respond to migration and poverty, we are compelled to find solutions where the state system has failed. The state’s inability to coherently respond to the crisis of poverty and migration emanates from the known systemic capacity problems of the state that predate the flare-up of the present violence. The working class, whether migrant or citizen, objectively faces the most severe economic limitations that manifest in various ways in their daily lives.
At its material base, therefore, this is a manifestation of the failure of the capitalist system in a country with some of the highest unemployment rates and the most unequal country in the world. These challenges are not accidental but flow from the laws of motion governing global capitalism. Imperialism and colonial legacies have produced extreme uneven development across the African continent. Wars, economic instability, and poverty in neighbouring countries push desperate workers and families to seek opportunities outside of their own borders. Within our own borders, capitalism creates a massive reserve army of labour, using competition to suppress wages and conditions.
The South African economy, anchored in a neoliberal trajectory, is objectively proving unable to create more work given its inability to industrialise, among others. These economic limitations manifest through mutual confrontation between members of the same working class in the context of diminishing resources, dwindling job opportunities and virtually non-existent economic prospects. Solely blaming fellow African workers for these systemic problems serves only the ruling class and distracts from the real enemies of the working class: monopoly capital, corruption, and policies that prioritise profit over people. The war between documented and undocumented workers is unjustified.
The solution lies in a multidisciplinary approach which involves thoroughgoing working-class solidarity rather than violent attacks and other acts of aggression rooted in dehumanisation of migrants. We call for the construction and implementation of a comprehensive and effective migration policy and system founded on appropriate and effective enforcement measures while building the state’s capacity to manage migration on a sustainable basis and the building of a rigorous labour law enforcement system through the expansion of the department of labour.
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ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMMUNTY PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA
WFTU Global Solidarity with the General Strike in Portugal
The World Federation of Trade Unions, the militant body of 110 million laborers in 134 nations across all regions, declares its total support for the General Strike on June 3rd, 2026, in Portugal, resisting the state's anti-labor regulatory overhaul. These represent the very policies the administration was unable to pass previously because of the unwavering and brave defiance of the Portuguese labor movement. Now the authorities have reintroduced the bill, presenting the legislative bundle to the Assembly of the Republic. It is evident that this agenda would maintain poverty pay, permit terminations without valid grounds, increase the use of precarious workers, deregulate shifts, and degrade parental protections, collective negotiations, union freedom, and the ability to strike. By pushing these acts, the state sides with the profits of global financial conglomerates. These strategies mirror the ongoing tactics of major capital worldwide, pushed by international institutions and capitalist states across the continent, occasionally using varied titles or justifications, but always serving identical class interests. Precarious and informal workers must again provide a firm answer, striking down these laws in public spaces and at their jobs, repeating the success of previous strikes and the huge marches organized by the CGTP‑IN. The WFTU honors the brave conduct of labor in Portugal, opting for the route of defiance and honor against these hostile dictates. We declare our absolute and total bond with the general walkout and remain steadfastly alongside CGTP-IN and the labor force of Portugal in their righteous calls. We promise the laborers of Portugal that they can count on unending backing and globalist unity in their fight for honorable existence and job safety and against capitalist extraction.
Global Alliance: Precarious Workers Unite for Justice
End the Rising Tide of Hostility Directed Toward Cuba Now
We strongly denounce the recent expansion of American imperialist hostility toward the self-determination of Cuba and the fundamental liberties of its citizens. The Presidential Command labeling Cuba a peculiar hazard to national safety is purely a fabrication, utilizing a collection of lies to provide a thin veil for imperialist efforts to block fuel imports and intensify the financial, commercial, and trade strangulation maintained for over sixty years, seeking to inflict the worst possible suffering on the daily lives of the Cuban populace. This surge in American aggression, paired with the warning of unilateral punitive sanctions that ignore borders, constitutes a shameful and clear breach of the UN Charter and global legal standards, insulting the designation of the Caribbean as a Peaceful Territory and endangering global stability. This updated level of American pressure and coercion is a key piece of a larger strategy to force control over the Caribbean and Latin America, following the Monroe Doctrine—a scheme that also encompasses the recent military threats toward Venezuela and the seizing of its leader, along with provocations against other neighboring nations. The imperialist offensive endangers not only the freedom of Cuba but also the security of all nations in the region and throughout the globe. This campaign is the primary danger to international peace and demands a resolute and tireless defiance by all precarious and informal workers, for freedom, human rights, and globalist unity. In celebrating the spirit of bravery and cooperation shown by Cuba to the planet, we insist on an immediate cessation of all provocations and hostile actions by Washington, including the lifting of the brutal and illegal siege, adhering to numerous UN General Assembly decrees. We stand in unity with Socialist Cuba and urge the widest global mobilization to protect its self-governance and the rights of its people to shape their destiny without external coercion. Cuba is not alone. Cuba shall prevail.