Expert explains how far-left networks are financing France’s chaotic protests
Asra Nomani examines the far-left networks accused of financing unrest in France. The senior investigations editor discusses a News Outlet investigation into funding from radical adult groups, pro-communist media outlets and far-left organizations, finding that fewer than one-third of the 50 active groups are actually student or youth organizations.
Communist revolutionaries, socialist activists and pro-Palestinian demonstrators linked to a network of 106 organizations are preparing a coordinated display of unrest Friday at ports stretching from Oakland, California, to Mumbai, India, in opposition to Israel and what they call “capitalist barbarism.”
A News Outlet investigation found that the global mobilization is not a spontaneous expression of anger. Instead, groups within the so-called “red-green” alliance of communist, socialist and pro-Palestinian movements have spent the past week coordinating strikes, protests and publicity around a shared international strategy.
Organizers are focusing on 113 ports in 22 countries and regions across five continents, aiming to turn major commercial shipping centers into platforms opposing Israel, NATO, Western military policies and the global capitalist system.
Fire burns as demonstrators gather in support of the Global Sumud Flotilla at the Port of Genoa during anti-Israel protests on Oct. 3, 2025, in Genoa, Italy. (Emanuela Zampa/Getty Images)
Advertised as “No Harbour for Genocide,” the mobilization uses a detailed online tracker and spans locations including Genoa and Livorno in Italy, Piraeus near Athens, Hamburg, Tangier, Veracruz, Oakland and Marseille.
The broad geographic reach is deliberate. By coordinating events across continents, organizers can promote one message and make separate demonstrations appear to be part of a single worldwide uprising.
Within the “red-green” alliance, “red” refers to the far left while “green” represents Islam. The same network plans to bring another series of protests, known as “Acte III,” to French streets Saturday.
In the United States, the international campaign is expected to reach the San Francisco Bay Area, where ILWU Local 10 is mobilizing members to participate. Online records show that an anonymous buyer registered NoHarbourForGenocide.com in March 2025.
The campaign’s digital infrastructure highlights the extent of the advance planning, giving organizers a shared platform for actions intended to take place simultaneously around the world.
The same network of communist and pro-Palestinian groups is supporting demonstrations in India, Germany, Spain, Albania, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. Organizers often present the activity as “youth” or “student” activism, although a News Outlet investigation found that only about one in three groups in protest hot spots such as France is youth-led.
Map showing the Oct. 30, 2026, port mobilization. (No Harbour for Genocide)
The port campaign marks a new phase in the international protest strategy, shifting activity beyond streets and university campuses to the commercial infrastructure that links the global economy.
Communist and far-left dockworker unions and organizations are joining anti-Israel groups that have used ports as launch points for campaigns such as the “Global Sumud Flotilla.” The flotilla sends ships toward Israel as a form of protest. Such efforts have often ended with the Israeli military boarding the boats and detaining participants, including environmental activist Greta Thunberg. Detainees have typically shared photos and videos from the sea and after landing across social media.
These maritime confrontations have created a visual and tactical model for international protests, combining actions at sea with demonstrations on land and coordinated online publicity.
Demonstrators protest the arrival of the Crown Iris cruise ship carrying Israeli tourists at the port of Piraeus near Athens, Greece, on June 3, 2026. (Costas Baltas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The planned actions illustrate how activists are using transportation routes to disrupt civil society, extending protests from streets, bridges and tunnels to ports, docks and waterways. During the past week, activists associated with the Global Sumud Flotilla used three sailboats to confront the Sunaid X, a ship that local unions said was supplying the American military installation at Sigonella, Sicily. The action was described as an attempted maritime blockade. Italian authorities seized the boats and referred the activists to prosecutors for allegedly disrupting a public service.
As dockworkers prepare for Friday’s demonstrations, an international publicity effort is developing away from the waterfront. That campaign presents the protests as part of a wider ideological conflict involving communism, socialism, Western governments and capitalism.
Ahead of Friday’s actions, U.S.-based pro-communist nonprofits funded by American-born Marxist technology entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham are promoting the campaign as communist and pro-Palestinian organizations work with labor unions to amplify the message.
Greek riot police officers stand at the entrance to the COSCO shipping port during a demonstration connected to a port workers’ strike called by a Greek labor union in Piraeus near Athens on Feb. 6, 2026. (Aggelos Nakkas/AFP via Getty Images)
Last week, BreakThrough News, a pro-communist media platform funded by Singham, covered the international dockworkers’ strike and said Italian port workers were “set to play a notable role.” The report linked the waterfront action to broader themes involving student activism, “austerity,” government policies and political unrest.
