The regional elections are conducted on a proportional basis, unlike most elections in France which are conducted on a majority vote system. This means that these elections were especially effective in revealing new realities. On the right this means the emergence of the Front National (FN), a potential, but currently unacceptable partner for the established right parties, the RPR and UDF, to form a new right majority. On the left we saw the ecologists become a significant national force, offering the president new room for
All predictions for this election counted on a high rate of abstention. In fact howe• What, in your view, are the tasks of the party from the specifically organizational point of
The principal organizational problem is that of our youth work. The youth implantation of the PRC is very weak. The elections confirmed it: we had only around 40,000 more votes in the vote for the Chamber of Deputies in relation to the vote for the Senate, whereas there are around 4 million more electors.
Secondly, it is necessary to transform the popular and working class influence of the party into a structure with roots, which condition the activity of the party at all these levels. Finally, it is imperative to overcome the provisional nature of our organizational functioning. We need to be more efficient, more systematic and more
These are the problems that I intend to raise at the next meeting of the national political committee. * down on the European elections of 1989, leave it in control of only one region (three before, losing a number of historic bastions in the process.
PS goes back to 1968
The PS, which for a decade has put itself forward as the possible centre point for a recomposition of the whole workers' movement and beyond that of the progressive forces in their entirety, finds itself back in the situation of 1968, when Mitterrand picked up a small party and making it into his vehicle. Now it can no longer seriously pretend to have the right to exercise power. It has thus exhausted its potential, and its role must be downplayed. This is the meaning of the selection of Laurent Fabius as its new leader; this "renewer" has the task of ridding the party of some of its references to the workers' movement and make it an acceptable partner in a centre realignment cemented by fear of the Front National — a project that is by no means guaranteed of success.
The traditional right, which one might have expected to benefit from the crumbling of the Socialist Party, was disappointed. The RPR-UDF alliance got 33% of the vote, a fall of eight points compared to 1986. The number of regional councils where it has an absolute majority fell from eight to three. Its presidencies rest on unstable foundations, often under pressure
The French Communist Party (PCF) meanwhile put itself forward as the "only opposition on the left" to the regime. With 8%, the party stemmed its electoral decline but no more: this means that its internal crisis will continue.
Le Pen's neo-fascist FN did not get all it hoped for; in particular it did not get over the 15% level. It is clear that there was something of an anti-Le Pen electoral mobilization, reflected in the high turnout, and stimulated by the energetic anti-Le Pen mobilizations during the campaign.
Nonetheless, one should not rejoice too soon. In these elections the vote was for a party, not simply for Le Pen himself; the NF now has 239 regional councillors compared to 137 after 1986. Furthermore, in the earlier election Le Pen had tried to hide behind respectable but not wholly reliable personalities, many of whom later defected elsewhere; this time the FN's candidates were solid party members. The FN is now 9 the second largest right wing party, behind
International Viewpoint # 227 • April 27, 1992
FRANCE the RPR but ahead of the UDF. It has become the second political force overall in three key regions, including the lle de France around Paris, and the first in a not inconsiderable number of towns and neighbourhoods.
Within the newly elected regional councils it has cast its support widely, in some cases voting for the right, in others for centre candidates, in yet others for members of the government - for example Soisson in Bourgogne and Rausch in Lorraine. The idea here is both to embarrass the Socialists and remind the mainstream right of the cost of refusing an alliance with the NF. The NF must believe, that, given the chronic confusion among its adversaries, time is on its side.
### Green vote split
Knowing that this election would see a rise in the green vote, Brice Lalonde, Cresson's environment minister, formed his Génération ecologie (GE) lists, aimed at drawing a part of the green vote away from the existing Green Party, which has taken the line of "neither left nor right". This operation was a success; 7.1% voted for the GE and 6.8% for the Greens. Now installed in force in the regional councils, the often inexperienced eco-deputies are subject to multiple and contradictory pressures. Some in Languedoc-Roussillon voted for a UDF leader, Blanc, who had managed the region in alliance with the NF, while in the North a Green was elected president. The national leadership hesitated before refusing offers to enter the government. This new force will rapidly undergo a crisis.
The green vote mainly represents a double desire of a large part of the left electorate to both oppose the FN and punish the PS government. Together with the 10 FN vote it shows a growing tendency to vote for parties critical of the existing institutions. Another sign of this, even if less significant, is the success of some dissident PS and COPCF lists in • places where they could count on a local implantation. The breakaway current from the PCF known as the Refounders set up the Alternative démocratie socialisme (ADS) lists. In some places where they were able to put forward well-known candidates they beat the official party representatives and got regional councillors elected. The dissident Socialist lists are a somewhat different story. They originated in the national leadership over-riding local organizations' choice of candidates to exclude particular currents and were politically diverse. In general they obtained honourable scores and election.
Also worth mentioning are the scores for the twenty or so lists put forward by the Trotskyist Lutte Ouvriére ("Workers Struggle") organization, which maintained its traditional 1 to 2 percent, and a number of lists supported by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR — French section of the Fourth International), which got reasonable scores, both defending a Communist perspective in opposition to the abandonment of traditional references by the big workers' parties.
After the elections, the crisis will deepen - the change of government being a sign of this. Unable to bring in European Commission President Jacques Delors to replace the deeply unpopular Edith Cresson, Mitterrand has tried to patch things up. Behind the man of the strong franc Pierre Bérégovoy, are assembled a group of the faithful - combined with the removal of some rivals of PS leader Fabius and the much trumpeted entry of Tapie.
Meanwhile, in the approach to the legislative elections of 1993, everyone is agreed that we are in a period of overall decomposition and recomposition of the political landscape. * 1. Soisson, called on to either resign as regional president or leave the government, left the government. Rausch, on the other hand resigned from the regional presidency, and remains in the Bérégovoy government.