France: New Poplur Front challenges the far-right

Lisbeth Latham

In the wake of the far-right National Rally (RN) winning the largest share of votes in France for the European Elections on June 9. French President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the French General Assembly with new elections to be held on June 30, with run-off elections to be held on July 7. The announcements have sparked real fears that RN could form a government. However, in the face of this threat, France’s left and progressive forces are seeking to fight back both on the street and through the formation of a New Popular Front (NFP). This development has generated both hopes for the left and fears for business that the snap elections could usher in a united left government.

In the European Parliament elections, like far-right parties across Europe but most notably in Germany and Austria, the RN’s vote surged to 31.37% or 7.76 million votes. This result was a substantially improved performance in comparison with RN’s performance in the 2022 National Assembly elections (18.7%) and the Front National (RN’s name at the time) in the 2019 European elections (23.3%). The substantial growth in RN’s vote, along with the fall in votes of parties that support President Macron which collapsed from 22.42% (2019) to 14.52% (2024). Raising fears that RN would be in a strong position to win both the 2024 presidential and national assembly elections.

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Map showing the political alignment with the highest vote in different localities across France on June 9 - Brown being Far-Right

In response to the poor performance of his supporters in the June 9 elections, Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly with the first round of new elections to be held on June 30. In announcing the dissolution, Macron said “France needs a clear majority in serenity and harmony”, a reference to the difficulty that Macron has faced with his supporters not winning a clear majority in the National Assembly in the 2022 election

Given the very different momentums between the far-right and the parties of the centre. RN and its leader Jordan Bardella are seen as being in a strong position to win a majority and form government. Indeed, Bardella has repeatedly said that the RN would only form government in its own right rather than build coalitions with other parties post the elections.

This possibility has led to significant speculation as to Macron’s motivation in taking a risk in allowing RN to form a government. One is to place pressure on the traditional Gaullist right-wing parties, most notably the Republicans, to enter into a coalition with Macron’s Rennaisance to form a government to avoid the threat of RN, or that should RN form a government that it would be in a situation of cohabitation with Macron’s presidency, which would limit the ability of an RN government to implement its agenda, and Macron potentially still able to push through legislation without reference to the national assembly via cl 49.3 of the French constitution which allows the president to declare legislation passed unless there is a vote of no confidence in the national assembly. This would require RN not only to have the largest bloc but a viable majority in the Assembly. Supporters of Macron’s approach hope that this frustration of RN’s agenda would result in dissatisfaction amongst their voters, positioning Macron and his supporters to then win the 2027 elections.

While this approach has been seen as a potentially risky but brilliant gamble the real potential risks are not going to be felt by Macron, but by the broader French population, particularly the working and popular classes and France’s marginalised communities who have historically been the target of RN’s agenda. This reality reflects the deeply cynical character of the decision to dissolve the National Assembly.

In the wake of the dissolution of the National Assembly, Éric Ciotti, the head of the Republicans has made it clear that he is willing to consider entering a coalition with not just RN, but also France’s second far-right party Reconquest which received 5.46% of the vote. This announcement resulted in an outcry within the Republicans and a move by the party’s leadership on June 12 to expel Ciotti from the Party - a move that the Paris Judicial Court overturned on June 15. On June 17, Ciotti announced that he would lead a list of 62 candidates from The Republicans in alliance with RN.

Despite Ciotti’s actions the leadership of Reconquest has refused to enter the alliance. Marion Maréchal, who was elected to the European Parliament for the party, and the niece of FN Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, and the granddaughter of the National Front founder and long-time leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, led the negotiations with RN on behalf of Reconquest. However, when these broke down, she criticised party leader Éric Zemmourare accusing im of making too many demands, and announcing she would support the joint list between RN and Ciotti. In response Maréchal was expelled from Reconquest on June 13. Reconquest is standing their own list of candidates, but perfomance in opinion polls has collapsed to between 1-2%.

In the face of the European Election results and the dissolving of the National Assembly, there have been two linked responses from France’s left parties and broader social movements. The call for a united electoral alliance to attempt to achieve the best possible electoral outcome for the left and in parallel calls for popular mobilisations against both the dissolution of the National Assembly and the threat from the far-right.

On June 10, a call was issued for the formation of NFP to “carry a program of social and ecological ruptures to build an alternative to Emmanuel Macron and combat the racist project of the far right”. There were 11 initial signatory organisations including Rebellious France (FI), the Socialist Party (PS), the Ecologists, and the French Communist Party (PCF). While individual leaders of the PS initially rebuffed the call, this reluctance had changed by June 14, with Raphaël Glucksmann, the leader of the PS’s European Parliamentary elections ticket announcing his support. A contributing factor to this decision would have been the announcement by former president François Hollande, who had historically been close to Macron and had endorsed Macron’s previous presidential election campaigns, that he was supporting the NFP. Hollande has been confirmed as the candidate for the constituency he represented for 22 years prior to his election to the presidency in 2012.

The FNP’s agreed platform for the election includes:

• the abolition of Article 49.3 of the French Constitution;
• the introduction of proportional representation for elections to the National Assembly;
• organising a constituent assembly to prepare a new constitution for France, moving from the current Fifth Republic to the new Sixth Republic;
• supporting a retirement age of 60 and the repeal of the 2023 French pension reform law;
• introducing paid menstruation leave;
•  a 14% increase in the minimum wage;
• re-introduction of the solidarity tax on wealth that had been abolished in 2017;
• introducing a new tax on excess profits;
• increasing the Generalised Social Contribution paid by the richest taxpayers;
• free school lunches and supplies;
• abolition the Parcoursup University Admissions system - which limits the number of university places for high school leavers;
• supporting military aid to Ukraine, while committing to no direct French military intervention;
• recognising the State of Palestine;
• enforcing an arms embargo against Israel;
• introducing gender self-identification for trans people;
• abolition of universal national service

The announcement of the formation of the NFP has given significant hope to the French electorate with the NFP receiving between 26-29% support in national polls. This is close to maintaining the combined results that the NFP’s constituent parts received in the European Election of 31.58%. This consolidation of support makes it much more likely that candidates of the NFP will either be directly elected or reach the second round (when no candidate in the constituency achieves a majority of the vote. Support in polls remains consistently below the results for the RN’s polling of between 29.5-36%. The support for the NFP has given rise to concerned speculation in France’s mainstream media regarding the prospect of a NFP government, particularly one in which the FI’s leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would be prime-minister. With open speculation as to the willingness of French capital to support a RN government. Hoping to curry this support RN has announced that it would back away from promises to lower France’s taxes on fuel, power, and the broader value added tax.

The urgency of the situation has seen the far-left New Anti-Capitalist Party-Anti-Capitalist (the NPA split in 2023, the other component is the NPA-Revolutionary) announce that it would participate in the NFP. Whilst the NPA-Anti-Capitalist is small, in several constituencies, particularly around Bourdeux, where it has local councillors, it could have played a role in diffusing the left vote. The NPA-Anti-Capitalist’s participation in the NFP is significant as it and its precursors have, whilst willing to participate in negotiations around the formation of united electoral efforts, stood apart from left-electoral fronts to a large extent since 2002. This refusal has been primarily based on a desire for the formations to adopt a clear position going into elections that it would reject a governmental alliance with the PS due to the PS’s record of social liberalism in government, that is neoliberalism with a social democratic face. In announcing their participation in the NFP, the NPA - Anti-Capitalist observed “in a few days, all the left-wing political forces, unions, associations and movements working on environmental, anti-racist, feminist and LGBT+ struggles, grouped around the New Popular Front. In a few days, it is indeed our social camp, that of the exploited and oppressed, which has reconstituted itself as a political subject to defend its rights”.

The NPA-Anti-Capitalist is not alone in adding to the supporters of the NFP. There are now some 53 parties, five union confederations, and numerous social movement organistations that have joined and supporting the front.

Since June 16 there have regular protests across France called by FNP and other left and progressive social and political forces. Whilst not at the level of mass mobilisation as has been seen in France’s past they are significant. The interior ministry estimated national participation in protests across France on June 16 at 250, 000, whilst the General Confederation of Labour put participation at 640, 000 with estimates of Paris protest participation being 72, 000 and 250, 000 respectively. The details of the 117 actions against the RN across France this week can be found here.

