In the face of what Peter Mertens, Secretary General of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA), called “a summer of humiliation for the European Union” – marked by EU leaders agreeing to increased NATO spending, a harmful tariff deal with the United States, and failed attempts to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration over the war in Ukraine – movements across the region are preparing for a new season of struggles. Early September gatherings such as ManiFiesta in Belgium and La Fête de l’Humanité in France have become key moments for progressives to come together, anticipating and confronting the challenges ahead.
Reflecting on his intervention at La Fête de l’Humanité, Maurizio Coppola of the Italian left party Potere al Popolo underlined that Europe’s crises cannot be separated from the discussion on imperialism. “The counteroffensive of imperialism directed at the Global South in the form of external war also manifests internally as a war with consequences for the working class,” he told Peoples Dispatch. These consequences, Coppola explained, include the erosion of basic rights, the criminalization of solidarity groups such as Palestine Action and Urgence Palestine, the repression of journalists in Germany like red. media, and even cases of infiltration in Potere al Popolo itself.
Coppola’s comment captured the framework of discussions at both festivals, where participants examined how militarism, austerity, and attacks on dissent are part of the same political project, forging a way to resist them.
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At ManiFiesta, many of Saturday’s events focused on Europe’s warpath – rising military expenditures and the resulting cuts to social programs – alongside people-centered visions for reindustrialization and resistance to the far right. These themes intersected across discussions featuring speakers such as former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Die Linke co-chair Ines Schwerdtner, MEP Marc Botenga, and trade unionists from IG Metall, the United Auto Workers (UAW), Belgium’s union confederations, and the UK’s National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). Their interventions shared a common picture that both the political elite and the far right are already at war – but with the working class.
In Belgium, Mertens emphasized during one of the debates, government officials openly cite US-style poverty and inequality as a model. The result is that the Arizona government is waging “a war on social security.” Mobilization in these conditions, he stressed, is vital to defend hard-won rights. The national protest scheduled for October 14, he added, will therefore be “a protest for social security and justice, as much as it is a protest against their war.”
Another point of convergence was the need to build credible and concrete alternatives. While one part of the left’s energy is defensive, Mertens insisted that it must also spark deeper debate about what today’s model of society truly offers humanity, and how the left can provide a path forward.
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As expected, solidarity with Palestine was a running theme throughout ManiFiesta’s opening day. At the festival’s central event, participants heard from Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, and Dr. Hanne Bosselaers, one of the physicians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla. Both reminded the audience of the importance of continued local mobilization against the genocide in Gaza, as well as the international solidarity that must be positioned at its center.
And while the left in Europe faces an uphill battle, both in holding leaders accountable for the genocide in Palestine and in confronting the far right, the first discussions offered more experience-based hope than might be expected. In words that could apply as much to the broader left as to individual politicians, Jeremy Corbyn remarked during one of Saturday’s sessions: “I’ve been declared politically dead so many times. Tony Blair, Theresa May, and many others who said that are all gone. And I’m still here.”
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