Right wing French President Jacques Chirac has called a snap general election to decide on French entry into the Euro, the single European currency.
He aims to catch the left unprepared and to win popular support for the right. To join the single European currency the French government must cut social provisson and increase taxation. An early election win allows them to press ahead with their plans without fearing defeat at looming clections.
Chirac was elected because he promised to mend the fractured French sociery with social reforms and job creation schemes. This'social Chiraquism' was invented to head off militant working-class and youth mobilisations in 1995. Economic difficulties made it impossi. ble for Chirac's rightist party, the Rally for the Republic, to deliver on these populist and almost workerist CURES.
Austerity was opened by the Juppé government instead. This has lead to a profound social and economic crisis. Very diverse parts of society are fighting the government. They are connecting these attacks to the neo-liberal policies needed to allow France to meet the criteria set for joining the single currency.
The two social-democratic parties, the misnamed "Socialist' and "Communist' parties, are trying to ur the fightback into a one-sided campaign to get a coalition government led by themselves clected.
They claim to oppose the criteria for joining the Euro. However they also favour a common currency for Doctors protest "No to English-style medicine".
COORDI the European Union.
This is not good enough. Because the European Union is a capitalist union, and deep in recession, any single currency necessarily leads to austerity.
The far left will take advantage of France's two round election system to drive the message home. Rather than vote for these parties whose promises are not to be believed in the first round on May 25, our French comrades are standing revo. lutionary candidates aiming to build *a left wing that is 100% Ieft • The Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), Socialist Outlook's sister organisation in France, will ATION DES MEDECINS DE LAPLOIR stand its own candidates and back others who want to build a radical al. ternative to the Socialist and Communist parties.
The League's platform explains the need to use the snap clection to build the fight in the unions and the social movements against both the right wing government and social austerity. The League will build on the successful European Marches against austerity, unemployment and social exclusion.
In the second round, voters must choose either the social democrats or the current government.
The Socialist and Communist parties' campaign promises to unfreeze spending, to immediately reduce the working week to 35 hours, and to create 700,000 new jobs for young people.
They also "promise' to cut public International Viewpoint, monthly publication of the Fourth International, carries all the background information you cannot find in the bourgeois press. IVP's normal selling price is 22 per month, but British readers can subscribe jointly to /VP and Socialist Outlook for just £30 per year.
Send your details and a cheque payable to Socialist Outlook to PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. 1999. They will not therefore be able to carry out the progressive parts of their programme - these are hollow promises.
The LCR will vote for the social democrats and against the government in the second round on June 1.
This is not the policy of others on the far left. In the first round the Worker's Struggle (Lutte Ouvriere) group is likely to get a good response to its presidential candidate, Arlette Laguiller. However it will not campaign to kick out the right in the secIts newspaper, Lute Outriere, equates Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin with rightist prime minister Alain Juppé: "Jospin or Juppé, two I's paired up against the workers.....lf Jospin replaces Juppé only to conduct the same war against the working-class, what kind of change is that?"
This understandable sentiment is mistaken. A defeat for the right will place more pressure on the existing cadership of the working class to improve the position of working people.
It will make it harder for the Communist and Socialist parties to exclude the far felt trom sac move ments against fascism, the Maastricht criteria and from common left slates in local elections which aim to defcat the National Front. You can help! The 100 per cent left candidates need your money!
This month, the League needs our help in raising FF20,000 so .
that the "100% left" candidates can have a militant campaign.if you agree with the LCR's campaign, give it your financial support.
In BRITAIN: send cheques payable to 'Outlook International" to PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU. Please write "LCR election" on the back.
ELSEWHERE: Send cheques in French Francs payable to 'CR Souscription' to "100% gauche", 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93100 Montreuil, France.
Roland Rance Checking his secret bank accounts? Arafat plays a central role in israell plans to contain Palestinian resistance soldiers needed to replace, daily; Arafat's policemen"
According to Professor Edward Said, "Aratat and his "Palestine authority have become collabora. sort of Vichy government for Palpeace, (Osio) brought greater sufacting lot Palestinians"
Striking evidence of this collaboration was provided in the re cent disclosure of Arafat's private slush fund at the Israch National Bank in Tel-Aviv.
Over the past three vears, Israe has transferred at least $150 mil. lion to this account in Tel Aviv. ac. cess to which is limited to Arafat and mis schiot cconomic advisor Muhmad Rashid. Much of the money comes from the levies imposed by Israel on all exports from and imports to the Occupied Territories.
Arafat is believed to have other secret accounts in Cairo, Riyadh, and Amman, tough these migat not be available to him if he were The purpose of the fund in Is. a government in exile if necessary; it also ensures that such a "government' would continue to be loyal to Isracli policy.
The irony is that, having originally fostered and encouraged Hamas as a counter to the secular nationalism of Arafat and the PLO, Israel is now reinforcing Arafat as a counter to Hamas and other Islamist groups.
In neither case, of course, was Israel interested in the opinions and needs of the Palestinian masses. This meddling is a classic example of imperialist "divide and rule"; Israel has apparently learned well from the British experience.
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