Irrespective of the outcome of the first and second rounds of the elections. The capacity and willingness of France’s left and popular movements to build on these mobilisations play a central role. In the lead-up to the second round of elections, this will include pressuring the parties of the centre and right to work against the election RN candidates. In the wake of the second round opposing any efforts to build a coalition with RN to form government. Finally in the face of whatever government is formed to struggle for the interests of working and popular classes and marginalised communities whether against a government of the far-right, centre, or in holding the parties of the left to the NFP program.

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France: The New People’s Ecological and Social Union and the political independence of the far-left

Launch of NUPES, source: www.melechon.fr

Lisbeth Latham

On May 5, the National Council of the Parti Socialiste (PS) announced that it had agreed to participate in a joint election ticket with much of France’s electoral left, via the formation of the New People's Ecologist and Social Union (NUPES) in the June legislative elections. NUPES is made up of the France Insoumise, the PS, the Parti Communiste (PCF), Europe Ecologie Les Vertes (The Greens), Génération.s (the party founded by Benoît Hamon, the PS 2017 presidential candidate in the wake of the 2017 legislative elections), and other smaller formations around these larger groups. The emergence of this electoral union follows Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strong performance in the first round of the presidential elections. Polls suggest the bloc could emerge as either the opposition to Macron’s parliamentary supporters or if the momentum continues to build that they could be in a position to form a government following the second round. As much as this is seen as the most united the French left has been, the French far-left in the form of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) and Workers Struggle (LO) remain aloof, with some raising concerns that this could undermine the ability of NUPES to reach the second round in some constituencies. In this piece, I will look at why this aloofness is a consistent position for the NPA and LO, and, at least in the case of the NPA, is not simply a reflection sectarian on the NPA’s part but instead, a continuity of the party’s position in the ongoing debate within France left on the what political basis to build a united left to challenge neoliberalism.

Mélenchon's performance in the presidential election first round
Mélenchon won 21.95% of the vote in the first round, coming in third behind Marcron (27.85%) and Le Pen (23.15%). This built on his performance in 2017 (19.6%) and 2012 (11.1%) and was the highest vote for a candidate to the left of social democracy ever (Jacques Duclos received 21.27% of the vote for the PCF in the 1969 election). However, it was in the context of a continuation of the historically low vote for the left of centre (left candidates totalled 27.31% of the vote in 2012, compared with a total vote of 43.75% in the first round of the 2012 elections).

At the launch of the NUPES’ election campaign on May 7, Mélenchon told the crowd:

“It is the first time in twenty-five years that a general agreement has been reached between all the forces of the traditional left, environmentalists and the youngest, the “rebellious”

“We had to lose the thread and have to weave it again so that, under our responsibility, we succeeded.

“What had not been done either by the leftist cartels, or by the Popular Front, or by May 68, or by the common program, we did it”

Basis of unity
The initiative to build a common left electoral block was initiated by France Insoumise reaching out to all left parties. The negotiations between left groups has given rise to essentially a unity platform for the election. This includes (the full accord is available here:

• Increasing the minimum wage to 1,400 euros net (currently 1302); 
• The creation of a youth autonomy allowance; 
• The right to retire at age 60 for all; 
• Freezing the prices of basic necessities; 
• The strengthening and generalization of employee representation on boards of directors; 
• The repeal of the El Khomri Law and other counter-reforms of the Labour Code; 
• The affirmation of an imperative of ecological justice; 
• The development of public services, the refusal of their privatization or their opening up to competition, the creation of a public service for early childhood and support for old age; 
• The implementation of fairer taxation with, in particular, the restoration of the ISF and the repeal of the flat tax; The repeal of security laws that infringe on our individual freedoms; 
• Real equality in the overseas territories, the right to water and the promotion of the Overseas Territories as the outposts of the ecological and solidarity bifurcation; 
• The adoption of a housing shield in order to limit the share of income devoted to housing, in particular by controlling rents downwards throughout the territory and the production of social housing;

Building momentum and hope
Both Mélenchon’s performance, and the emergence of the NUPES, have given rise to hope that will translate into the possibility of building a substantially bigger united left vote - that will at the very least increase the capacity of NUPES candidates to qualify for the second round and potentially win seats - including increasing the capacity of its constituents parts to increase their number of seats. The coalition currently holds 42 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly, but if their vote was consolidated they could be in a position to be the main opposition voice to Macron and his Ensemble! (not to be mistaken for Ensemble which is a far-left grouping within FI) if it forms government, or as some are hopeful based on initial polling the possibility of NUPES forming a government with Melenchon as prime minister and thus side-line Macron as president. A Radio France Internationale report that a recent Ipsos poll showed “56 per cent of voters wanted Macron to lose the legislative and go into a "cohabitation" with the left, while 57 per cent supported the left uniting to field joint candidates”. More recent polls have suggested that NUPES could receive the largest vote in the first round, how this would translate into seats in the Nationally Assembly would be heavily dependent on how the voters who back eliminated candidates in the first round allocate their votes in the second.

LO and NPA aloof
Much of the focus on parties that are standing apart from NUPES has focused on far-left parties Workers Struggle (LO) and the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), although they are by no means the only forces standing apart with a number of PS candidates who are not in the seats that were allocated to the PS under the NUPES agreement announcing they will still stand. This focus on both LO and the NPA is primarily aimed at casting their refusal to join as being a consequence of them simply being sectarian Trotskyist forces. While this may the case with LO, who in response to the NPA’s request for discussions regarding the legislative elections, noted the NPA were involved in the discussions regarding the formation of NUPES saying:

“You present yourself as "the left of the left" with the project of "rebuilding a real left" to surf both on the disappointment of the government left and on unitary aspirations. We seek to build a revolutionary communist workers' party, totally independent of the reformist leaderships.”

These criticisms do not accurately reflect the orientation of the NPA to the process, or its criticisms, at least initially, of the new formation. The NPA was willing to meet with the FI leadership regarding joining what would become NUPES. With the NPA indicating in a statement on April 24, that they would have been willing to participate in a joint slate based on the proposed common platform - however, their hesitancy to participate was framed on the basis of who else Mélenchon and FI were willing to include, most notably the PS, their focus on securing Mélenchon the prime ministership rather than NPA’s focus on building extra-parliamentary power via the elections, a power which would be necessary regardless of whether NUPES are able to form a government. With the adherence of the PS to NUPES, the NPA ruled out participation in the coalition, as Philippe Poutou, NPA presidential candidate, said, “the NPA understood that in the end, its presence was not really desired by La France Insoumise”.

In a statement issued by the NPA national political council on May 5, they declared their orientation to NUPES candidates 

“In any case, we will call for a vote and support, including actively, the left-wing candidates of the NUPES, and we will not stand candidates against them. In other constituencies, against candidates labelled NUPES who embody a continuity with social liberalism, the NPA will seek, where the conditions are met, to give voice to an alternative, though unitive candidates, from the workplaces and working-class neighbourhoods, representing a fighting left, independent of institutions and social liberalism.”

The NPA has subsequently announced that it will stand 10 candidates formally as the NPA, which has resulted in public criticism from the “Spark” faction within the party, who declared on May 26, that its members would only support direct candidates of the NPA or LO, and criticised the NPA’s leadership of maintaining illusions in NUPES.

A break with social liberalism?
The NPA drawing a hardline regarding the participation of the PS in NUPES should come as no surprise. This is not just about the reality of the PS government from 2012 in refusing to reverse the Sarkozy’s 2010 increase of the pension age, which is now a central aspect of the coalition’s platform, or the significant attacks on workers seen in the El Khomri law (which NUPES pledges to overturn) that were passed in 2016. The NPA, and its precursor the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), have had as its principal position for joining any joint electoral project, running through the discussion around both a united candidate of the left (2007) and the creation of the Left Front (2010) and all subsequent unity projects, which has been complete political independence from social liberalism in the form of the PS. The NPA/LCR has seen the willingness, particularly of the PCF, to enter into governments with the PS that have carried out attacks on social spending and workers’ rights as a key factor contributing not only to the collapse of the PS’s vote but to the position of parties to the left of the PS, particularly the PCF an issue that would come into sharp relief if either NUPES are the primary opposition party, but even more so if they were to form government reliant on the vote of PS deputies.

Prior to the PS’s national council meeting, over 1000 PS members signed an open letter against participation in NUPES, and historic leaders, such as former President François Hollande, have spoken against the union, arguing it is a “betrayal of his legacy”, which is undoubtedly the case. In response to the decision by the PS to join NUPES Carole Delopes, the president of the Occitaine region, issued a call to rally all those PS members who are opposed to the "liquidation of the party". Sections of the right have also called on the PS to run instead with them. All of this will present ongoing pressure not only on the PS electorate but also on PS deputies once elected. A key way this resistance was overcome has been both the PS and EELV being offered substantially more constituencies to stand in, particularly winnable constituencies than they would have been entitled to under initial proposals based on a proportional distribution of constituencies based on the component party’s performance in the presidential elections.

