This French senator is not as good as Robert Skidelsky, whose speech for peace in Ukraine we printed last month.   Nevertheless a Communist Party senator manages not to call for more military spending, but instead to ask for capping of military profits.

We don’t wage war to get rid of war

Jeremy Bacchi, Communist Party senator.

Current affairs question to the government 

Published on 27 November 2025 

https://senateurscrce.fr/travail-parlementaire/les-questions-au-gouvernement/les-questions-d-actualite/article/on-ne-fait-pas-la-guerre-pour-s-en-debarrasser

“Speaking to France’s mayors, the Chief of the Defence Staff stated, and I quote, ‘we must accept the risk of having to sacrifice our children and to suffer economically’.

This anxiety-inducing and warmongering speech left the mayors, and indeed the entire nation, incredulous.

Madam Minister, the administration, whether senior or military, is under the command of the political authorities, not the other way around.

Did you ask the Chief of Staff to make such statements? Do you endorse this sacrificial rhetoric, which runs counter to the republican ideal of human progress, describing a scenario of world war involving France in Ukraine?

We communists know the price of blood, the ultimate commitment to the defence of the nation, as ardent patriots that we are.

Yet today, you are endorsing the transition from a social state to a warrior state.

All cuts in public services are justified by the increase in military needs.

Yet Jaurès taught us that war is not waged to get rid of war.

Minister, these thunderous announcements, this conditioning of the masses, are in fact evidence of a major and unprecedented crisis in French diplomacy.

Reform of the diplomatic corps pushed through by force. Our country disavowed in Africa and the Middle East. Sidelined from important discussions by President Trump, France is retreating in the face of global disorder.

Since 2017, the President of the Republic has sacrificed our diplomatic networks and our influence, undermining the very idea that our country is a balancing power.

We must lead a coalition with clear red lines, standing alongside Ukraine and proposing a credible, fair and sustainable peace plan.

Any escalation of war in this period runs counter to what the future of humanity requires.

That is why we have tabled a bill to limit the profits of large defence companies and neutralise the dividends of war.

The war economy leads to an increase in stock market portfolios, public procurement is transformed into private dividends, and destruction and fear become indicators on the financial markets.

As Victor Hugo said, ‘peace is the virtue of civilisation, war is its crime’.”