This state of affairs is not, however, the product of a massive flood of support for the programme of the right. The rightwing Assembly for the Republic (RPR) and the Union for French Democracy (UDF) - who campaigned together in the Union for France (UPF) bloc — have not received many more votes than in 1986. Their victory is thus a product of the collapse of support for the left parties of the previous government.
Then there was the high rate of abstention in the popular constituencies as well as the record number of spoiled ballots — one and a half million elected to go to the polls in order to cast spoiled ballots. This reflects both the rejection of the traditional parties and the disarray of those social layers which have been hardest hit by the social and economic crisis - unemployment, insecurity — but have not been won to the right's programme.
The major feature of these elections is the unequivocal rejection of the Socialist Party. With less than 18% of votes cast and 50 deputies in the new Assembly, it has suffered one of the worst defeats in its history. This is the result of 12 years of broken promises, of subordination to capitalist interests and corruption of its leaders. The party which was born in 1971 at the 32
Epinay congress, and built itself based on the radicalization of the 1970s, now finds itself awash in this latest fiasco. "We must rebuild" has been the catch phrase of its
No alternative has appeared on the left. The ecologists have failed to come anywhere near fulfilling the hopes they had for themselves. To be sure, their scored has improved from 0.32% in 1988 to 10.70% this year. But the alliance of the two ecology parties — the Greens and Ecology Generation — has not scored as high as in the regional elections of 1992 nor as well as expected by its leaders (some opinion polls credited them with 17% of voting intentions). This is the price for having an ambiguous programme and pretending to escape the left-right division — and for the political manoeuvering of certain of its leaders, such as Brice Lalonde, one of Mitterrand's former ministers.
Even though it managed to hold on to its parliamentary group and to win over some disappointed PS voters, the Communist Party has nevertheless suffered yet another blow. It has scored its worst result since World War Two. The currents of the critical left, for their part, were not able to make any significant gains. As for the far left, its results remain stable, even if the total of votes obtained of certain of its representatives crossed the 5% level in certain constituencies.
Threat of social explosion
France is now a country in which many of the traditional points of reference have been thrown asunder. The right is now totally dominant in the institutions, well out of proportions to its real weight in the country. It confronts a situation characterized by both the crisis of French capitalism and a social crisis which could very well detonate social explosions.
The workers movement is lacking a credible perspective, at a time when the increasing separation between the gains of the population and the traditional forms of political representation on the left. The union moment is going through a crisis of identity and strategy which has yet to produce anything more than fragmentation
There is instability and convulsion on the horizon. There is a real danger that in the coming confrontations there will not be any credible force on whom to rely in the workers movement. This could deepen the divide that already exists between the radicalism of sectors which enter into struggle and the level of consciousness that is expressed
The far right could very well benefit from this state of affairs. It has just made progress in the elections, with 13% of votes cast - and it has grown based on the ever-rising level of social insecurity due to the economic crisis.
The uncertain character of the French situation has led the right to temper its ardour. This explains the apparent moderation of the new prime minister, Edouard Balladur. But their programme is clear: they will deepen the liberal orientation of previous Socialist Party governments.
Under the slogan of "competitive deflation", wage austerity will be intensified, competitive enterprises in the public sector will be privatized, public education will be dismantled, corporate taxes and payments will be reduced, and there will be a greater deregulation with respect to the right to work and social protection. For the moment, however, the government doesn't want to "make waves".
Apparently, the right has learned some lessons from its previous return to government, between 1986 and 1988. At that time, its immediate attacks on workers and youth provoked a series of swift reactions from the population. A powerful youth mobilization even forced the Jacques Chirac government to drop his plans for university reform, only nine months after taking office.
Today, the right is aware of the explo-
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International Viewpoint #245 May 1993 sive nature of the social crisis in a number of sectors and, not wanting to spoil its chances of winning the 1995 presidential elections, it has for the moment opted to postpone confrontation with popular
However, the new government has to avoid "disappointing" the most reactionary sectors of its electorate, under the pressure of the National Front. And so they have compensated for their hesitation in the social and economic sphere with a brutal and aggressive attitude in the area of security and immigration. The minister of the interior Charles Pasqua, who held this post between 1986 and 1988, has already announced measures which attack the reunification rights of immigrant families, which increase police identity checks and the expulsion of "illegal aliens".
