FRANCE

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND THE POSITION OF THE PROLETARIAN PARTY

The results of the first round of the presidential elections in France caused various lively reactions both in the country and internationally. An intense campaign was launched, mobilising numerous intellectuals, people from the cultural and arts world, etc. The aim of this campaign, of which the media played a certain part, was to convince people about the possibility of the extreme right wing candidate Le Pen winning the elections.

Chirac, who received 5.6 millions of the total votes, increased his share in the second round to 25 million, thus scoring an unprecedented and even unimaginable result, which was thanks to the calls from almost all sections of the political spectrum for voting for him. Le Pen, on the other hand, was not at a level to win the elections despite the fact that he increased his share of votes in the second round, receiving all the votes of the extreme right.

It is, of course, worrying to see the emergence of a significant number of extreme right electors and a consolidation of the political preferences of the electors. And we believe this phenomenon is part of the general tendency that we call fascisisation of the parliamentarian bourgeois democratic system.

This is a common feature of all imperialist countries, mainly in Europe, and is strongly linked with the crisis of the imperialist system. Especially after the September 11 the process of fascisisation gathered speed across the world with the whip up by the USA.

These elections have marked a turning point. However, the differentiating point is not the fact that Le Pen’s party received votes, as it has had its own electors since 1983. It is the fact that the reformist leftist coalition which was actively campaigning for Chirac in these elections which was turned into a referendum has been replaced after the “victory” in these elections by a consolidated right which claim to be a “barrier” to the extreme right, but which also has many common “values” with them.

It is necessary that we set a parallel with the events in many European countries. Social democracy’s project for a “Social Europe”, which can be summarised as “a more just distribution of wealth between labour and capital”, has fallen into pieces in the face of the realities of the system and the impositions of monopolies that led social democracy and its partners to submission. In this way, social democracy which paved the way for reactionary forces is now playing its role in opposition: the role of extinguishing the struggle of the working and popular masses against capital and blurring their consciousness.

In this article we will touch upon again the intensive campaign for Chirac in the name of “suffocating Le Pen through the ballot box”. In addition to this article we recommend that the reader should read the pamphlet we printed in 1989 in French and Spanish, entitled “The Le Pen Phenomenon and the Process of Fascisisation” (1)

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The story behind the figures

A simple study of the results received by different candidates in the first round of presidential elections showed that the fascist National Front’s candidate Le Pen would not be able to win the elections. This fact was completely covered up by a uniquely big campaign carried out by a coalition led by the Socialist Party (SP), which was the unexpected loser of these elections. SP’s candidate Jospin, who was considered to pass the first round, came third after Le Pen by a margin of 200 thousand votes. Finding it difficult to swallow this defeat in the first round, Jospin resigned immediately after the results had been announced.

In the second round, the right wing parties did hardly any work for their candidates. During the two-week interval, they were preoccupied with solving their problems to form a united party called “Unity for Presidential Majority” (UPM) whose mission was to win the majority in the parliamentarian elections (there were at least five right wing candidate in the first round). In fact, the campaign for Chirac was carried out by the “United Left”, which came out of the “Multiparty Left” which was in power. (2) For example, the Communist Party of France (CPF) did more fly posting for Chirac in the second round than they did for their own candidate R. Hue in the first round. As if there was an untold consensus in the second round everyone called for voting for Chirac.

There was very few parties who did not take part in this campaign: the Trotskyite party “Lutte Ouvrière”, our party, anarchist circles and small groups called for a boycott or using invalid votes. Our party campaigned around the slogan “Le Pen out, Chirac in (to prison)”, and called people to write this slogan on their ballot papers, thus making them invalid.

This slogan was first chanted in the demonstrations launched by the youth immediately after the announcement of the first round results. Leaflets expressing our position in the elections were distributed in their thousands, especially in the May Day demonstrations. However, it was not an easy task to defend our party’s position during the two-week campaign for the second round.

Leaflet distributing was repeated in the demonstration organised almost daily especially by college and university students who went out onto the streets spontaneously to cry out their sincere hatred for Le Pen and his racist ideas.

This strong and spontaneous mobilisation of a section of the youth raised alarm among the right in terms of street demonstrations becoming a habit. Right wing politicians called the youth to go back to their schools.

For the “Multiparty Left”, on the other hand, these demonstrations were “a nice surprise”. It did not take them long to work out how they could benefit from the most chanted slogan “All together against Le Pen”.

