Towards the bitter end
Is there a change at the next stop?
International Viewpoint # 242 February 1993
FRANCE goes to the polls on March 21, a victory for the right over the ruling Socialist Party of president François Mitterrand already seems more than likely. DANIEL BENSAID — Paris, January 20, 1993
S PECULATION centres more
on the scope of this victory than on its likelihood. The anticipated defeat of the left in general and the Socialist Party (PS) in particular, will constitute the end of
When the PS won the 1981 presidential and parliamentary elections it announced that it intended to effect sweeping change. Twelve years later, the passage of time has cruelly exposed the hollowness of such ambitions.
Little remains of their promises. If we look at the abolition of the death penalty, the Auroux laws on workplace democracy, retirement at 60 and decentralization, we find that decentralization has merely decentralized corruption, the Auroux laws have done little to stem mounting unemployment, and retirement at 60 is already threatened. This leaves only the abolition of the death penalty.
This is not much to set alongside the catastrophic record on unemployment, the reappearance of urban poverty, the rise of racism and xenophobia, the contaminated blood affair and a long list of scandals, including the contaminatedblood affair.
This started in 1984, when French doctors warned the responsible government officials of the danger of infection with the AIDS-producing HIV virus through the use of untreated blood for transfusions. Rather than buying in treated blood from the USA, the authorities opted to continue using untreated blood until French industry was itself able to carry out the de-contamination process. As a result many patients were
The moral debacle of the left is practically total. It is more so since these are not honorable defeats registered in the heat of battle with powerful opponents, but self-inflicted defeats dealt by the left's rejection of its own values and adoption of those of its opponents. Such defeats leave lasting demoralization. 14
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Champion of the strong franc and promoter of the stock market, the Socialist government has tried to be more effective than the right in managing the needs and interests of capital. This conversion to a tempered liberalism is not merely the end of the well-trod path of reformists without reforms. It marks the utter exhaustion of a social democratic project involving the administration of the welfare state and the representative mechanisms tied to it.
This is the essential problem facing the PS. The so-called "turn to realism" of 198283 when the government bowed before the constraints of the international recession and abandoned its proclaimed social priorities — particularly full employment — was far more than a momentary wobble in adverse circumstances; it involved taking on board the conviction that traditional Keynesian politics have lost their relative efficiency in a strongly internationalized economy, at least unless they were applied in an extremely radical manner with rigorous price controls, outlawing of lay-offs, and breaking with the world market framework.
The road of even modest reforms was increasingly narrowed in the anticipation of being able to bring the instruments of enlightened intervention out of the cupboard at a
### Yes, but not for us higher level, within the European context. Delor's pro-European activism after 1984-85 was closely connected to the 1983 "turn" in
Nearly ten years later, the political and institutional framework for a EC-wide neo-Keynesian framework has yet to be put in place. The difficulties of financing the plan to relaunch Europe and the difficulties of the European Monetary System work against this. What journalists here like to call the moral or political crisis, in which state corruption is seen as associated with the rise in electoral abstentionism, is in reality directed connected to the decline of postwar redistributive policies and the effective social compromise that resulted.
Everywhere in Europe, the legitimacy of the system of representation been based on a coherent set of relations, involving a central role for a powerful social democratic or Stalinist party, a vigorous union movement, and the allegiance of the majority of the working class to its organizations, seen as more or less adequate guarantors of its social rights.
However recent years have seen massive industrial restructuring, fragmentation, increasing inequalities and the segmentation of the labour force. This has led to a crisis of the system of representation, a dissatisfaction
International Viewpoint # 242 February 1993
Some French politicians
JACQUES Delors, a member of the
Socialist Party, is the President of the
European Commission. Alain Madelin:
a member of the UDF (French Democratic Union) who favours devaluing the franc. Philippe De Villiers: right wing ideologue and politician. Charles Pasqua and Philippe Seguin: leading members of the neo-Gaullist RPR who opposed their party's official support for the
Maastricht Treaty on European union.
Bernard Kouchner: a minister in the
Bérégovoy government; Bernard Tapie, a millionaire businessman who resigned a ministerial post following a financial scandal, but was subsequently, named minister of urban affairs last
December by the same Bérégovoy government. Eduard Balladur: ex-finance minister in the Chirac government in
1986-1988 who has been promoted in business circles as the future prime minister following the right's anticipated victory.* with the traditional apparatuses which are increasingly incapable of playing their role, the search for sectoral forms of expression, and a sea change in electoral behaviour.
