Election victory
FRANCE crucial weakness in their success. The PS may try to change this, but
The PS vote can be divided into three categories. There are a section of voters who vote PS because there is no alternative to economic crisis. There is a crystallization around social democratic policies
Interview with Alain Krivine and ideology, if you like, which is
There is a whole section of the
THE MARCH 16 regional and parliamentary elections in France saw an important defeat for the ruling Socialist Party (PS) and ushered in a new phase in French politics.
With presidential elections due to the first time in the history of the fifth republic that a Socialist Party president (Francois Mitterrand) will govern along side a right wing majority of the RPR (Rassemblement pour la republique) and the debate over this phenomenon of "cohabitation", the new prime minister, Jacques Chirac (RPR), declared himself willing to cooperate with Mitterrand, whose powers as president are wide-ranging.
The elections were the first to be held under the new system of proportional representation and with only one round.
In the following interview Alain Krivine a leader of the French section of the Fourth International, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire [LCR] assesses the results and gives an initial look at the perspectives for the left in the coming period.
What is your overall assessment of the election results?
Of course, generally it was a victory for the right, less significant than had been expected, but compared with the situation when the left was voted in in 1981, the situation has been reversed.On the erosion of the balance of forces between the workers' move.
ment and the bourgeoisie with a genmovement to the right inside
That is the result of the policies of the Socialist Party (PS) in of the demoralization government, created by this and of the absence of an alternative politically or organizatinally to the left of the Communist
Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party.
This movement to the right by the society as a whole is a function of the different developments of the political parties. That is to say that as the PCF continues its collapse, a section of the working class is voting social democrat (that is PS), the bourgeoisie is strengthened and a section of the bourgeoisie has radicalized to the far right. So overall there's a general development to the right.
The elections represent a real defeat for all those who are to the left of the left or among the far left.
Since 1981 there had been the phenomenon of abstention from the left -
International Viewpoint 7 April 1986 take place in 1988, this will be that is there are hundreds of thousands, even millions of workers who did not want to vote for the official left anymore.
This time the left abstention rate out to vote PS
So what the elections show is a recomposition of political forces in France.
The PS has claimed that its result is a success? What is meant by this?
A. It is true that the PS has never had such a good result except of course in 1981 and that was an exception - that was after Mitterrand's victory in the presidential which a certain dynamic was built up. So, apart from in 1981, the PS has never had a score of 32 per cent of the vote. They are the first party in the country success is ambiguous. First of all it is an electoral success. In terms of capacity for organization, implantation in the factories the unions, there is no equivalent. In this respect they are still very weak. The majority of workers vote for the PS but the majority are not organized by the PS in any way. This is the and disoriented and who have been won over to social democratic ideology. We must make no mistake about this. This was part of the PS vote.
Amongst these voters there former PCF voters also who are now voting PS for political reasons. That is to say that they no longer believe in the possibility of the anti-capitalist struggle and take up the PS ideology as a kind of lesser evil.
There is another section of workers who voted PS who are difficult to quantify but who took part in what we call the "vote utile" (tactical voting). Among these were large sections of the far left who do not agree with the policies of the PS but who, because of the new system of voting and the possibility of the right coming back to power, voted PS for tactical reasons. This was very widespread and explains to a certain extent the failure of the far left and the ecologists. During our election campaign there were many workers within that minority which is to the left of the PS, who said: "We agree with your policies but on the electoral level a vote for you will serve no purpose." Some said: "We will give you money, we support you, but we will vote for the PS". This includes sympathizers who are very close to the LCR. As I said, it is difficult to know how many, but it is possible that in the region of hundreds of thousands of workers voted for the PS without supporting in any way the ideology of the PS and only in order to defeat the right.
So the election was a success for Mitterrand's strategy, which he has been developing for some time and which involved, first of all, smashing the Communist Party. Here he has obviously succeeded since the PCF got less than 10 per cent of the vote. In five years the PCF has managed to lose half its electorate. That is, they have lost two and a half million votes. Many people have left the PCF and it will continue to decline.