The problem of abstentionism in the working class
The refusal of LO and the NPA to join NUPES and instead run their own candidates has raised concerns that this might result in some NUPES candidates not qualifying for the second round - interestingly the role of anti-NUPES PS candidates is not being raised in these same discussions. While this may be the case in some constituencies where LO and/or the NPA might poll well, the reality is that both parties' electoral base is small - both polling less than 1% nationally. Also, because of the relatively small size, there would be no guarantee that all those who would vote for these far-left parties would follow them if they were to join NUPES - at least a section of the voters being protests against the system rather than party loyalty. More importantly, in concentrating on the potential spoiler role that LO or the NPA might play in the first round, commentators are ignoring the much bigger challenge for the left - which is to substantially eat into what is currently one of the largest voting blocs in the French working class … those who abstain from the elections entirely. This bloc, both those who refused to vote, or spoiled their vote, constituted 28.51% of the vote in the first round of the presidential elections. Shifting a solid proportion of these voters would have a significant impact on NUPES performance, far more than the less than half million votes that LO and the NPA received in the presidential elections.

Whatever the outcome of the legislative elections on June 12 and 19, the real test for France’s left will come following the elections. Either in building a consistent opposition to Macron as an opposition bloc in both the parliament and in the streets, or if results deliver a left government, the challenge of attempting to change France, which will face opposition not only from the right internationally and in France, but also, rising tensions in perspective within the left itself.

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France: Le Pen loses, but struggle against Macron brings new challenges

Lisbeth Latham

Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the French presidential elections on May 7, receiving 58.21% of the vote compared to the 30.01% share for far-right National Front (FN) candidate Marine Le Pen.

Despite the apparently decisive victory, the vote signals continued political uncertainty in France fuelled by widespread disillusionment with France’s democracy. It raises questions as to whether Macron’s supporters, organised in a new centrist movement called En Marche!, will be able to form a working government out of legislative elections scheduled for mid-June.

Despite Macron winning the first round, there were doubts over whether sufficient numbers of voters who had supported other candidates would shift their vote to Macron in the second round. The desire to deal the FN a defeat was strong, but many were put off by the hard neoliberal platform of Macron, the personification of an establishment technocrat.

AbstentionMacron’s total vote ultimately more than doubled his first round vote, but in the context of the lowest turnout in a presidential vote since the 1969 presidential elections, which occurred in the aftermath of repression of the mass mobilisations of May-June 1968.

More than 25% of voters abstained from the contest between the far-right and centrist candidate. There were also 11.47% blank ballots cast.

The abstention and blank ballots reflect the extent to which voters were alienated not just from the racist pro-capitalist politics of Le Pen, but also Macron’s promise to continue and deepen the neoliberal attacks on French society carried out by successive governments.

Some of Macron’s policies include budget cuts totalling €60 billion; lowering corporate tax from 33.3% to 25%; creating a 5000-strong EU border force; adding 10,000 extra police; and expanding jails to house a further 15,000 prisoners.

National FrontLe Pen was always seen as unlikely to win the second round — the only real chance for her to win was huge abstentionism. Her objective in the second round was always to further build the position of the FN for the legislative elections as well as the 2022 presidential elections.

Le Pen’s final vote of 10.5 million (a 38.62% increase over the first round) was significant. But it was widely greeted with relief that the vote was not as high as some feared, with polls up until May 3 suggesting that the FN vote could be more than 41%.

Le Pen's weaker performance was partly a consequence of the release of further allegations from the European parliament in which she is implicated in a fake jobs scandal. Le Pen’s performance in the second round debate was also widely panned.

The rise of the FN and Le Pen poses a serious threat, but their forward march is not inevitable. They face significant challenges.

One of these is that, despite Le Pen’s efforts to detoxify the FN’s image, its overt racism continues to alienate significant sections of the French working class — particularly Muslim and migrant communities. This reality was reflected in Le Pen’s cynical move immediately after the first round on April 23 to stand down as FN president so she could be “the candidate for all of France”.

However, her efforts were undermined by her replacement Jean-Francois Jalkh, a long-term party member who had joined as a 17-year-old in 1974. He had to resign just days later for previous statements minimising the Holocaust.

The FN also faces significant internal division over the way forward. Le Pen wants to continue moving the party into the mainstream of French right-wing politics and challenge the centre-right Republicans as the main party of the right.

The most unreconstructed reactionary wing of the party continues to resist this push. It is seeking to use Le Pen’s poorer than expected showing to attack this project.

Marine's father and party founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who Marine had expelled from the party in 2015, publicly attacked his daughter on the eve of the second round. He said she was unfit to be president.

Left debatesHow to respond to such a second-round contest was a source of debate within the French left. A particular focus was the extent to which the danger posed by Le Pen made it incumbent on the left to support Macron’s candidacy.

Of particular interest in this regard was the stance taken by Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Insoumise (France Unbowed, FI). Melenchon’s campaign posed a radical, left-wing pole in the first round of campaigning, mobilising tens of thousands and securing just under 20% of the vote.

The FI called for not one single vote for Le Pen. However, it put the other options to a membership vote: calling for a vote for Macron; abstaining or casting a blank ballot. More than 36% of FI members backed the organisation calling for blank ballots to be cast.

The French Communist Party (PCF), which campaigned for Melenchon in the first round, called for a vote for Macron, as did and the French Confederation of Democratic Workers (CFDT), France's second-largest union confederation.

PCF national secretary Pierre Laurent called for “beating Marine Le Pen on May 8 and to build legislative victories to defeat both Emmanuel Macron and the extreme right”.

The General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France’s largest union confederation, called for a “vote to block the extreme right”, but refused to publicly call for a vote for Macron.

The CGT said Le Pen posed “a danger to democracy, social cohesion and the world of work”, but that “the governments, which since 2002 have followed one another without ever meeting the legitimate aspirations for greater social justice, failing to create opportunities for a better future, bear a heavy responsibility [for the growth of the FN].”

The New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) went further, arguing against a call for a vote for Macron. It said: “Macron is not a bulwark against the FN; to impose a lasting retreat [on the FN] there is no alternative but to take the streets against the far right and against all those who, like Macron, impose or try to impose anti-social measures.”

New challengesWith Macron’s victory, the focus for the left will shift to a struggle on the streets against Macron’s looming assault and on efforts to build a legislative opposition. The CGT called for mobilisations against Macron for May 8, which drew thousands of protestors.

In its call for mobilisations, the CGT said the FN vote was too high and “reflected the level of social despair unleashed by liberal policies a consequence of the refusal of successive governments to fight for social justice.

“Fighting the FN requires a break with liberal policies. It is the perspective of the CGT to work, through social mobilisations, to impose alternative choices, act for social justice and win a world of peace.”

The legislative elections could pose an opportunity for those to the left of the now severely weakened Socialist Party (PS) to achieve a greater parliamentary voice than the 10 MPs that the Left Front (an alliance including the PCF and Melenchon’s Left Party) achieved in the 2012 elections.

The traditional party of French social democracy, the PS candidate won just over 6% in the first round of the presidential elections, leaving a large space on the left.

The position of the left heading to the poll is relatively weak - the combined vote for the left in the presidential elections, including the PS, was just under 10 million. However, parties to the left of the PS won about 7.7 million.

If this was maintained in the legislative elections, it would likely result in a significant expansion in the number of seats won.

However, the bulk of Melenchon’s increased vote in the presidential contest came from PS voters shifting to Melenchon as support for the PS’s Benoit Hamon collapsed. This is unlikely to be replicated.

An added complication is that, at present, there is no agreement between the parties that supported Melenchon’s presidential candidacy on a united campaign in the legislative elections. There is a chance that the FI and the PCF will run candidates against each other, including in constituencies currently held by the PCF.

If this occurred, it could risk a reduction in the number of seats held by the left. In the face of this danger, Ensemble (a far-left regroupment within the Left Front) has called for building a united force of the “defiant left” that breaks with neoliberalism to contest the legislative elections.

“The next legislative elections will be decisive in mobilising the hope raised by Jean-Luc Melenchon’s success in the first round of the French Presidential election,” it said in a statement.