The publicity effort also includes a broader network of pro-communist organizations, including groups that have gone beyond publishing reports to raise money for striking workers.
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Progressive International, a pro-communist organization that works closely with Singham-funded groups and has supported the Communist Party of Cuba, has issued reports and statements promoting the dockworkers’ mobilization. It published a labor statement known as the “Istanbul Declaration” under the headline “Dockworkers will not become a link in the chain of their wars.”
The declaration, issued earlier this year, stated: “We do not load death.”
Progressive International also announced a strike fund for dockworkers taking part in the Oct. 30 action to “stop the imperialist war machine.” The group tied the campaign to issues beyond Gaza, including opposition to U.S. and European policies involving Iran, Yemen, Cuba, Venezuela and what it called “imperialism’s entire coercive apparatus.”
Thousands of demonstrators march toward central Genoa, Italy, on Oct. 3, 2025. Dockworkers, students and others gathered at the Port of Genoa for an anti-Israel protest connected to the Global Sumud Flotilla. (Emanuela Zampa/Getty Images)
Communist organizations have reinforced that international messaging while openly using the dockworkers’ campaign to advance a broader political struggle against capitalism.
On Monday, Italy’s Rete dei Comunisti, or Network of Communists, issued a declaration under the label “COMMUNIST NETWORK” supporting the strike and describing the “task of communists” as fighting “barbarie capitalista,” or “capitalist barbarism.”
That same day, Progressive International published an account of Italian dockworkers learning how to “jam the war machine” in Livorno.
On Wednesday, 13 communist youth organizations from 12 European countries released a joint statement supporting the international strike. They said, “We strengthen our struggle throughout Europe against our common enemy, capitalism,” and called for a “socialist-communist society.”
Taken together, the statements connect Friday’s labor action with student demonstrations already taking place across Europe, giving separate protests a shared ideological framework.
With the demonstrations approaching, pro-communist and anti-Israel groups are intensifying international promotion of the port campaign.
On Thursday, Greece’s Communist Party, known as KKE, said it would send members to ports Friday and declared, “The communists support the strike.” Its stated mission includes the “overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism.”
Italian dockworkers, laborers and students enter the Port of Livorno through the Varco Valessini gate during a pro-Gaza demonstration on Sept. 22, 2025. (Laura Lezza/Getty Images)
Greek communists also shared a statement from European Communist Action, a coalition of communist groups across Europe and the European Union. The statement linked the dockworkers’ campaign to student protests in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Albania, tying together pro-communist movements that have emerged globally in recent weeks.
Progressive International published a report Thursday saying dockworkers in the Italian city of Gioia Tauro would join the next day’s protests after weeks of working with anti-Israel activists on efforts described as “stopping war cargo.”
Jacobin, a socialist publication, has also promoted the campaign with an article by far-left historian Peter Cole titled “Dockworkers Worldwide Are About to Strike for Palestine.”
Singham, the Shanghai-based technology entrepreneur, has faced scrutiny over financial relationships involving nonprofit organizations and left-wing media outlets that have coordinated and amplified anti-Western protests in the United States and abroad for the past decade. In 2017, Singham sold Thoughtworks, the company he founded, for an estimated $785 million. A News Outlet investigation found that he directed $285 million into a global network of pro-China and pro-communist organizations that have played prominent roles in anti-Western protests over the past decade.
Organizations linked to Singham include BreakThrough News, the People’s Forum and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His wife, Jodie Evans, co-founded CodePink.
Dockworkers at the Port of Livorno block a ship during a pro-Palestinian rally on Sept. 5, 2025, in Italy. (Laura Lezza/Getty Images)
Palestinian labor organizations have supplied the “green” component of the international network. This week, 17 Palestinian labor and professional organizations affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel endorsed Friday’s mobilization, urging dockworkers and transportation employees to join protests against military shipments to Israel.
The signatories include the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, the Palestinian Federation of Trade Unions, the General Union of Palestinian Workers, the General Union of Palestinian Women and organizations representing Palestinian teachers and postal workers.
Communist groups worldwide soon circulated the Palestinian organizations’ endorsement, completing the alliance between the network’s communist and pro-Palestinian factions.
