1978 general strike, [French Defense] Minister Yvon Bourges had expressed their intentions.
Today they are intervening against a rather isolated action, but in the future it will be against the revolt of the working class. We Tunisian revolutionary Marxists must denounce this intervention. We will not be a second Shaba or Mecca.* We are now struggling to put a halt to this armed imperialist presence.
The French armies will not frighten the Tunisian working class, which will continue its fight against both imperialism and its own bourgeoisie.
We do not acknowledge that the Bourguiba regime, which can only survive through repression, has any right whatsoever to call upon any armed forces to keep itself in power longer.
A regime that implicitly supports the Camp David accords, that calls on foreign troops to rescue it, that imprisons political and trade-union activists, cannot teach us any lessons in nationalism.
We issue an appeal to all French workers organizations to denounce this imperialist threat and to deepen the struggle for immediate withdrawal of all aid:
• French troops out of Tunisia!
• Long live the solidarity of the French and Tunisian working classes against French imperialism and the Tunisian bourgeoisie!
• Long live proletarian internationalism!
Notes
4. See the accompanying article.