“We need to elect genuine left representatives who will fight Macron’s policies and build an alternative. We have everything to play for.

“Macron must be prevented from obtaining a majority of deputies, drawn from the traditional parties of the right and the French Socialist Party, which will continue and worsen the policies of Francois Hollande’s last five years in power.

“For this reason, it is essential that the progressive forces who supported Jean-Luc Melenchon’s candidacy stand in constituencies across the country and build on the success of the first round. It is necessary to unite left and environmental activists in choosing candidates and break from the social liberals.

“This will give sufficient force to opposing the policies of Macron and challenge both the extreme right and other conservative forces.”

[This article originally appeared in Green Left Weekly #1137You can read a series of translated statements from the French left on the presidential elections at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal ] 

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France: Punishment of the PS, rise of the FN ... A leftwing response is urgent!

Roseline Vacchetta
Originally published in l’Anticapitaliste (weekly newspaper of the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste - NPA) of 27 March 2014.
This translation is taken from International Viewpoint
31 March 2014

The first round of municipal elections in Ftrance on 23 March was marked by record abstention, massive rejection of the PS (Parti Socialiste - Socialist Party) government, and a rise of the far-right FN. All significant indicators of a deep crisis.

This is a historic victory... for abstention. It increased from 30% in 1995 to 38.62% in 2014, which is a lot for an election that traditionally mobilizes voters. This massive abstention is not homogeneous, and affects working-class and popular areas most: it is 62 % for example in Roubaix or Vaulx-en-Velin.

It confirms the radical break between a sector of citizens and government at all levels It is a deep resentment against institutions that do not provide answers to concrete problems of the majority of the population (employment, housing, equal rights, quality of life... ). This reflects the views of all those who do not hope for any improvement in their situation in the act of voting right or left.

Sordid affairs, scheming, lies did the rest and many voters no longer want to participate in this charade of democracy. The Leftist particularly disappointed, is the one who has the most boycotted the election.

Crushing defeat of the government

The NPA explained in this campaign that local and national issues were related because government decisions to reduce grants to municipalities, cut public services, disengage the national government from policy from policies for which it is reponsible, for example education , weigh heavily on people. Distrust of an PS government carrying out righwing policies was total.

On the evening of the first round, that’s what the results reflect : 6 mayors elected for the left in government 16 for the right and 1 for the FN! [1] There was a political collapse of the PS, which fell by 5 to 20 points depending on the city.

Popular disgust with politics is also reflected in good results for non-party lists, not only in small towns but also in medium-sized cities. They may play an important role as arbiter for the second round. They suggest that for voters, it is better to choose managers who seem honest and do not display ambitions other than "good governance " of their community. It is the very idea of politics that is receding !

In the vast majority of large cities, the PS has to face a second round even where its list won in the first round in 2008, or it is even in third place behind the National Front, as in Marseilles.

Dangerous thrust of the National Front

Its strategy of rooting itself in localities has paid off : it has risen from 118 lists in 2008 to 597 lists presented in 2014. In the first round, it came first in 7 cities and can already boast of having won 473 members of municipal councils, from the first round alone.

It has created strongholds in the North, to some extent in the East and the South East, in cities and localities where residents are particularly hard hit by the social crisis and political despair. It took the city of Henin-Beaumont in the North, and improved its score in Lille by 11%.

Riding on the popular rejection of corruption scandals that have affected both the PS and the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire -  Union for a Popular Movement), it now wants to be a respectable party, closeto the people, capable and efficient in responding to people’s needs. Its success is built on the defeats of institutional parties and no “republican front” [2] will prevent it.

And now back on the street!

The NPA was present on 87 lists, including 54 as a united lists, with different parties (sometimes the PG (Parti de gauche - Left Party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon), the PCF (Parti communiste francais - French Communist Party), the Alternatifs, Ensemble (an organization member of the Front de gauche (Left Front) created by the fusion of several small organizations including Gauche anticapitaliste), MOC, local associations... ). In all cases, these lists have gathered far more than the party members. If we have not been able to capture the popular discontent, we were present to offer a clear anti-capitalist political alternative; to build a left opposition to this government; and to give a clear alternative discourse to that of the National Front, that of the right and of the "left" government is only left-wing in name.

This struggle for another society free of profit in the service of many, will be won by our struggles and mobilizations. To do this, we must take the streets, coordinate our struggles to unite all those who come in resistance. This is the meaning that we want to give the united-front initiative on 12 April : “Maintenant, ça suffit” (Enough is enough).

Footnotes
[1] The municipal elections in France are on a two round system. However if one list (the head of the list is the future mayor) wins over 50% of the vote then the elections is definitive and there is no second round.

[2] The “republican front” is an alliance of the traditional left and right parties to keep out the National Front. The PS called in the second round for PS lists in areas where there was a "tirangular" second round with the FN present to ally with the traditional right to block its success. Local PS lists which did not do so would be stripped of their offical PS label.


Roseline Vacchetta is a leading member of the NPA in France, and of the Fourth International.

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The NPA in crisis: We have to explain because we have to start again

Denis Godard
Originally published at International Viewpoint

Denis Godard is a member of Socialisme par en bas (SPEB) which is associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST), SPEB joined the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) some years before the creation of the NPA. It is of course part of the ongoing discussion within the NPA.
We will not dwell here on signs that the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) is in crisis or on comparisons between the dynamics at its foundation with the current situation. The failure is so severe as to be undeniable. We failed. But the reasons that led us to create the NPA are still there. We have to understand why we failed, especially as we have to start again.

One of the hypotheses developed in this article is that the NPA is not born yet. But this does not mean that nothing has been done. Our experience has put us in a better position to understand the challenges we haven’t been able to meet. And this experience has also helped to change the situation in which we must now operate. To paraphrase Daniel Bensaïd: because we have tried, we have earned the right to start again. 

We are the failure

The temptation is always great to make our responsibilities seem less important because of external reasons, be they the period we’re in, or the creation of the Front de Gauche (FdG),1 [1] which has occupied part of our “space”.

These bad explanations must be cast aside.

The times we live in have seen no less than the start of a systemic crisis of capitalism, quantitatively the largest social revolt in France since 1968 (the movement for pensions), the Arab revolutions, the Indignados movement in Spain and Greece, the Occupy movement in the United States. How can you make such a period the reason for the failure2 [2] of an anti-capitalist party? The opposite is true: the inability of the NPA to show its usefulness in this period of crisis of the system and of mass revolts was the reason for its internal crisis. Movement setbacks and the progress of reactionary forces—first and foremost the fascists—do not invalidate this analysis, even though they can help change the situation in which we operate. In times of deep crisis for the system, the subjective element is crucial. The same conditions can benefit one side or the other, depending on their ability to take the initiative, to build appropriate responses…or depending on the paralysis of the opposite forces.

The months and years ahead will be explosive. This makes it all the more important to draw correct balance sheets.

Another “bad” explanation: the Parti de Gauche (PG) and the Front de Gauche. Was the space for the NPA suddenly occupied by these new political realities? It would probably be useful to clarify what is meant by space.3 [3]In any case, it is not an inert substance to be manipulated. We’re talking about conscious individuals who we believe will be the actors of their collective emancipation. The birth of the Parti de Gauche, followed by that of the FdG came slightly after that of the NPA. Here again the truth is the reverse: these forces benefited—at least in part—from the weakness of the NPA. The inability to build a “useful” force for tens of thousands of trade unionists, activists associations, neighbourhood youth, etc led some of them to cast their hopes on the FdG, at least for a time.4 [4]

Electoral crystallisations, just like organisational crystallisations are the non-mechanical product of processes of political polarisation, radicalisation and experimentation. These are still in progress. The current failure of the NPA is not the end of the story.

The “new” is not born yet

Be it limitation or opportunity, the merit of the initiative to found the NPA is that of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR), which remained the only organisation of significant size during the founding process and has played the role of propulsive force. This wasn’t necessarily an obstacle to the construction of a new party.5 [5] But it gave a central responsibility to activists from the LCR to “let go”.

Any structure, any organisation creates its own conservatism in ideas as well as in practice. This is what gives an organisation the stability needed to hold out in difficult times and to withstand the pressures of the dominant ideology. But this conservatism, which always involves dangers, becomes a real obstacle when the situation changes.

The decision by a majority of the LCR to initiate the creation of a new party was not necessarily a turn away from its struggles or from its ideas. But it meant that the LCR as a tool, as it had existed, was no longer adequate to the tasks of the period.