They clang tightly on to this slogan, which would help them forget the defeat they suffered in the elections and reappear on the political stage. Distributing widely the national flag of the country, they undertook the mission of “protecting the republic”, scare-mongering the petit bourgeoisie by reminding the rise of the nazis in the 1930s. The main objective of this comparison, which is no more than a complete distortion of history, was to make the sections of the people who did not vote for them in the first round in protest of their five-year governance feel guilty and turn it into an investment for parliamentarian elections.

The revisionist CPF (3) came out of the elections with double punishment: the elector did not vote for it as it was a party of the “Multiparty Left” in government, and the party militants refused to make propaganda work for the party candidate R. Hue.

By doing this, party supporters expressed their opposition to its “mutation” policy which was imposed by R. Hue and which made it no different than social democratic parties, erasing its political identity and its ideological references.

This policy was resulted in a loss of 1.6 million votes compared to the 1995 presidential elections. Hue received less than one million votes, dropping behind two Trotskyite candidates.

The leadership of this parliamentarian party did not have any other perspective than clinging on to its ally, the Socialist Party, in order to get their support in the parliamentarian elections. In the end, they joined those who supported Chirac, getting behind them the leaders of the CGT union.

This was not materialised without problems. The same leadership who used to call for “the independence of trade unions against political parties”, in fact against the CPF, was now calling its members to vote for Chirac, the candidate of the right. This caused great discontent among the militants who consider the right and the boss as one and the same thing.

Determining the camps

Our party’s position was established as a result of a profound analysis of the bourgeois camp and of the state of the workers and the popular masses. It was important that the party of the working class voiced the class-conscious proletariat in the face of the attempts to materialise a wide class collaboration around the slogan “in defence of the republic”.

In the first round of the elections, the workers and popular sectors gave two very important messages. First, a total refusal of the two coalition periods of the last two decades, especially during the “cohabitation”(4) periods, when the interest of French imperialism was defended in alliance by the right and the left; and second, a certain radicalisation which manifested itself in the so-called “extreme left” candidates having received a high share of the votes.

These votes cannot be considered to be given mechanically in favour of a revolutionary solution (they are also far from reflecting an approval of the political and ideological lines of those Trotskyite parties who put forward candidates). These votes, in fact, represent the stance of those who want to express themselves by boycotting the elections. The radical opposition to the system manifested itself in the votes given to the Trotskyite candidates as well as in high rate of not voting. Another aim of the campaign for Chirac was to cover up this reality and erase it from memories.

After the results of the second round had come to the light, people had the opportunity to evaluate what had been happening in a healthier way. However, calling for votes for a right wing candidate cannot be considered as a simple detail, as some sections of the left are trying to convince it is.

Many people, especially those youth who went onto the streets, the majority of which were college and university students rather than the youth from the suburbs, sincerely believed that Le Pen would win the elections.

Thanks to the reformist left Chirac gained certain legitimacy. There is no need to mention the dreams created on the “republic” which was presented as the most precious entity that needs to be protected.

In almost all street demonstrations organised in this period, mainly the May Day one, the three-colour national flag overshadowed the red flags, while the national anthem took the lead from the International.

The bomb attacks a few days after the elections on the French workers who were working in Pakistan (in submarine construction) reminded immediately the fact that France took part in the bombing of Afghanistan with the USA, and that it sold sophisticated weapons to the reactionary leadership of Pakistan which was in an undeclared war against its neighbour India.

This time the Brussels commission reminded that important decisions were being taken, decisions that would create negative social consequences in agriculture, fishery, etc. in all countries of the EU.

Neither of these questions or any others was discussed during the presidential and parliamentarian elections. Yet, there is no fundamental difference on the EU policies between the left and the right. We often hear that years of cohabitation rule erased the differences between the two camps and made their politics similar. Here it is necessary to remind that cohabitation rule was possible only if there was a consensus between the right and the left in defending the interests of the French imperialism. The entry process to the EU, the participation in the “anti-terror” coalition led by the USA, selling of arms, etc. were all materialised in favour of the interests of French monopolies during the cohabitation rule. Although there are opposing tendencies in both blocs against the general line, they have similar ideas in defending the French imperialism. The bosses insisting on the necessity of “rooting in the EU” during election discussions was an important sign in terms of determining the political orientation of French imperialism. They criticised fiercely Le Pen who had in his programme getting out of “euro” and going back to the national currency “franc”, and a review and amendment of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties.