One system (or mode of regulation) has become outdated. But a coherent alternative system is not on the horizon. This malaise is at the root of the insecurity and identity panics which nourish the new far-right movements. Behind all the varieties of such movements and the fluctuations of their electoral scores, there lays a tenacious reality. In France, the traditional liberal and Gaullist rightist formations are undergoing a systematic weakening analogous to that of the social
Historical Gaullism (or Christian Democracy in Italy) have had a clientelist relationship with their electorate based on post-war economic growth. The more far-sighted leaders of this right understand that they have played the role of sorcerer's apprentice in promoting unbridled liberalism and singing the praises of Reaganism and Thatcherism. The result is economically disastrous, socially costly, and politically disturbing. A space has been opened up for a populist right and, if the situation were not so serious, one could derive much pleasure from the sight of erstwhile liberal zealots such as Madelin today supporting an urgent relaunch of state intervention.
This is the explosive paradox of the situation. Faced with a defeated left which no longer has any clear plans or identity, the poorly unified right is trembling at the spectre of its likely victory. The prospect of having to manage galloping unemployment in an uncertain international context is not alluring. More so, as a system of domination that has worked relatively well for the past half century is compounded by an international leadership crisis.
Since the break up of the Soviet Union, the United States has missed no chance to affirm its diplomatic-military hegemony in the world, most obviously via the Gulf War. But its role is in contrast with its eco nomic decline and the continuing financial disorder. No dominant power exists able to fulfil the economic and military role formerly assumed by Britain and then by the
In this context, the electoral campaign takes on the allure of a guerilla war. Given the gravity of the situation, one might have expected clear statements from the dominant forces on the most burning questions such as employment, social protection, the future of Europe or the crisis in Yugoslavia. But each of these issues divides the right as much as the left. The debate has crystalized around the eternal question of the possibility of "left-right" cohabitation or on the president's plans for institutional
These latter issues are not without tactical importance. François Mitterrand can in effect benefit from a social and economic situation that will present a right wing government with many difficulties and the need for constitutional changes to shake out the party system and redesign the landscape before the 1995 presidential elections. Nonetheless, given the depth of the crisis the politicians' ponderings on the pleasures of cohabitation look pretty irrelevant.
Electorally, political formations which appear as outside the traditional pattern can take advantage of this impasse. This is particularly the case with the Ecologist coalition. The neo-fascist National Front (FN) which had at one point attained 14% seems to be marking time, having failed to make a breakthrough in the 1992 regional and cantonal elections. Le Pen's party built its image on an impression of an irresistible rise and the voter may deduce that those who don't advance are declining.
Over the last year, the National Front has had problems finding a second wind conducting a low-key campaign around Maastricht. After having benefitted from calculated media promotion, it finds itself today receiving much less media attention. But above all, the traditional right with the initiatives of De Villiers or the populist activism of the Pasqua-Seguin team, are stealing its themes and clientele. Nonetheress, it must not be forgotten that the electoral set back was relative to its ambitious targets. At the same time as it declined in its southern fiefs, the FN consolidated its presence in the
Paris region.
Rise of the ecologists It is rather the ecologists coalition between the Greens of Antoine Waechter and
Dominique Voinet and Generation Ecologie launched a year ago by the ex-minister of the environment Brice Lalonde, which is likely to make electoral advances — polls currently indicate that it enjoys the support of 17% of the electorate. The electoral system however will not assure it more than a handful of seats in Parliament.
This may make this current the principal electoral victor without it having to immediately assume the responsibilities which flow from such success. In fact, the environmental coalition is no less divided on the big questions of the future as the left or the traditional right. Divisions are found not only between the Greens and Generation Ecologie, but also
A real left THE Revolutionary Communist League (LCR - French section of the Fourth International) has decided to participate in the legislative electoral campaign by running approximately 75 candidates under the banner "A Real Left" and on the basis of its own platform. A pamphlet explaining its arguments and proposals on employment and unemployment is being produced At the same time, the LCR has joined with other forces - notably dissidents from the Communist Party (PCF) and the PS - in a "Pledge to change the left". The signatories of this accord had taken note of their agreements on united action around important events like the Gulf War and the referendum on the ratification of the Maastricht treaty, as well as on the need to respond to the rise of racism and fascism. The Pledge is not a common programme nor the outline of a new organization, but rather, a realistic assessment of the possible scope of collaboration. Thus, the candidates will use the Pledge as a reference point, and attempt whenever possible to avoid competition and work together in the spirit of reciprocal support. It is vital that electoral competition does not destroy the united dynamics that have been forged and that periodical polemics do not obscure the greater stakes involved. Towards this end, a round of meetings and debates has been organized throughout the country before the official opening of the campaign. *
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