Unlike the old, the new is, by definition, not written. It develops, experiments, adapts, builds itself. To be new, to learn to be useful in a new period, the NPA could only be built through a continuous process, with initially limited structures, as flexible as possible, leaving plenty of room for new and emerging debates and all kinds of experiments.

However, the shape and the disagreements at the root of the current crisis of the NPA are clear: the crisis of the NPA looks just like a crisis of the LCR. Disagreements bear on issues that had been raging within the LCR for over a decade (alliances with other left forces and intervention in elections). All the tendencies which were formed and then separated come from the LCR: Gauche Unitaire, followed by Convergences et Alternatives and now Gauche Anticapitaliste (GA). All the tendencies since the birth of the NPA, built in ways that are inherited from the LCR, were led by former leaders of the LCR (with one small exception).

This simple observation shows us that the “old” has dominated the “new” party. The LCR only opened the doors to its house. Generously, no doubt. We turned the light on, we offered coffee. We even sometimes moved some furniture around. But it was the LCR’s house, the one the members of the LCR knew, and they knew how it worked. Others could only be guests. It turned out that that house was actually not suited to the tasks of the new period. 

Underestimating the novelty of the period

1) Just a space to occupy... But why was there resistance to change on the part of a majority of the LCR? It was not a case of bad faith. A large majority had voted for the creation of a new party. Many were excited by the beginning of the process. Why then? Mainly because the reasons given—within the LCR—for the need to build the NPA did not take into account the radically new character of the period. As a result, the awareness of the need to let the new express itself remained superficial. Looking in two directions is not an effective way of orienting oneself.

In the prevalent analysis of the LCR, the start of the new era was basically “the collapse of the USSR and of Eastern bloc countries combined with neoliberal capitalist globalisation”,6 [6] the end of a cycle started in 1917. The analysis was that the crisis of the Communist parties and the neoliberal evolution of the social democratic left opened up a space that had to be “occupied”. But through all this we stayed within the paradigm, frequently expressed in LCR, of “revolutionaries without a revolution”, that is to say “without immediate revolutionary perspectives”,7 [7]a strange though catchy phrase, by the bye.

What mattered mainly in the founding of the new party were therefore somewhat wider programmatic boundaries designed to attract some of the orphans of the traditional parties while remaining radical enough to maintain, for the future, revolutionary perspectives. The idea of programmatically opening up the LCR a little could only lead, for the majority of the members of the LCR, to opening up the LCR a little organisationally.

2) ...or a more radical change? In this analysis of the novelty of the period two elements remained marginal: the systemic crisis of capitalism and above all the return of mass struggles and of an anti-capitalist consciousness. The systemic crisis of capitalism means we are talking of a long-term new period of development of all the contradictions within the system. These can only be solved through a succession of political crises and large-scale confrontations.

Why is this important? It is through concrete experiences in the process of crisis and confrontation that our class (broadly defined) may, on a mass scale, acquire levels of consciousness and organisation making it suitable for a revolutionary transformation. And it is in the context of these experiences that various party political strategies will be tested. To take but one current example.8 [8] During the first few months after the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, the few who dared to criticise the army were completely marginalised on this issue. A year later their position on this point is more widely adopted and their audience has grown, especially among the youth.

The other factor is the return of mass struggles: the strikes of the winter of 1995 in France, the mass uprisings in Indonesia and South Korea, Seattle in 1999 and the emergence of a global movement, counter-summits and social forums, the global movement against the war in Iraq (to take examples preceding the launch of the NPA). In this dynamic process a global critique of the system has resurfaced—the consciousness, at least at an embryonic stage, that all struggles are linked by an overall logic, that the fight must be against a whole system. This is expressed in a stronger form still since the ideological hegemony of the neoliberal model has collapsed with the crisis. A generation of tens of thousands of activists has been in formation for the past 15 years or so on the basis of these experiments. 

From propaganda to strategy as the heart of the new party

There is therefore not a fixed space needing to be filled. Rather, radically different possibilities open up in the struggle for another society. What makes a new party both necessary and possible is the conjunction of a period which can set in motion millions of people with the emergence of tens of thousands of activists within various fronts of the movement, who are their practical leaders on a day to day basis.

Without them the hundreds of workplace confrontations each year would be impossible, as would be the more generalised movements, strikes and mass demonstrations (for pensions, against Jacques Chirac’s attempt to take back the rights of young workers, against the war…). Without them the heroic struggle of the undocumented, the mobilisation around Palestine, the struggle against nuclear power or local struggles such as those conducted against the airport at Notre Dame des Landes, the struggles in poor neighbourhoods, etc could not be maintained. This is the basis for the aim of a force that brings together and coordinates them, making it possible to develop a global strategy for the movement to victories and to give a perspective of collective liberation.

Revolutionary activists should, of course, play a role in this process. But this requires, on their part, a “cultural” revolution in order to be up to the task. They must break with ways of thinking and operating cultivated over decades of marginalisation of the extreme left, of being “revolutionaries without a revolution”. We must move from “the weapon of criticism” to the “criticism of weapons” and not underestimate the radical change this leads to, in practice as in theory.9 [9] We must stop confining ourselves to propagandism, to the cult of the “correct” programme, to the “general strike” mantra and to criticising traditional leaderships of the working class movement as the only possible orientation.

We have failed to make this cultural revolution: moving from propaganda from outside the movement to elaborating a strategy from within the movement. This requires not only an awareness of the issues but also leaning on the thousands of activists in the movement in order to begin to create a new revolutionary culture, gradually developing on the basis of our shared experiences and on the achievements of the revolutionary tradition. It requires a strategy capable of bringing along the whole movement, which would pose anew the major debates and reformulate the project for emancipation. 

The party remained external to the concerns of activists

1) A party for struggles ... or for elections? Despite what was announced, the NPA was never conceived as a party for struggle, a party of the movement. Following on from Olivier Besancenot’s performance at the polls, it has worked primarily as an electoral outlet. Let us remember that the foundation of the NPA was rushed in order to present candidates for the European elections, as the first nationwide public action for the new party.

There followed many debates and incessant (and unresolved!) strife on electoral tactics while resources were invested primarily in national election campaigns, but few discussions on union work, building an anti-racist movement, a movement against debt, the defence of public services, concrete solidarity with the Arab revolutions. How many debates and exchanges of experiences on the development of struggles in local areas? How much was put into the building, by the whole party, of the Copenhagen, Strasbourg or Frankfurt counter-summits, the march of the undocumented, the collectives against debt, etc? Not to mention topics such as police brutality or the Front National, or new ways of mobilising and organising.

2) Politics outside the movement: This orientation is rooted in a theory of the autonomy of social movements not challenged and not discussed at the foundation of the NPA. In the new period this theory has become the theory of the depoliticisation of the movement.

With the downturn in the 1980s, and the predominance of defensive struggles against neoliberal capitalist restructuring, it was much more difficult concretely to experience the emancipatory potentialities of the movement. This opened the way for a division between the field of “social” struggles and the field of the “political” fight. This separation was sanctioned by the appearance of the phrase “social movement”, as an umbrella term for struggles and groupings, as opposed to the political field defined narrowly as the confrontation between parties, mainly on the electoral terrain.

This affected the LCR, which defended “the autonomy of social movements”. To understand how such a conception could develop, it should be added that it was nurtured and encouraged by a fundamentally sound critique of the tradition developed by the traditional parties (first and foremost the Communist Party) of using the trade union movement or other groupings for their own benefit—meaning that these organisations instead of being actors of emancipation became tools for party strategies.

In the name of this conception, LCR activists increasingly intervened in movements as individuals. Sometimes they played a key role and brought with them their general conceptions. But there was less discussion of strategy within the party, and less collective testing. Gradually the consequences became profound for the functioning of the party itself: a separation arose between those most involved in the movement and those working within the party. The leadership became less subject to the pressure of the movement, the questions it raises and the need for strategic development it imposes. Conversely it reinforced the “pragmatic” bent for activists becoming heavily involved in specific, mainly defensive movements.

Last but not least: with the decrease in discussions on the issues raised by the movement, the party’s intervention became dominated by programmatic delimitations with other parties. This led to an increasingly central place being given to elections.

3) Politics in the movement: The NPA was born out of the development of mass movements, yet this conception has in fact continued to dominate its orientation and its practice. It does not meet the needs of movements constantly confronted with the question of the overall logic of the system, nor does it convince activists, who are brought outside of their place of intervention.