The end of a political period

The period in which the social democracy defended the interests of imperialism initially in a duet with the revisionists, then in a trio with the revisionists and the greens has come to an end. With the exception of the period between 1995-97 during which the right was in government on its own, the left took on the responsibility of “cohabitant rule” three times with the right. We should not forget that the left returned to power when the politics of the right had led to political and social tensions. Right in the middle of the colonial crisis the bloody attack of the colonial army (5) on the Kanak people in 1987 prepared the ground for the defeat of the right in the parliamentarian elections. When Chirac decided to dissolve the parliament in 1997 for early elections, the December 1995 strikes were still fresh in minds. These facts manifest the traditional role of the social democracy in trying to passivise the workers and the people. During the period of harmonisation with the EU, in coalition with the revisionists they did exactly what was expected of them to passivise the movement of the workers and peoples. In the last 20 years, the European and French social democracy have been implementing the anti-worker, anti-people reforms which played a significant role in the formation of the EU, one of the foundation stones of the imperialist globalisation. Again, in the “new period” after the end of the bi-polar one, the French social democracy took an active part in this “new period’s” three big wars in the Gulf, the Balkans and in Afghanistan. They also took part in Bush’s “crusade against terror” without any hesitation, implementing the American type anti-democratic laws.

Nowadays, the coalitions led by social democratic parties are being replaced by right wing coalitions, sometimes in alliance with the far-right. We have seen this in Denmark, Holland, Portugal and Italy. If we were to include the countries from Eastern Europe which are candidate members of the EU, we can see the real dimensions of this phenomenon.

One of the missions of these coalitions is to complete the liquidation of the mechanisms of distribution put into use after the Second World War. A direct result of this liquidation initiated by social democrats themselves was, on the one hand, the intensification of exploitation and plunder of the masses, and on the other, the encouragement of a return to class struggle. The trend of bourgeois democratic regimes becoming more reactionary is directly linked with this tendency to return to class struggle. Although the tendency of fascisisation in Europe is not yet essentially related to the rise of the revolutionary movement, it certainly is accelerating it.

In other words, in many European countries there is a rising wave of social opposition, which is mobilising an important section of the working class and the youth. The target of this movement is the neo-liberal politics of the imperialist globalisation and the institutions implementing them. And this movement is seeking to organise and express itself at an international level. Although it is at large under the influence of reformist concepts and understandings, it still has in its bosom a radical critical view against the imperialist system. The bourgeoisie sees a potential danger here, and this is why the protests in Gothenburg, Warsaw and especially Genoa were met with such violence. The “international campaign against terrorism” which has been declared by US imperialism, the strongest and most violent imperialist power, also aims to suppress this growing opposition.

The Presidential elections were an inseparable part of this process of fascisisation. This process has an ideological dimension as well as economic, political and institutional ones that we have not touched upon in depth here. Social democrats and revisionists who called for votes for Chirac constantly propagated that “the working class was voting for Le Pen”. Those who have been suggesting, for many years, in their theoretical analysis, congresses, etc. that the working class is coming to an end as a class, and those who are out there to liquidate its political representations are now re-inventing the working class in order to accuse them. This is nothing but serving the monopolies by showing the unemployed and extremely exploited workers as targets. It leads to the closure of workplaces, and support for “restructuring”. If the workers have an insurrection in the future, surpass the limits of bourgeois legality and turn against the sacred private property, it is certain that the reformists will then try to find “a worker who had voted for Le Pen” in an attempt to legitimise the violence of the state apparatus. Yet, the republican state which is considered as a safeguard in the eyes of the petit bourgeoisie, is the one which restricts democratic freedoms, which exercises repression on foreign workers, which supports dictators, etc. It is also this state that tries to criminalize openly and in a systematic way the social opposition to the existing order.

Our party has considered all these factors, established its political stance and publicised it as widely as possible. In the existing conditions when the atmosphere is filled with smoke clouds, when the interests of the working class are overshadowed by the arguments about the defence of the bourgeois republic, it was of paramount importance and vital for the future that the party expressed the political stance of the working class. Despite the tense environment it was also important that this was done openly before the public. We did this both for ourselves but also as a message to those who were under the thumb of the manufacturers of media consensus, so that they knew they were not alone. We did this to show our party’s capacity to put forward and defend the working class perspective, and that they can trust us. During the distribution of our leaflets expressing our stance, we heard numerous times sayings such as “finally a stance that is refusing to vote for Chirac”. We can say that our political campaign has strengthened our party’s authority over the militants of the working class, of other revolutionary parties and organisations and anti-imperialist elements.

