THE SWEEPING victory of the right-wing in the 21 March French elections is a huge indictment of the 12 of dominated by the Socialist Party (SP). For the central Issue m the campaign has been the 3 million unemployed; on this front Mitterrand has done no better than the British Thatcherites.
While racism and the tar right have grown, Socialist Party government has done nothing to check the effects of The S1 inc p&p to: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU April, 1993 No. 40 austerity and recession on the working cass.
At the same time, trade unionism has rapidly declined to around 5 per cent of the workforce, and there is a lowebb of struggle.
The net effect has been bitter disillusionment with official politics and the whole traditional political class. This is reflected in the vote for the two ecologist currents, the Greens and Generation Ecologie, and the strong, but declining vote for the fascist Front National. victory are yet to be seen. Tough right-wing policies on immigration and 'law and are a certainty. But it is not yet clear whether the rightwing RPR (Gaullist) and UDF parties will go for a full-scale programme or orivatisation Both RPR leader Chirac, and UDF leader Giscard D'Estaing have their eyes on the presidenhal elections in two vears time. Whether they will risk rapid change before that is an open question.
From 1986 to 1988 the ngh: wing controlled the national Assembly, with prime ministe Chirac co-habiting' with Socialist president Mitterrand. Very quickly there were hug nobilisations of students. hospital workers and others against the government.
In opinion polls, a large number cople voting fo the didn't expect much to change. Even the two currents protest, the ecologists and the Front National, have a tired and worn-out look.
The French Greens are a far cry from the radical wing of the German Die Grunen. And the leaders of Generation Ecologie are largely opportunist refugees from the Socialist Party. . hoping to cash in on Green sentiment.
The fascist Front National is being squeezed by the official right-wing parties, which have adopted much of Le Pen's antiDuring the 1980s Mitterrand pushed through proportional representation schemes with the deliberate aim of boosting the FN, the better to divide the right wing.
But for the moment, FN resiltence seems contined to its bastions in the south, especially
FRANÇOIS VERCAMMEN, a Belgian Trotskyist and a leading member of the Fourth International, was one of the featured speakers at a successful Socialist Outlook event 'Europe's Crisis: Socialist Answers', attended by over 200 people in London on March 13-14. He echoed the general theme of building new leadership in the workers' movement for the struggles to come. Here is an edited version of his speech. OVER THE past three years, the world working class suftered some very serious defeats. The offensive of European capitalism against the working class stems from its own crisis. Nevertheless, the relationship of forces worsened for the working class.
All of this took place in the context of an offensive of the ruling class world-wide, with an attempt to dismantle the welfare state. This has caused a disarray among the natural vanguard of the working class, those thousands of workers on the shop-floor who understand how defend their working conditions, and lead the workers in their day-to-day batties.
Because of this crisis of working class perspective, the redibility of the socialist alternative, the viability of anticapitalist transitional demands were put in question.
As the German comrade here explained, this allowed the fasase ana tarnsattoras to gike advantage of the situation and to make important gains in several countries.
Nevertheless there is some exaggeration in the talk of the crisis of socialism. The situation was worse among the intellectuals, on the ideological terrain, Pensioners campaign in Brussels austerity By Françols Vercammen than the deterioration in the relationship of social forces between the classes in the real Today there is a turn in the situation. First, it is clear that no rapid capitalist reconstruction Burope will take place. It is one thing to introduce markets, it is a totally dif ferent thing to completely intro duce capitalist social relations, to have big investment to create world capitalism simply can't Deepening crisis Capitalism will not succeed on that level. This is a major boomerang the capitalist system. This doesn't automatically aid the workers, but it worsens capitalism's crisis.
The second thing is that as a result of the depth of the crisis, nillions upon millions o people have become convinces of one thing - that those at the top of the system become richer, and they don't give a damn about those beneath them.
There are 40 million un. employed people in the adDE SSECURITENSO classA vanced countries, to which you have to add all those left out by the offical statistics, and those forced into part-time or marginal work. So this means there are tens of millions of people who see no hope and no future in this system.
The third element in the weakness of the economic levers of the capitalist states, as a result of Reagan-Thatcher liberalism'. This means that the capitanst saite nas fewer and fewer means to control the dynamics of the crisis. They are aware of this, and we can be sure that Clinton will try to do something about it, to generate growth of this adds up to one thing. There is now a massive anti-capitalist, or rather antisystem, feeling among millions and millions of people. But which political direction will that take? Hostility to the system can go either to the right or the left.
As Marxists we know that not just ideas, but the reality of the class struggle will decide.
Let's look at that. The fear that many people had, after all these defeats, that the working class, youth, women and immigrant workers would not Upsurge of the class struggle will reinforce struggles against racism and fascism false.
Today, there is an important reemergence of struggle in a number of European countries. including of course, in a modest way, in Britain. I will talk main. ly of Germany and Italy.
The German comrade already explained how millions of people last November took the streets in Germany to fight against racism and fascism. And this is very important.
Italian struggles
In Italy in the last two weeks there was a huge demonstration in Rome, 200,000 people against austerity and corruption. This demonstration organised not by • the official union structures, but by the factory councils.
The main political force behind this was the Party of Communist Refoundation, the left split from the old Communist Party, the mainstream of which has now joined the Second International.
week after this 50,000 women on International Women's Dav. The significance of these mobilisations is this: when the mass mobilisations against austerity took place in offensive it wasa 'one-off', a last gesture by many tired activists who would afterwards return be the case; the mobilisations Wedon'tknow what the outcome will be, or whetner te PCR will become a revolutionary party - our ana vsis is that it won't. None the less, this this gathering of militant forces prepared to fight back is extraordinary.
Look at the situation in Germany. Here vou have the strongest working class in the world; and the one with the highest living standard.
But there is a problem; the big blows dealt by unemployment to the working dass in former No. 40
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ANCIES East Germany, and the effects of workers in western Germany. mobilisation of the workers - there will be 200.000 in Bonn at the end of March.
And already the IG Metal. the biggest union in the world, is building the protest mobilisa-. tions in the former GDR against mass unemployment. So there too we have a remobilisation of the working class Of course we have to be remobilisation, the limits of the working class leaderships. But we have to deal with this reality and intervene with our programme.
What can the Fourth International do towards in relation to this remobilisation? As an international have advantages, even if we are small. dination of different national orxamsadons, we are a com mon tradition, COTTON programme, COTTON analysis and activity. And we look.
Today the Fourth International is particularly involved in Europe-wide anti-fascist and anti-racist initiatives. And in the coming months we are involved in an attempt, through a big European conference of the anti-capitalist left in Paris, to Communists, Greens and others towards the formation of a common front to fight the bosses' offensive in Europe.
We must have the conviction that our class will fight back, is fighting back; ine new generations will stand up and fight; and that because of the deep, deep, crisis of capitalism socialism will be put on the agenda again.
Interviews with Tony
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NO UTS.
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