France: PFLP Speech at the Conference for the Reconstitution of the Communist Youth
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) speech read at the 12th Congress of the Communist Youth, and published by La Cause du Peuple on the 9th of April.
Dear comrades and participants, Youth of France, vanguard of change and standard-bearers of justice, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, on behalf of its imprisoned General Secretary, Commander Ahmed Saadat, his deputy, Comrade Commander Jamil Mizhar, and all its cadres and members within the country and the diaspora, extends its warmest and most sincere militant greetings to your important conference. We affirm our deep pride in this qualitative step forward in the process of rebuilding the communist youth movement in France and restoring its historic role as a lever for the international and class struggle.
Your congress marks a decisive step for your organization and constitutes an act of political and intellectual resistance against attempts to marginalize revolutionary thought, while restoring respect for the values of socialism at a time when savage imperialism is rampant and reproducing its repressive and colonial instruments in ever more brutal forms.
On this important occasion, your conference is taking place at a time when the international situation is particularly complex, as the world witnesses an unprecedented resurgence of imperialist and Zionist aggression, which is no longer limited to economic domination but increasingly resorts to open warfare, sanctions, sieges, and the destruction of States and societies.
What our Palestinian people are enduring in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is the bloodiest manifestation of this unjust global system. The Zionist enemy continues its war of total extermination targeting people, homes, and trees, resorting to every means to kill, starve, and destroy, amid shameful international silence and the blatant complicity of Western powers that fully cover for this criminal Zionist enemy. The persistent violations, systematic killings, and return to a policy of starvation and blockade against our people in Gaza constitute a deliberate war crime aimed at breaking our people’s will and imposing political realities by force; yet, as our people have proven time and again, they will not succeed in breaking our people’s will to resist and their deeply rooted steadfastness.
In this same context, the aggression against Lebanon and Iran shows that the entire region is being targeted as part of an imperialist-Zionist project aimed at plundering the peoples’ wealth—particularly oil—and reshaping the region to serve interests of domination and control, by attacking all forces that refuse to submit.
Dear comrades,
What we are witnessing today is a global struggle between two projects: the imperialist project of domination based on exploitation, plunder, and repression, and the project of liberation embodied by the struggling peoples and the progressive and free movements. In this context, Western governments play a central role in supporting imperialist and Zionist crimes, not only through military and financial aid, but also by providing political cover, repressing solidarity movements within their own countries, and attempting to criminalize any free voice supporting Palestine under the pretext of “anti-Semitism.”
The responsibility of progressive forces in the West—and in France in particular—and foremost among them the Communist Youth, is to oppose these policies within their own societies, to denounce double standards, and to transform solidarity into organized political pressure capable of bringing about change.
Dear comrades,
The issue of Palestinian prisoners is central to the struggle for national liberation. These fighters, foremost among them Comrade Commander Ahmed Saadat, General Secretary of the Popular Front, embody the true meaning of revolutionary commitment as they face the colonial repression machine with legendary steadfastness, confronting all forms of brutality and repression that have intensified in recent months with increased ferocity. The prisoners are the leaders of the struggle within the prisons and a living symbol of the unity and steadfastness of our people. To defend them is to defend the very essence of the Palestinian cause. In this context, we warmly welcome your commitment to intensify the national campaign in support of Palestinian prisoners, and we view these initiatives as a genuine expression of effective international solidarity that goes beyond mere statements and seeks to influence and bring about change.
Dear comrades and participants,
The challenges we face today require us to move from symbolic solidarity to organized and joint action. That is why, on the occasion of your forum and conference, we call for:
1. Building a broad international front uniting progressive, revolutionary, communist, and left-wing forces, capable of coordinating its efforts and presenting a united front against imperialist and Zionist projects.
2. Developing forms of struggle within Western countries, including popular mobilization, union action, student and youth struggles, as well as solidarity movements, in order to bring about real changes in official policies.
3. Resisting attempts to demonize and criminalize resistance movements, and defend the right of peoples to resist occupation by all legitimate means.
4. Raising awareness among younger generations about political issues and to connect their local struggles to the global struggle against capitalism and colonialism.
5. Supporting and developing boycotts, divestment, and sanction campaigns as effective tools of struggle.
6. Giving an international scope to the issue of Palestinian prisoners and intensifying international campaigns for their release and to hold the occupier accountable for the crimes committed against them.
7. Prosecution of Zionist war criminals through international legal mechanisms and to reject impunity.
8. Exposing the role of global arms companies involved in supporting the Zionist occupation, work toward their boycott and closure, end all cooperation with them, and press for them to cease arms exports to the occupied territories and end all forms of military cooperation with them.
9. Strengthening international solidarity with the peoples victimized by the aggression in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Yemen, and regard these aggressions as an attack against all free peoples.
10. Expressing our full solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela in the face of imperialist blockades and sanctions, and to work to support their resilience and break these blockades.
Dear participants,
We view the French Communist Youth as a vanguard force capable of bringing about change; you embody a new generation that is raising the fundamental questions of justice, equality, and liberation in the face of a brutal global system in crisis. Your historic responsibility must not be limited to solidarity with Palestine, but must extend to the struggle to change the system that breeds wars, poverty, and oppression. Our struggle is one and the same—from Paris to Gaza, to Beirut, to Havana, to Caracas, and from every place of struggle to another.
In conclusion,
We, the members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, once again extend our congratulations on the holding of your congress, hoping that its outcomes will contribute to the successful advancement of the Communist Youth’s work. We affirm that our people’s struggle will continue until they have fully achieved their goals of liberation, return, and self-determination. We are convinced that our victory depends on the unity of the liberation forces throughout the world and their ability to collectively oppose the imperialist project.
We have confidence in you and in your ability to make this congress a new starting point on the path of the international struggle.
Long live the Communist Youth in France!
Long live the unity of the liberation forces throughout the world!
Long live a free Palestine, from the river to the sea! Long live the free peoples!
Down with imperialism… Down with Zionism…
Glory to the martyrs, freedom to the prisoners, and victory to the peoples in struggle!
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