Police on the rampage
The effects of this orientation has been quickly felt. The police, infected by various fascist-type networks and subject to the growing influence of the racist discourse, suddenly feels free from any constraints. One month after the victory of the right, there have been no fewer than six violent attacks leading to the deaths of youths, most of whom are children of
Along the same lines, the new government has proposed a reform to the Nationality Code which would mean an unprecedented attack on a gain dating back to the French Revolution. Until now, children born on French soil to immigrant parents automatically became French citizens. With the proposed reforms, these youth would hitherto have to request citizenship — a measure which introduces a scandalous discrimination between youth based on their origins.
It is not clear that Balladur can pursue his current line of approach for much longer. Given the weakening of French capitalism in a crisis-ridden world economy, there will be increasing pressure from various sectors of the bourgeoisie to quickly attack the living and working conditions
At the same time, the debate on European construction is going to begin again among the ruling classes. A number of French business leaders propose a return to protectionisn, either on a European or national level. They cannot tolerate increased competition at a time of recession. For the new government, the first test will be around the "Washington compromise" signed in November 1992 by EEC negotiators and opposed by the former prime minister, Piere Bérégovoy.
Edouard Balladur now finds himself caught between pressure from farmers — who would be seriously affected by the Washington compromise, which involves leaving land uncultivated and the reduction of subsidies — and the need to preserve the Franco-German alliance, the backbone of the European community.
The new majority government will have to deal, among other things, with the reform of the European Monetary System. Its mechanisms now oblige the Bank of France to follow the German bank, the Bundesbank, or risk devaluation. This is what forces the French economy to live with high interest rates in the short term, while at the same time the United States lowers its own.
Within the French right, particularly within the nationalist and populist wing of the RPR (which, led by Philippe Sěguin and Charles Pasqua, ran a campaign for a "no" to Maastricht in last autumn's referendum), voices have been raised calling for a de-linking from the German mark in the interests of lowering short-term interest rates.
The Socialist Party which emerged from the Epinay conference in the early 1970s is now dead. Its leadership committee of April 3 and 4 produced an implosion, with the former first secretary Laurent Fabius left in a minority by a coalition of currents around Michel Rocard, long considered the "natural" Socialist candidate to succeed Mitterrand for the presiden-
Rocard does not favour any kind of break from the programme which led to the recent electoral disaster. He has in fact long called for a kind of "historic compromise" through which French social democracy could publicly announce its adherence to social liberalism.
He hopes to move beyond the PS, to sever its remaining ties with the social democratic tradition and the organized workers movement. In other words, he is hoping that the PS will be transformed into a party modelled on the American Democratic Party. During the election campaign, he called for a "big bang" which would bring together forces from the ecologists to the centre-right, and pick up a few critical CP forces en route.
A house in ruins
One of the historic currents of the PS, around Jean-Pierre Chevènement, broke away on the evening of the second round of the elections. Chevènement declared, "The French people have not rejected the Socialists because they were socialists, but because they were no longer...The Socialist Party is no longer even an old house, but a house in ruins." Denouncing the transformation of the party into "a party of the Establishment in the service of a neoliberal project where the centre-right would be welcomed," he has devoted himself to the building of his own current, the Citizens Movement (Movement des
Uniting a left critique of the Socialist government (which led the current to oppose the Gulf War and call for a "no" to Maastricht) with a pronounced French nationalism, this current will have to clarify its strategy and primary orientation. Will it evolve into a component of a genuine project of left reconstruction? Will it deepen its nationalist orientation, up to joining hands with the Gaullist and protectionist wings of the RPR? Will it choose to assert its particular identity by putting forward its leader for the presidential elections? Its future will depend on the answer it gives to these questions.
The Communist Party does not offer a minimum credible response to the open crisis of the PS. To be sure, it can continue to occupy a small political space and appear to certain sectors of the workers movement as a pole of resistance to the decomposition of a left faced with attacks from the new government. But the party is paralysed by the sclerosis of its leadership.
As for the ecologists, they have begun a redefinition of their strategy. This could produce some positive results in the Greens. Their electoral failure, the new political situation and the size of the rightwing majority beg a questioning of their traditional refusal to clearly situate themselves on the left. The usefulness of their alliance with Ecology Generation is under question; this has created a certain realignment in the leadership, but confusion continues to reign in the party.
Revolutionaries will have to simultaneously stimulate popular mobilizations, unite them and encourage processes of debate and reorganization on the political and union level. Major events will without doubt be required to overcome differences linked to the past and to serious political and strategic differences.
Aware of the difficulties, but convinced that there is no other possible way to rebuild a figthback and an emancipatory project, the LCR is convinced that this is the way forward: through the developing of social resistance to the right's attacks, and through working to bring together the conditions for the emergence of a new political force. *
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