The autonomy of the movement is a fine thing, but it needs to be thought through: the movement transforms society, not elected individuals or political parties. In other words: the revolutionary transformation of society can only be the work of the majority of the movement of the oppressed and exploited.

This does not mean autonomy of the movement vis-à-vis politics but that the movement itself evolves and becomes political. Political in the sense that it becomes the alternative,10 [10] that it struggles for power, not aiming to replace those who are at the head of existing institutions with its own representatives, but in order to replace existing institutions with its own collective forms of power—and that it starts to build them in today’s struggles.

This does not mean that the movement must stay away from political parties but it means they must prove the validity of what they stand for within the movement itself—it also means they can only prove this through understanding and respecting the rhythms of the movement and through developing a useful strategy for the movement.

It follows that a revolutionary strategy is a strategy that shows how the movement can become political, through all the experiences of the class struggle on all fronts (including elections)—rather than one which theorises the separation between the social movement and the political movement.

It follows that the party cannot invent this strategy from outside. It should first aim to promote the generalisation of experiences and dynamics from the movement itself: just look how examples as diverse as the Indignados, Occupy, the Arab revolutions, workplace occupations, “Can’t pay, won’t pay” movements pose—at least in embryonic form—the question of another power, of a real democracy. They also are—more positively—the expression of the distrust that exists toward institutions as expressed also by low voter turnout, the rejection of the mainstream media or riots where what is identified with the “institutions of society” gets broken. 

Unmoving conceptions externally imposed

1) “Our response to the crisis”: a strategic discussion aborted: The dominant conception in the NPA is that the “correct” programme (and the correct demands) can be brought to the movement from without by the party. Hence the emphasis on elections as a way to address a mass audience. Hence the emphasis on programmatic delimitations in order to differentiate between true anti-capitalists and “treacherous” leaders.

If a programme is necessary it should be a programme that combines goals and the means of achieving them, a guide to action. It cannot be a “perfect”, fixed programme, born in the mind of a few revolutionaries; it must be modified by experiences and developments. The elaboration of such a programme is therefore inseparable from the development of the movement itself and of debates on the experiences and issues raised. From this point of view, probably nothing is more indicative of the failure of the NPA than the text “Our response to the crisis”, adopted at the first congress in 2009.11 [11]

This text could have opened up a debate on what an anti-capitalist strategy in a period of deep crisis and mass struggles would look like. Yet the discussion was confined to the contents of a programme, a list of demands, which some found not radical enough and others too radical, everyone being obsessed with what boundaries to establish or not to establish with the Front de Gauche.

Let’s be clear, the more or less implicit reference for many comrades in this debate was the transitional programme advocated by Trotsky in 1938.12 [12] We will not discuss here the validity of the reference. What is striking, however, when we take the transitional programme as it was defended by Trotsky is that it has an element of an action programme, each demand being combined with a suitable organisational form: strengthening trade unions and struggling within them and factory committees for the opening of account ledgers and workers’ control, pickets and workers’ militia for the arming of the proletariat, councils grouping factory committees and neighbourhood organisations on a geographical basis for the workers’ and peasants’ government.

This articulation of demands with specific forms of organisation of the movement is exactly what is missing in “Our response to the crisis”. We discussed demands, but it proved impossible to move on to a discussion on the ways in which these demands could be carried out by the movement.

2) No need for concrete analysis? The lack of strategic concern leads to a lack of concern in the analysis of concrete reality. This has led to the lack of analysis of a long cycle of evolution (and recomposition) of the capitalist organisation of production, the destructuration of the traditional working class and the reconstruction of a new class composition. Yet it is also the reconfiguration of the reality of our class which has put in crisis the traditional organisations of the labour movement. Is there a specific revolutionary subject? Should we still think in terms of strategic productive sectors?

Assuming that we should, are they the same as 20 or 30 years ago? Should we think in terms of organising struggling workers by occupation, by trade or by location? Don’t the development of migration and the feminisation of labour alter the relationship between struggles against discrimination and struggles in workplaces? Don’t the fragmentation of production units and contracts, the development of precariousness and the growth in service jobs lead to a change in the role and in the methods of struggle in inner-city areas? These discussions—but we could cite others—were absent in the construction of the NPA, not to mention the changing face of the state or of imperialism, the role of the media, of social networks.

A new workers’ movement capable of developing strategies and organisational forms that correspond to the new realities of class composition must be rebuilt. This should be combined with resistance to restructuring in the old sectors where the old organisations remain the best established. The articulation should be put in these terms rather than in the choice between reconstruction and recomposition. 

Is one born a revolutionary, or does one become one?

A party cannot develop a strategy if its members are not involved in the movement in different ways. This also works in reverse: it is through discussions necessary for elaboration and through tests made within the movement that a “new” revolutionary consciousness may be forged among the collective members of the party, and that previous ideas may be modified, enriched and criticised.

This requires a break with the idea of a ready-made revolutionary theory created by the leaders of party tendencies, and with its mirror image: a misconception of reformism as a simple “mind manipulation”. The influence of reformism cannot be reduced to the “treacherous” leaders betraying addled masses to whom the truth must be revealed.

Reformism is the product of a contradictory consciousness reflecting a contradictory experience. On the one hand the experience of domination (exploitation and oppression) and competition that promotes feelings of powerlessness and makes the idea that only elected officials can improve things seem sensible. On the other hand, the experience of resistance to this domination, which not only tears individualism apart, and recreates solidarity, but which also puts in question the power of the boss and the neutrality of the state.

This means that reformism cannot be fought only in terms of ideology (with propaganda). The return of mass struggles and the experiences and failures of those involved in them are the basis for changes in mass consciousness. But we need to understand this change as a process. There is no binary switch at an individual or collective level in the evolution of consciousness from reformism to revolutionary politics.

Fighting against the influence of reformism and developing a revolutionary consciousness are tied together. They cannot be advanced through proclamations but through practical demonstrations to promote all experiences demonstrating practically the collective strength we have and the superiority of a strategy based on it compared with institutional strategies. 

Tinkering is not enough; we must rebuild

1) Still possible...and still necessary: The task of building is still before us. The audience won by the Front de Gauche has shown the availability of hundreds of thousands of young people and workers for a political and radical perspective. The Front de Gauche is caught as in the straitjacket of a cartel of organisations whose main objective is not self-organisation and the development of counter-powers—but an institutional perspective. It therefore cannot be the basis for the force we need to build. Struggles go on outside these organisations in the youth, in the banlieues, often in a fragmented manner.

The nature of the times makes the construction of an anti-capitalist force not just possible; it makes it more necessary than ever. Without the coordination of movement activists and the progressive development of an anti-capitalist strategy, victories become increasingly difficult to gain for specific struggles, as demonstrated by the movement on pensions, the anti-racist struggle or the anti-war movement.

During the movement over pensions the strategy of union leaders imposed itself by default. This is because there was not a force bringing together tens of thousands of radical unionists with the respect of their workmates in all sectors and regions, arising from the development of combative local unions or rank and file committees, linked to the majority of young people in high schools and colleges, able to organise local support. Such a force could have proposed an alternative strategy to that of the union leaders through generalising from the best experiences.

In other words, victories, even partial victories, require that strategies of confrontation with the logic of the system be proposed widely to the movement and that forms of grassroots organisation and counter-powers be developed. Such a force is also made necessary by the general tendency of the capitalist system. Without a perspective of global transformation and emancipation, reactionary “solutions” will have the upper hand. Therefore, we must try again.

2) Rebuilding, saying it and doing it: We should not be ashamed of our failure. We all have the merit of having tried. But failure it is that has demoralised thousands of activists and developed scepticism more widely still. We must therefore say publicly that we have failed; it is a necessary condition if we want to be trusted in our desire to try again. We also need to say that we do not want to patch up what didn’t work, but that we are calling for a radical overhaul of the NPA. These conditions are necessary but not sufficient. We are not asking to be believed on trust. We’ll be judged by our actions. And this cannot be postponed.

3) Where to start? Proclaiming a different mode of operation or a different programme will not create a new party. Departures have left the structures of the party in a fragile state, from local committees to national structures (commissions, press, national leadership bodies…). We should “take advantage” of the situation to restart a process of foundation on the basis of the local committees—national structures can simply, at least for the time being, “manage” current affairs.