Mitterrand's strategy was to prepare for a system of alternation such as exists in other countries in the West. This goes hand in hand with a strong Socialist Party fortified with a reformist and class-collaborationist ideology
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
for the right
RIGHT
LEFT
ABSTENTIONS
The policies of the two ruling parties are not actually very different from those implemented by the PS. They will carry on with the restructuring of industry, compulsory redundancies, austerity measures and produring this election campaign there was no debate on policies. The right no real alternative, and, even if they don't say so, the bosses were reasonably happy with the PS policies. They were quite happy with, for example, the weakness unions and the "social peace" that is prevailing. Now all the bourgeoisie for this policy
5,00%
0,00% +
1958 1962 1967 1968 19731978 to vote. (DR) party has inside the tion. The [Confederation federation Democratique by the PS, Today over
France tosystem with Why did it drop so dramatically and to whom did they lose votes?
This is a historic crisis for the PCF which we had underestimated. They got less than 10 per cent of the vote, the same as the National Front.
I won't go into details but there are huge internal debates in the PCF. [See International Viewpoint No. 69, February 11, 1985]
There is no organized current and in any case that is forbidden in the PCF, but there is discontent at the base which has never been seen before. is very confused.
The opposition is very Some criticize the sectarianism of the PCF towards the PS; others criticize for having participated in which stinks. (1) Bu stinks. (1) But in general the criticisms are coming from the left, especially from among workers. They say that the PCF was in government for three years during
1981 1986 958 as a percentage of those resis teres positions. are going It depends how leadership deputies, What type of government will be provided by the UDF/RPR. they have to rely on the votes of the National Front to get what they want?
The right in France divided between two main formations
The fascists, the Gaullists of the RPR and the UDF, important. The PS will try to play on this in order to break the whole thing up. The classical right [that is the majority of two deputies. So they will be constantly under pressure from the fascists, who have 35 deputies. right-wing's majority is very weak and the PS will use this, in the context of continued but at a higher level.
The RPR/UDF puts forward a programme of privatization, the implementation of redundancy policies structures in France which exist for this. The right is proposing that the sack workers instead of going through the established procedures. They are likely to roll back a whole series of progressive measures taken by the PS such as, example, reimbursement
But we have to take two factors majority; and second, the fact that Mitterrand has power to either dissolve parliament or call presidential elections by resignalthough theoretically the presi dential elections will take place in two years time. This means that the right will hesitate to apply its policies to the full. For example, the right put forward the proposal to price controls could cause an increase in inflation. One of the major achievements of the PS government was to get inflation down from 12 to 4 per cent.
Also, if the right goes over the anti-working measures it would break the so-called social peace and provoke workers into struggle. At the same time it would destroy its own credibility and allow Mitterrand to call immediate elections. I think then that the right will be prudent for a year or so, but it will have the National Front on its heels. In this situation, and given the enormous constitutional power of the president, profound crisis at the level of governcontext Mitterrand and the Socialists will try to allow time to discredit themselves in order to call for further elections
1. In the June 1981 legislative elections the PCF got 15% of the vote and from 1981 to July 1984 it participated in successive cabinets headed by PS prime minister Pierre Mauroy. In 1984 the PCF withdrew the formation of Lauren Fabius' government.
International Viewpoint 7 April 1986
and even take over the government again. This is not totally out of the question. The policy of the PS in government will be to vote systematically against the right.
Under the constitution laws can be made by decree and it is possible that the ruling coalition will have to resort to this because every time it introduces something it will come under pressure from the FN. The FN has even said that it would vote with the left against certain laws.
If laws are introduced by decree they have to be signed by the president and then the whole problem of cohabitation comes in again. Mitterrand would probably sign most of them, but he could veto one or two just to prove that the PS is the that it is a force to be
At the level of the institutions, therefore, we are entering a period work for a few months but it is not necessarily the case that it can work for two years.
