The profound shock to the political system in France brought about by Le Pen’s elevation to the second round of the presidential election is still unfolding, even after Le Pen’s very welcome heavy defeat in the second round. ALAN THORNETT reports.
Le Pen was allowed into the second round by the collapse of support for the governmental left of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party (PCF).
And the reasons for this are clear enough. They were a part of a government which fully, even enthusiastically, adopted the neo-liberal agenda and attacked the working class.
The position of the Socialist Party in this is a direct product of the evolution of Social Democracy across Europe. By the mid-1990s Social Democratic parties were in power in 13 of the European Unions’ 15 states. Without exception they adopted the neo-liberal agenda, often in order to meet the Maastricht criteria, and are now reaping the whirlwind of their attacks on the working class.
France, of course, was not about to go fascist, as the second round results show. But the rise of the Front National is a very dangerous development, and also reflects a European trend in the emergence and strengthening of far right parties.
Whist the Front National may not be a classical fascist party, Le Pen is certainly a neo-fascist with a background of violence, and with plenty of thugs around him.
He was a torturer in Algeria. His core supporters go back to Pétain. The level of sheer fear that the prospect of a possible Le Pen victory generated amongst the ethnic minorities in France was understandable.
If the collapse of the governmental left vote to below that of Le Pen was the first big shock of the first round then the rise in the far left vote was the second. This was absolutely astounding and a major step forward for the left in France.
In 1995 Lutte Ouvriere (LO) got 5.3%, which was remarkable enough. Now the far left have doubled that, with a score of 10.4% – or three million votes. What we saw in the first round was a collapse of the centre and a polarisation of the vote.
What was even more astounding was the vote of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR), French section of the Fourth International, given that it fielded a candidate who was standing for the first time. The LCR won 4.2% of the vote, or 1.2 million votes.
The idea that the LCR could poll more than the French Communist Party would have seemed unbelievable before this election. This achievement was based on having an excellent young candidate who handled the media well, and made a serious appeal to young people radicalising against global capital. The LCR scored 13.9% amongst the 18-24 year olds.
We have to stress that the far left were absolutely right to stand in this election and reject those such as new Labour (and others) who try to hold them responsible for Le Pen’s breakthrough.
The collapse of the PCF vote to 3.7% is another historic development in this election. From the PCF point of view the collapse of its support because it was part of the Government is bad enough – but to be out-voted three to one by the Trotskyists could well be terminal.
Once Le Pen went through to the second round, the key issue was mass mobilisation on the streets. The LCR was the first to call for such mobilisations, immediately after the result was known.
Hundreds of thousands demonstrated over the next few days and then May Day saw two million on the streets – the biggest demonstrations since may-June 1968.
The LCR call, rightly, was to fight Le Pen in the streets and in the ballot box. In other words vote against Le Pen in the second round. This was opposed by LO in France and much of the far left in Britain, who called for abstention or for a blank vote.
Ultimately the issue here was whether you were prepared to see Le Pen elected, since if you call for abstention and enough people heed your call, this would be the result.
This is not resolved by piously arguing, as some did, that Le Pen wouldn’t win anyway so it was safe to call for an abstention. If you call for an abstention you have to be prepared for people to carry out your call, not assume they will ignore it..
In the course of this debate there is a tendency to minimise what the result of a Le Pen presidency would mean. It would have involved a huge attack on the organisations of the working class and on minorities, immigrants and asylum seekers.
Calling for a vote against Le Pen was not a call for a popular front, or an alliance with a section of the ruling class. It was a response to a dangerous situation created by a quirk in the French electoral system, which had handed Le Pen the possibility of a major political advance in France and beyond.
The second round was in effect a plebiscite against Le Pen. In fact the LCR called an anti-Chirac demonstration immediately after the declaration of the results of the second round.
It was crucially important that Le Pen got the worst possible result in the second round. The problem with abstention or blank voting is that it increases the Le Pen vote as a percentage of the Chirac vote – and that is the only result which has a mass impact. The anoraks will look at the abstentions and blank votes, but they will have no political impact.
18-82 was the popular result of the voting. If big abstentions had reduced this to 30-70 Le Pen would have claimed a huge victory and the far right across Europe would have been strengthened. Not to understand this is to misunderstand the dynamic being generated on the streets.
The idea, as some argued, that voting for Chirac (or against Le Pen) sowed illusions in Chirac does not make sense either.
The slogan was "better a crook than a fascist"– it could hardly be clearer. People were having themselves disinfected after coming out of the voting booths. Chirac would have to be mad to think that the 82% who voted for him support him.
In fact a big vote for Chirac weakens him rather than strengthens him, because weakening the far right weakens the whole of the right. The confirmation of this was the jubilation at the 18-82 result, particularly amongst the ethnic minorities.
The political situation has radicalised in France since the first round vote. The potential for the far-left to grow is therefore increased – and is probably greater than any time since 1968.
Whether this will reflect directly in the Parliamentary elections, however, is a more complicated question, since there will be a big pressure on people not to vote for what they believe, but what they should.
All this raises the future of the far left in France, and places a big responsibility particularly on the LCR and LO. What is posed, particularly if the PCF begins to break up, is a new party of the left on the lines of Rifondazioni Communista in Italy. And the LCR and LO are by far the best placed to initiate such a development.
LO unfortunately has rejected every appeal for unity from the LCR since the European elections, when they jointly won four seats in the European Parliament.
When this issue was raised in a debate on the French election results recently organised by the CPGB, the LO speaker said that if anyone thought that this would lead to unity between the LCR and LO they are ‘living on another planet’.
The unity of the European elections, he stressed, had only been because there had been a 5% threshold to overcome, and that needed a united slate. That situation does not exist in any other election.
In this presidential election the LCR proposed a joint slate behind Arlette (LO’s candidate) – and LO turned it down. And they have refused even a non-aggression pact for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. If they continue in this way LO may have to face being side-lined by events.
The LCR are determined that they will not be in that position. Hundreds of people have been rushing to join since the first round result.
The Ligue has been at the forefront of the mobilisations against Le Pen, and is pushing to step up the fight against Chirac.
It has launched a call for a new political force in France, based on the anti-capitalist movement and the working class.
It will continue to put forward these ideas on the streets and at the ballot box in the Parliamentary elections in June.
The LCR web site is at http://www.lcr-rouge.org/