I have been on many demonstrations, but never on anything like the 1 May in Paris. It was an exhilarating, exhausting and inspiring experience. The march was called to start from the République but the crowd trying to get into the square stretched back along all the streets and boulevards, as far back as the Gare de l’Est. And people were packed together like sardines. Once it started, one million people seemed to spread out like an octopus winding through every available street to reach the Nation.
Looking at this great ocean of humanity, one noticed two things. Everyone seemed to be turning around, stretching on tiptoes, trying to gauge just how huge the crowd was. And as the numbers grew and grew, so did the confidence and the joy.
The second thing was the home-made placards and banners. People had made them on their home computers, cut out montages from newspapers, or just scrawled slogans on paper with felt-tips.
And the slogans more than anything else summed up the mood in relation to the final round of the election. All were variations on the theme, ‘Vote for the crook, not the fascist’. Perhaps the best, hung out to great cheers from the crowd on a huge sheet from one of the apartments along the route, was: Chirex - A Jeter après Usage (Chirex (a pun on Durex) dispose of after use).
After these momentous events, I checked the websites of the British far-left to see what they had to say about them. The sterility and sectarianism was quite staggering.
For example, the Socialist (3 May) argued:
"Gauche Revolutionnaire (the CWI section) is mobilising around the slogan "neither the fascist nor the crook". We shouldn’t underestimate what Chirac would do if he won with 70% or more of the vote and we have to prepare now for the struggles to come."
The only conclusion anyone can draw from this astonishing statement is that it would be best for Chirac to get less than 70% of the vote, which of course means that Le Pen would receive more than 30%! It is a quite incredible position to argue.
It does not take much imagination to see that such a result would have made the balance of forces far more difficult in the ‘struggles to come’.
The Socialist, like others, justified its abstention position on the basis that ‘a strong showing of ballot papers rejecting both Chirac and Le Pen would be a warning of opposition to the capitalist policies which both advocate’ (26 April).
Of course, Chirac and Le Pen both represent capitalist policies. But if the contest had been between Jospin and Le Pen, so would they have done. Would The Socialist have advocated a spoilt ballot also in that case? I’m willing to wager that they would have not.
The point is that for the millions who mobilised in France, Le Pen represented much else besides. Think what images his call for ‘transit camps’ to store immigrants in before they are deported conjures up in a country that saw ‘transit camps’ set up by the Nazis for the Jews and resistance fighters, before they were deported to the other form of ‘camp’ – the death camp.
The FN may not be a classical fascist party. But it fought the elections on a classically fascist programme – openly threatening the democratic rights of the workers’ movement, the left, the minorities, women and youth in France.
As for Socialist Worker (4 May), the paper’s line is ambiguous to say the least. But the interview with their French sister organisation strongly implies that an abstention is the best approach. And, it should be remembered that the SWP’s French group supported Lutte Ouvrière in the first round of the elections, against the less sectarian LCR campaign which raised centrally the anti-globalisation struggle.
And then there is the CPGB. According to Weekly Worker (2 May), the slogan "Votez escro, pas fascho (vote for a crook, not a fascist) … plays into the hands of the ruling class…" because "a sweeping victory for Chirac" would be claimed as "a vote of confidence in the current order."
(Again, presumably, the CPGB thinks it would have been better for the gap between Chirac and Le Pen to have been narrower.)
But it is self-evident that the slogan, which was raised spontaneously by the youth, implies no illusions, or support for Chirac.
The very fact that hundreds of thousands took to the streets shows that they understood instinctively that the fascists would be defeated by the mass movement, and not simply at the ballot box. Otherwise, why take to the streets?
By arguing for a boycott, of whatever form, the British far left, like the Lutte Ouvriere in France, were in practice suggesting that the result of the second round did not matter.
But it is only necessary to pose the question as to why this mass movement has developed in the first place? The spark was the electoral success of Le Pen in the election’s first round – in other words, the threat of Le Pen winning the second round and becoming President of France.
That is why for those who mobilised the result of the second round was of critical importance. For the youth, who have grown in confidence as the demonstrations developed, who triggered the biggest demonstrations since the Liberation, the result was absolutely vital.
And their instinct was correct. If the FN had received 25%, 30% or 35%, then inevitably the dynamic behind the party would have been strengthened. Its confidence would have grown. That would have been a defeat. And the youth in France understand that – even if the Socialist, Weekly Worker and company do not.
The outlook on the demos in Paris and across France was that we are going to vote, not for Chirac, but AGAINST LE PEN. In that sense, the LCR’s position in France, criticised in Weekly Worker is not ambiguous but understood perfectly by all participating in the mass movement.
The idea that Chirac and his reactionary politics would be strengthened by a crushing defeat for Le Pen is an argument that at best completely misunderstands the position in France, and at worst reveals a haughty contempt for the youth and others who have taken to the streets.
The right, of course, have been temporarily strengthened in France, but not because of the vote against Le Pen but as a result of the experience of the Gauche Plurielle government’s neo-liberal agenda and Jospin’ s humiliating defeat in the election’s first round.
However, if a campaign along the lines suggested by British far-left and Lutte Ouvrière in France, had had some success, thus leading to a higher percentage for the NF, that would have strengthened the right even further.
Chirac would have had even more freedom to carry out his right-wing agenda. He would have orientated even further towards the right to appease NF voters. And the pressure would be on the social movement to hold in check, because the argument would be there that if you don’t, there is the NF waiting in the wings.
Paradoxically, Chirac, although re-elected with 82% of the vote, is a weakened president. He received a historically low vote for a sitting president in the first round, and won his massive majority with the votes of the left in the second round.
Perhaps the politics of abstention make some individuals feel that they have done their revolutionary duty by not voting for a bourgeois candidate. (Although since when have Marxists been opposed on principle to voting for a bourgeois candidate when tactically it can advance the movement?)
But the British far-left is once again demonstrating a sterile dogmatism, rather than looking to engage with a mass movement.