Committees for a real refoundation should be autonomous—regarding their local involvement, mode of operation, the organisation of their debates—and coordinated for national campaigns on which they agree and for debates relating to the rebuilding of the party. These committees should be completely open to the outside, encouraging the participation of movement activists, even if they do not join the party. At all levels we should encourage discussions between activists of other parties of the radical left.

At least during a transition period, the newspaper could serve primarily as a liaison organ between the committees: reports of experiences made by the committees, announcements of protests, meetings, events, contributions to the debate, etc.

The cornerstone of this process should be involvement in the movement and the development of our strategy as a basis for an exchange of experiences and as a basis for discussions, including theoretical debates. From this point of view, the development of campaigns against austerity and public debt—related to the refusal of redundancy plans and to international solidarity—and the fight against the development of racism and the extreme right should be dominant axes for our activities.

Conclusion

Nothing would be worse than making the forthcoming NPA congress a sham. The process leading to this congress must be a part of the wider process of rebuilding: not limited to internal debate but encouraging open discussion with the outside on all subjects and at all levels, starting work on our strategy and our functioning without excluding more theoretical debates (the dynamics of capital/labour, movement/institutions, oppression/exploitation).

This process will be a live one if it takes as a basis action within the movements, experiments made by the various committees, and if it does not claim to solve in advance discussions that must remain open.

In this sense the preparation for this congress should be seen as a refounding process on the basis of contributions going back and forth between committees rather than platforms made “at the top”, on which party members should position themselves. The congress itself should be thought of not as an end (of the process) but as a step on the way: the party itself should be conceived of as a process-party, an experimental party.

Finally, at this conference the youth must be put back at the heart of the party, of its committees, of its experiences, of its debates, and not as something separate, but as central to its activity, and even as a driving force. This is also a prerequisite for building a party for the future, a movement party, a new anti-capitalist party.

References

Adam, Hélène, Daniel Bensaïd, François Coustal, Léon Crémieux, Jacqueline Guillotin, Samuel Johsua, Alain Krivine, Olivier Martin, Christine Poupin, Pierre Rousset, François Sabado, Roseline Vachetta, 2009, “De la LCR au NPA”.

Godard, Denis, 2009, “The NPA: a Space for Rebuilding”, International Socialism 123 (Summer 2009).

Godard, Denis, 2011 “Qu’est-ce qu’on veut : Tout!” Que faire? 8 (second series).

Johsua, Samy, 2006, “Mélanges Stratégiques”, Que faire? 5 (1st series),.

Marx, Karl, 1975, Early Writings (Penguin).

NPA, 2011, “Nos Réponses à la Crise”.

Sitel, Francis, 2008, “Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, Espoirs et Pièges” in Critique Communiste, 187 (June).

Trotsky, Leon, 1938, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International.

This English translation was published by International Socialist Journal in Issue: 137, Posted: 9 January 13. 

Footnotes

[1] The Front de Gauche is the coalition formed in 2009 between the French Communist Party and the newly-formed Parti de Gauche, the latter being in the main a left split from the social democratic Parti Socialiste. Other smaller groups have also joined the Front de Gauche. This article was translated by Sylvestre Jaffard. It originally appeared in French in Que Faire? number 10, August-October 2012.

[2] True, events of such magnitude can unleash internal crises. Their novelty and their importance should, in any organisation worthy of the name, spark many discussions in order to analyse them and to develop responses. It is indeed through this kind of debate and through attempts to intervene effectively that a new party can be forged. Alas, everyone will agree that this hasn’t been the NPA’s problem. We are therefore talking here about a failure.

[3] For further developments on this question of the “space to be occupied”, see my answer to a debate between Alex Callinicos and François Sabado at the foundation of the NPA-Godard, 2009. But the answer itself is dated and shows what the experience of the NPA has brought along, despite its failure: it remains well below a proper awareness. of the changes to be made in our approach. See the following theses.

[4] To put it clearly, the FdG has seized the zeitgeist better than the NPA, at least when it comes to elections. Mélenchon’s radical speeches call for a “participatory” campaign, the use of such modes of mobilisation as the occupation of public squares. Yet, and this will be a problem for comrades who join the FdG, its ability to “capitalise” on its voting base is still largely unproven. I tend to think there are too many obstacles for this: the strength of the Communist Party, which will oppose a “common house”, the focus on institutions, the tensions between the forces.

[5] See Sitel, 2008. For Francis Sitel, who knew the organisation well, creating a new party with just the LCR as an organised force was dangerous. Many of his arguments are interesting. The problem is that we do not start from what we wish we had, but from what exists. On this basis, we must find solutions. Otherwise we look for shortcuts. Francis Sitel left the NPA at its very beginning, with the Gauche Unitaire, LCR activists who instead rallied to the Front de Gauche. This grouping probably earned more positions by joining the FdG early on. But its political evolution is such that the Gauche Anticapitaliste often forgets to mention it among the currents that could form an anti-capitalist pole within the FdG. Should this be a warning for the GA, which broke away in June 2012?

[6] Adam and others, 2009.

[7] Johsua, 2006. Johsua notably concludes: “Outside a revolutionary period, it is impossible to have a mass popular party (or something approaching) without an institutional basis.”

[8] All the revolutionary processes of history are fascinating to study from this point of view, from 1848 France to the 1974 revolution in Portugal, the Russian Revolution of 1917 or the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Failures are more linked to the inability of the revolutionary process to have parties up to the task than to lack of determination and radicality of the movements. It is true that in the historical analysis it is easier to deduce that the “masses” are lacking in this or that. This is a prime trick for evading responsibilities. The other is to blame the “treacherous” leaders of the class. Comfortable, certainly…but not very useful in strategic terms.

[9] See Marx, 1975, p251.

[10] About what is meant by political movement see Godard, 2011.

[11] NPA, 2011.

[12] Trotsky, 1938.

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France: As National Front support grows, strategy struggle erupts in Left Front

By Dick Nichols

November 6, 2013

Originally published in Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

 

October was a month of sharp shifts in French politics. On October 4, a poll in the French weekly Nouvel Observateur showed the xenophobic and racist National Front (FN) of Marine Le Pen leading voting intentions for the 2014 European elections with the support of 24% of those interviewed—up 3% in six months.

On October 13, in the second round of the by-election for the canton of Brignoles (in the Mediterranean department of Var), the FN easily defeated the mainstream conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), by 53.9% to 46.1%. Until 2011 Brignoles had had a Communist Party (PCF) mayor, but in this election the main left candidate, with a PCF background and supported by the Socialist Party, could only manage 14.6% in the first round.

On October 19, a BVA poll revealed that 65% of those interviewed thought that Rom school girl Léonarda Dibrani—taken off a school excursion bus by police on October 9 and deported with her family to Albania—should not be allowed to return to France. That poll result became public even as thousands of school students and their supporters flooded central Paris for three days to protest Léonarda’s expulsion.

On October 20, when President François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) (down to 23% in the latest polls) appeared on national television to offer Léonarda right of return to France without her family, he simply made matters worse for himself. “With her mother and sisters”, insisted PS secretary Harlem Desir. This difference between government and party didn’t matter for long. From Albania the 15-year-old Léonarda told Hollande where he could put his offer.

As Hollande’s authority nosedives even with PS faithful, that of interior minister Manuel Valls, the “hard man” stuck with the thankless job of expelling “illegals”, keeps rising. An October 24 Figaro poll had Valls as preferred president after the next election (2017), at 33% to Hollande’s 9%.

 

The rise of the FN at the expense of the UMP and PS has been deepening divisions within all main political trends. UMP leaders and candidates have been trying to beat Le Pen at her own game of race hatred and exclusionary nationalism while ministers within the ruling Socialist Party (PS) government have been at loggerheads over the treatment of Léonarda.

Left Front alliance debates

Within the opposition Left Front (Front de Gauche) a debate has opened up over how to orient to the rightward-moving PS. This debate is also being driven by the failure of the Left Front to make any major gains in by-elections held since the May-June 2012 presidential and National Assembly elections.

Most importantly, between October 17 and 19, Paris region members of the Communist Party (PCF), the main force along with the Left Party (Parti de Gauche) in the nine-party Left Front, voted to maintain their party’s present alliance with the PS in the Paris council for the March 2014 municipal elections in France.