Q What about the National Front's vote? Surely this is the biggest shock of the election. How do you explain this? Among which layers in society is their support growing?
A. This is the direct result of the inability of the PS to resolve the key issue, which is the issue of unemployment. There are now three million unemployed in France and there were two million when the PS came to power. The presence of several million immigrants (a number which, in fact, has not gone up in 15 years) and increasing unemployment has enabled the National Front to draw together two sections of the population.
International Viewpoint 7 April 1986
Representatives of the UDF
On the one hand, it is strong among the middle classes, the small and the liberal fessions, and on the other, it now has an important echo among the popular masses, not just among lumpen layers employed or demoralized accept Jean-Marie Le Pen's explanation that immigrants are responsible for unemployment.
made up of former members of the OAS [Organisation de l'Armee Secretel from the Algerian war, ex-soldiers etc., and also of a small section of the traditional right who radicalized following the PS victory in 1981. The FN succeeded in winning over certain cadres from the "official" right - mainly from the RPR. Out of its 35 deputies are about ten originally from the RPR and the rest are real out and out fascists.
The FN votes came from all over the country especially from the main urban centres where there are very large immigrant populations, including of course in PS and PCF controlled areas. In Marseilles where there is high immigrant population, the FN got 25 per cent of the votes. This makes it a fundamental political force in that particular department.
The FN vote was weaker in the countryside. It does get votes amongst the peasantry but many fewer than in other areas. In areas like Brittany, which has a small immigrant population, the FN vote was much lower. It was in areas of high immigrant concentration, in industrial areas, where the FN vote was highest and that is very, very worrying.
The votes for the far left and others were extremely low. How and the far
A.
phenomenon.
1.2 stand in all areas.
tactical it
Ouvriere
- an
Size stable represent a more this did
2.
from the the
Algerian war.
It grew up after 1968 through identifying with the social movements and self management and the left of the
CFDT. Since then it has suffered major splits to the PS.
5
The election results
WITH 31.2% of the votes, the
Socialist Party did better than the opinion polls had predicted whilst the RPR/UDF coalition got an absolute majority of 42.2% and 289 seats.
The big shock of the election was the vote for Jean-Marie Le
Pen's fascist organization, the National Front, which got 9.65% of the votes and 35 deputies in parliament, thus establishing itself on the political map.
The massive decline in the
PC's vote, which is symbolically equal to that of the FN at
9.78%, another important feature of the elections.
The votes of the far left further reflected a general drift to the right in French politics, totalling only 1.5%, that
420,000 voters. and it was not based on real mobilizations within the country there have been very few of those
Also this first aspect of our policy could not completely succeed because a rather important section of the this regroupment and was very secdivisions in the far left and decided was not an alternative. is especially true of those want to end up as part of a results mask the fact that some very good campaigns were mounted. Often the electoral results had little to do the implantation and activity on the ground. There are now unified in 40 departments. These the PSU, ex-Maoists - and indepenwomen's movement, the PS and the PCF. In some areas these collectives involved about 200 activists and yet electorally they did
Where there were no unifed lists the LCR stood on its own with the of its campaign being "Voyez Rouge" ("See Red" - Rouge is the name of the LCR's weekly newspaper). The idea of this was to regroup all those who are disgusted by PS policies, to rehabilitate the idea of socialism and the revolution. On this we have to be very clear - it was a total failure.
It is clear that the LCR's score was very weak and apart from all the reasons I have already put forward 6 there is a further, important reason the decline in the consciousness generally in The very fact that we are called "communist" and that we have a hammer and sickle as our emblem means that many workers put us in the same category as the PCF. The very word "communist" at the moment in France is an obstacle. This could even explain why Lutte Ouvriere, ( for example, did marginally better than we did.
