The most striking feature of the presidential election campaign in France is the massive support shown for the Front de Gauche
(Left Front) under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Long before
the campaign was really underway, there were clear signs that the most
conscious and active layer of the working class was mobilising around
the Front de Gauche.
The most striking feature of the presidential election campaign in France is the massive support shown for the Front de Gauche
(Left Front) under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Long before
the campaign was really underway, there were clear signs that the most
conscious and active layer of the working class was mobilising around
the Front de Gauche.
Mélenchon supporter at March 18 rally. Photo: Cyberien.On January 14th,
for example, 6,000 workers and youth turned out to hear Mélenchon in
Nantes. The official launch of the campaign in Paris, on March 18th
– the anniversary of the Paris Commune – took the form of a mass
demonstration of more than 100,000 people on Bastille square. The
meeting organised in Toulouse drew anything between 45,000 and 60,000
participants. Something like 300,000 copies of the brochure outlining
the policy of the Front de Gauche have been sold.
France has never seen such massive enthusiasm for an election
campaign since the historic victory of François Mitterrand in 1981.
Opinion polls credited Mélenchon with between 4% and 7% towards the end
of last year. But he is presently credited with between 13% and 15%.
Between now and the first round of the elections on April 22nd, his ratings could well increase to even higher levels.
The Front de Gauche is essentially an alliance between the Communist Party (PCF) and the Parti de Gauche organised by Mélenchon and his supporters after their break with the Socialist Party. The Parti de Gauche is weaker than the PCF in terms of membership and apparatus, but it is steadily growing in both support and membership.
The phenomenal progress of the Front de Gauche is taking
place against a background of profound social and economic crisis.
French capitalism is in an impasse. The decline of industry and trade
has led to a trade deficit of 75 billion euros. Unemployment has risen
sharply. Some 11 million people are living in various degrees of
poverty. In all aspects of life – health, education, wages and working
conditions, housing, pensions – society is being thrown backwards. The
rule of the banks and capitalist interests in general is ruining the
state and the economy.
Among wide layers of the population, there is a growing consciousness
that this crisis is qualitatively different to those of past decades.
Sarkozy stands at the head of a government by the rich and for the rich,
constantly attacking the rights and livelihoods of the working people.
In 2010, he launched a vicious attack on workers’ pensions, pushing
through his “reform” in spite of massive opposition. He has repeatedly
used racist propaganda as a means of diverting attention from the real
causes of the crisis – and also from the long series of financial
scandals involving members of the government.
The success of the Front de Gauche shows a shift of the
movement to defend pensions in 2010 – which ended in defeat – onto the
political plane. But that does not explain everything. In the previous
presidential elections, in 2007, in spite of a movement involving
millions of workers against the “First Employment Contract” (CPE), the
PCF candidate Marie-George Buffet failed to attract significant support,
winning only 1.93% of the vote. The raising of workers and youth to
their feet on such an impressive scale in the course of the present
campaign is due to the militant policies set out in the programme of the
Front de Gauche, but also to the outstanding personal role and
qualities of leadership displayed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself. In
spite of the weaknesses in the program of the Front de Gauche –
and there are serious weaknesses – here at last we have a candidate who
has clearly identified the capitalist system as being responsible for
the crisis, who has staunchly defended the interests of working people
against the banks and the Stock Exchange, who has demolished the racism
and demagogy of the National Front – to the point of reducing Marine Le
Pen to a state of flustering and humiliated silence during a TV debate –
who has starkly exposed the pro-capitalist policies of the socialist
candidate François Hollande, and who, as a talented orator and
propagandist, has striven to give ordinary working people a sense of
their own power once they decide to act. His main slogan – Take the power! –
sums up this approach, which has undoubtedly enabled Mélenchon to
connect with the militant mood of trade unionists, communists and
left-wing socialists, and, through this “active” layer, to reach out
towards a considerable section of the working people as a whole.
consistently explained that whatever support might be picked up by
various leftist and sectarian groupings, the working class, beginning
with its most politically advanced and active layers, would turn to its
traditional political and trade union organisations. For many years,
some fairly sizeable sectarian groups gained support on the basis of the
drift to the right of the leaders of the mass organisations. The
supporters of La Riposte, they said, were wasting their time
trying to defend revolutionary ideas in “dead” organisations such as the
PCF. Had not the PCF leadership supported massive privatisations under
the Jospin government? But now we see how things have developed. The
ranks of the PCF rejected the most blatant pro-capitalist elements
within the party (Hue, Gayssot, Braouezec), who have now broken with it,
while the Parti de Gauche, as a left-wing split from the Parti Socialiste, has formed an alliance with the PCF. In fact, Mélenchon has been defending policies to the left
of the PCF leadership, and this has led to the almost complete
organisational and moral collapse of all the sectarian groupings. The Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste (NPA), which claimed 9000 members a couple of years ago, has now practically disintegrated.
Whatever the result for the Front de Gauche on April 22nd,
it is clear that the alliance can become a powerful pole of attraction
for workers and youth looking for an alternative to capitalism. If
François Hollande wins the presidency, he will apply austerity policies
similar to those of Sarkozy, and probably even worse. He has made it
clear that the stock markets have “nothing to fear” from a government
under his leadership. Under these conditions, the Front de Gauche alliance would be able, potentially at least, to develop a powerful mass basis.
However, there are several possible variants in the perspectives for
the alliance. In spite of the departure of the most outspoken
pro-capitalist elements in the PCF leadership, some of the present
leaders are leaning in the direction of participating in a socialist
government, although they dare not say so openly at the present time. It
is significant that whereas Mélenchon has ruled out participation, the
PCF leadership has remained obstinately silent on this vitally important
question. Many of the PCF leaders see the Front de Gauche as a first step towards the liquidation of the PCF. The Parti de Gauche,
also, is far from being politically homogenous. Many “moderate” and
opportunist element only joined the new party in the hope of advancing
their careers, whereas the ranks are mainly composed of militants who
see the party as a means to fight against capitalism. At the heart of
all these issues is that of the programme of the alliance and of the parties within it. Whereas the present programme of the Front de Gauche
contains all the basic elements of a serious fighting programme on
questions such as wages, pensions, housing, health, education, workers’
rights and many other important issues, it falls short of a general
programme of socialist expropriation of capitalist interests. Taken as a
whole, therefore, it amounts to an attempt to abolish the consequences
of capitalism without abolishing capitalism itself.
In the years that lay ahead, all these questions of policy, strategy
and organisation will be thrashed out in the heat of the class struggle.
France, like the rest of Europe, is on the threshold of great events.
Sarkozy will hopefully be defeated and consigned to the dustbin of
history. But he and his party are only the representatives of a class
and a system. Whatever government is in power, capitalism can only bring
decline and impoverishment for the mass of the population, while
protecting and enhancing the privileges and wealth of a parasitic
minority. No social order can continue along this road without preparing
its own downfall.
Source: La Riposte (France)