This gives us courage to speed up our activity to build up the workers’ and popular opposition to the politics of the monopolies, which the right is aggressively trying to put into practice.

The Workers Communist Party of France (PCOF)

 29 May 2002

A short summary of Parliamentary majority and changes in presidential periods

Candidates and Parties that took part in the 2002 Presidential Elections:

 
The groups that are defined as far-left gathered about 3 million votes altogether.

If we were to exclude Chevenement's votes the “multiparty left” gained 7.7 million votes.  It would not be right to include Chevenement in the left spectrum. He can be put in between the two poles. 

The right gained 9.6 million votes. Again, St Josse’s votes that are also included in this category were shared out between Chirac and Le Pen in the second round.

 In the first round of the 2002 elections: 

 In the second round of the 2002 elections:

 The figures given above are official figures. The change in the number of registered voters is due to changes made in the electoral register and deaths. In the second round, an increase in the number of empty and invalid votes was observed, as well as a decrease in the number of those not voting. 

Footnotes:

1- “The Le Pen Phenomenon and the Process of Fascisisation” was printed both in French and Spanish as part of the political report of our Party’s 3^rd Congress.

2- The concept  “multiparty left” was put forward in 1997 just before the parliamentary elections. It represented the coalition between the Socialist Party, Communist Party and the Greens. Contrary to previous coalitions, a government was set up from ministers that did not belong to a platform or programme. The coalition being named as “multiparty” did not conceal the hegemony of the Socialist Party in the coalition. None of the MPs from the Communist Party or the Greens managed to pass any legislations in favour of their electors or supporters.

3- Even though the CPF no longer “revises” Marxism because they do not take it as their guide, we will continue to use the term “revisionist” for them. The reason for maintaining the term communist in the party name is to seed hope among the masses. There is no end to the stream of those leaving the party. Each group that leaves the party claims that they represent “the true communist party”. 

4- "Cohabitation" is a term used where the President and the Prime Minster, elected through general elections, in government are from two different parties. The legislation of the 5^th Republic is a combination of parliamentary and presidential system. During Algeria’s independence war where the bourgeois ranks were coming out of a deep political crises, De Gaulle implemented a legislation in 1958 that was based on the election of President to the government in general elections. The logic of the legislation was that the President that is elected directly by the general public whose legitimate elections is not debatable, need to have all the opportunities to implement his/her programme. Thus the “party” (usually a coalition of parties – right or left) to which the President belongs would have to have the absolute majority in parliamentary elections. The President administers through the Prime Minster who is appointed by the coalition, right or left, who has the majority in the parliament.

The important function of this legislation until 2001 was that the 7 years of service by President and 5 years of service by the parliament did not even up. The reason for “cohabitations” was the disharmony of these periods. The President has the authority to dissolve the parliament for early elections without himself resigning. Until 2001 Presidents served two years longer than the members of the parliament. The change implemented on this date, though did not eliminate “cohabitations” altogether, made it more difficult. Presidential elections are now taking place in two rounds. Two candidates who take the most votes go through the second round. Unlike the members of parliament elections at times, in presidential elections 3 candidates cannot compete. For the first time in history an unexpected number of candidates, 16, in the last elections put their names forward for the first round.

5- It started with the uprising of the “Kanak” people demanding the independence of New Caledonia. The Kanak people, who lived thousands of kilometres away from the metropolis, demanding independence inflamed the colonial crisis. In a short time, this uprising turned into a battle between the colonial military with all its mechanisms for the anti-guerrilla struggle and the ordinary people with hunting guns. One of the most important events of this struggle was the hostage taking of gendarmes and the massacre of 13 Kanak guerrillas in a cave near the capital city Ouvea.  On 5 May 1988, the Chirac-Pons government took the decision for the massacre (Pons was the overseas minister who used to call the French colonies as “overseas cities”). This massacre taking place a few days before the Presidential elections led to a big opposition in France. Mitterrand was the President at the time of the massacre. There was some influence of this event for the election of Chirac.