Q. The Greens were expected to happened there?
The situation here is different from that in West Germany. There is an awareness of the ecological issues in France, but it has not been tapped.
There are two types of organizations. There are the local collectives that work with revolutionaries and there is the Greens party which adopted the name in order to pick up do so. It is a very particular org anization. It has only 400 members nationally. It is very bureaucratic and declares itself apolitical. We have the strange situation therefore in which the LCR now has better relations with the German Greens than the Greens in France have with them. This year the German Greens cut off funding for the elections to the French Greens because they considered them sectarian and thought they should have supported alternative lists with extra-parliamentary groups. The French Greens paid a high price for their sectarianism.
You say that the electoral what the LCR and alternative camsome examples of what the campaign
Despite the poor vote have had a good campaign in which we have managed to re-energize the
The end-of-the-campaign rally in Paris had more than 1,500 people present. We have appeared on local radio and television and had national TV time. We even set up new branches in some areas out of this campaign.
The same goes for the alternative lists which we animated or participated in. But, here again, the success of the campaigns was reflected in the vote and vice versa.
To give you an example: in the got the highest number of votes -about three and a half per cent -there was a collective but it did not have a huge implantation. But in the department of Orne in Normandy there was a collective of about 150 people including trade unionists, a committee of the unemployed, and a group of peasants. We even held meeting of peasants which attracted about 60 people. We had a real mass implantation and yet the vote was only 0.5 per cent.
In another town in Ardennes we had a committee made up of unemployed workers and steel workers. They got about 2 percent of the vote and they had a very good local implantation.
As a final example, in the Paris region we participated in a list headed by a former leader of the PCF who is very well-known and one of our comrades, a worker at RenaultBillancourt, was second on the list. In another department - the Val de Marne — we participated in a list headed by a young immigrant who helped organize the anti-racist marches in Paris. On this list there a PS deputy who had just left the PS. In the support committee there was councillor. This was broad-based alternative list and support committee and yet it only got 0.5 per cent of the vote.
Q. What are the perspectives for revolutionaries in this new context?
A. Well, we have to be frank and say that this is a very difficult situation. But although there is demoralization and disarray in the working class, this has not been a massive defeat - it is not a Chile here in France.
We think that there will be an offensive against the working class but that this will unleash struggles by the workers now that the left is no longer in government. Many workers drew back from struggle under the PS government because they did not want to play into the hands of the right. Now they will feel that they can fight because with the right in power at least you know who your enemy is. I don't think will be general movements but there will be a reaction if the right policies. So there will be struggles but in a context of a general decline of the movement and a crisis at the level of the trade unions and
We will have to be present in the mobilizations and be ready to mount a real unifed struggle against the policies of the right.
One area which will be a big preoccupation is the issue of racism and the FN. Following the success of SOS-racisme (3) we are convinced that the first mobilization under the new government will be against
3. SOS-Racisme is a national organisation of anti-racist groups initiated by individuals from tne Socialist Party and others. Its success followed massive mobilisations of immigrant youth in national demonstrations in 1983, 1984, 1985.
International Viewpoint 7 April 1986
Le Pen and in defence of immigrants.
During the election campaign a group of fascists murdered a trade-union militant supporting the PS. They killed him while he was putting up posters. This provoked shock waves in France but little active reaction because the PS wouldn't do anything. There was a silent demonstration which the LCR participated in and we used our last television slot during the election campaign to pay homage to this militant. The PS and the PC didn't mention it.
So the first task will be the fight against the fascists and the second task is linked to that. That is to respond to the historic crisis of the workers' movement. The situation is gloomy but there are tens of thousands of workers who want to build a real left - what with the crisis of the PC and the radicalization of the youth. There is a willingness to fight.
The policy of the LCR in
FELIPEIDE
TURITA NO. ALA
OK
SPANISH STATE
NEUT
Madrid, March 24, 1986. (DR)
this context will be to popularize the need