This decision, taken by 57% to 43%, represented a break with the strategic line of the Left Front. This is to have Left Front tickets in all towns with over 20,000 inhabitants and to support the inclusion of other left forces on these tickets only if they take a clear stand against the austerity policies of the national PS government of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

(In municipal elections, the two-round French voting system allows the Left Front to stand in its own name in the first round, while supporting PS candidates against right-wing tickets in the second round if its own vote is less than 10%. If the Left Front vote is more than 10% it is free to withdraw, stand again, or seek to negotiate a joint ticket with other forces.)

The PCF’s Paris decision was possible because the party’s national leadership had earlier decided that the alliance policy for the 2014 municipal elections would be decided by local membership vote. Yet the Paris decision, supported by national secretary Pierre Laurent, has been causing angst among Left Front supporters, opening the most serious crisis in its four-year history. It has also opened sharp conflicts within the PCF itself.

The reaction from the Left Party leadership was one of outrage. Left Party national secretary and deputy mayor of Paris’s 12th arrondissement (ward) Alexis Corbière asked: “Now that the young people have risen up against the inhuman consequences of the policies of Manuel Valls, how is it possible to be on a common ticket with his friends in Paris?”

Paris is not France

Will the Paris region PCF vote remain an exception, or does it prefigure a return to the pre-Left Front norm of PCF-PS alliances, especially where these have run major towns?

While many PCF town branches have still to vote on their approach, decisions to date indicate that the Paris decision may well turn out to be more exception than rule. On October 25, L’Humanité carried the news that PCF members in Lyon, France’s second largest city, had voted 52.9% in favour of a Left Front ticket for the municipal poll, rejecting a deal over program and seats similar to that accepted in Paris.

According to an October 27 L’Humanité article by Left Party national secretary Eric Coquerel, in “nearly three-quarters of the towns with 100,000 inhabitants” local PCF ballots had supported the option of a Left Front alliance.

At the time of writing (November 5), PCF members’ decisions in towns of more than 100,000 inhabitants was as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. PCF decisions on alliances for 2014 French municipal elections
(towns over 100,000, at November 5, 2013)

Town	Region	Inhabitants (2010)		Decision or likely decision
A.   Towns with existing SP- or Greens (EELV)-led majority (in many cases including PCF councilors)
Paris	Île-de-France		2,250,000	With PS
Lyon	Rhône-Alpes		484,000	With Left Front
Toulouse	Midi-Pyrénées		442,000	Undecided, but leadership has rejected Left Front. Decision on November 16
Nantes	Pays de la Loire		285,000	To be decided, with leadership favouring PS
Strasbourg	Alsace		282,000	With Left Front
Montpellier	Languedoc-Roussillon		257,000	With Left Front
Lille	Nord-Pas-de-Calais		228,000	To be decided
Rennes	Brittany		207,000	To be decided, with leadership favouring PS
Reims	Champagne-Ardenne		180,000	Still to be decided. Council group leader leaning towards the PS.
Saint-Étienne	Rhône-Alpes		171,300	Local leadership leaning towards PS
Grenoble	Rhône-Alpes		155,600	With Left Front
Angers	Pays de la Loire		147,600	Leadership proposal for alliance with PS. To be voted November 6
Dijon	Burgundy		151,200	With Left Front
Brest	Brittany		141,300	With PS
Le Mans	Pays de la Loire		142,600	With Left Front
Clermont-Ferrand	Auvergne		140,000	With Left Front
Amiens	Picardy		133,400	With PS
Tours	Centre		134,800	Still to be decided. Proposal to go to citizens meeting, November 7
Limoges	Limousin		139,100	With Left Front
Villeurbanne	Rhône-Alpes		145,000	With PS
Metz	Lorraine		120,700	With Left Front
Besançon	Franche-Comté		116,900	With PS
Caen	Lower Normandy		109,000	To be decided
Rouen	Upper Normandy		110,900	With Left Front
Argenteuil	Île de France		103,100	With Left Front
Montreuil	Île de France		102,700	With Left Front
Saint-Denis	Île de France		106,700	Left Front supporting PCF mayoralty
B.   Towns with existing right-wing majority
Marseille	Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur		850,000	With Left Front
Nice	Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur		343,300	With Left Front
Bordeaux	Aquitania		239,200	With Left Front
Le Havre	Upper Normandy		175,500	With Left Front
Toulon	Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur		164,500	With Left Front
Nîmes	Languedoc-Roussillon		142,000	With Left Front
Aix-en-Provence	Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur		141,400	With Left Front
Perpignan	Languedoc-Roussillon		117,400	With PS
Orléans	Centre		114,167	With Left Front
Mulhouse	Alsace		109,600	With Left Front
Boulogne-Billancourt	Île de France		114,200	Not yet decided
Nancy	Lorraine		105,421	Not yet decided

Sources: Regional French media, regional PCF and Left Party web sites, L’Humanité, Libération, Le Monde, blog Politiquemania, web site Regards.fr.

The vote to date has exposed the tensions between the recommendations of local PCF leaderships and the sentiment of many PCF members, who place more value on the political potential of the Left Front than on maintaining the PCF’s present council representation.

(The PCF has 1709 council seats in metropolitan France, and 1857 when the “overseas territories and departments” such as Tahiti are included. There are 88,298 council positions in France and its “overseas possessions”.)

To date membership votes overturning leadership recommendations have taken place in Lyon, Montpellier, Le Mans and Évry. Lead PCF candidate for Lyon, Aline Guitard, explained the vote like this: “The members judged that what was being proposed with the PS didn’t allow a stronger fight against austerity.”

In response to that decision, according to the October 30 Le Monde, eight local PCF councilors denounced the “vote of split”, threatening not to take part in a “reductionist” ticket. In Le Mans, outgoing PCF councilors said they would continue to negotiate with the PS majority.

In other centres, like Perpignan, the threat of a victory of the right or far-right (FN) convinced members that a first round alliance with the PS was a political necessity. According to lead candidate Philippe Galano: “It’s reckless to say that the forces of the left, if disunited in the first round, could compete with the UMP and the FN in the second.”

In the light of these trends an interesting question is whether the Paris line would have carried if there had been a single national ballot of the whole PCF membership.

PS—best builder of the FN

How are all these dramatic developments related? The underlying issues are how to reverse support for the FN and how to orient to the PS when rapidly deepening disillusionment with the Hollande presidency—elected 18 months ago for its promise of “Change, Now!”—is what has most fed the growth in FN support.

Le Pen’s outfit is seen by increasing numbers of angry people in France as the one party untainted by connections with the political establishment and with an understandable message.

Nonetheless, for sociologist Eric Fassin, writing in the October 24 Le Monde, the rise in FN influence “refutes the hypothesis of a rightward shift in society--cultural or economic”. Rather the FN is gaining a hearing because of the growing desperation of people ground down by austerity, because of the persistent, 30-year-long retreat of the official “parties of government” before the FN message, and because the alternative left message isn’t yet audible or believable enough.

The FN’s “discourse” evokes a mythical French paradise lost that flourished before the arrival of globalisation, the European Union and the euro currency; when the country had its franc, there was discipline in the classroom, respect in the family and order in the suburbs, and the necks of serious criminals met the guillotine.

That belle époque—destroyed by one-parent families, homosexuality and homosexual marriage, lax immigration laws and oppressive political correctness—can be restored by a sane and healthy “people” led by the FN rising up against the “politicians” and their parties.

Over the years the reaction of the governing elites has been to sneer and pretend outrage at this message, while combing through the concrete issues on which to make the concessions that could hopefully steal away some of the FN’s support base.

Predictably, the area where FN policy has most passed into the mainstream is that of migrants’ and refugees’ rights. French policy is among the most restrictive and discriminatory in Europe.

The long-run political effect of this combination of empty moralising and concrete concessions to the FN’s racist policies has been to add to the political authority of the FN as the party that has been doggedly putting its finger on French society’s “real problems” for decades.

Now, UMP candidates openly compete with the FN in racist vileness while the media feel no shame in pillorying entire communities such as the Rom.

The events of October produced a speed-up in this syndrome, a race to the bottom between the UMP and PS over migrants’ and refugees’ rights. On October 24, UMP leader Jean-François Copé proposed that the right to French citizenship of children born to migrants be repealed—a 25-year-old demand of the FN—and that free medical service for “illegals” be confined to emergency situations.

One day later, minister Valls announced that he would produce a “reform” of the system of political asylum by mid-November.

To complete the pantomime, PS national secretary Desir (once leader of the powerful campaign movement SOS Racisme!) declared: “I say the FN is a party of the extreme right!”

As for Leonarda Dibrani, the saturation message from the mainstream commercial media was that she had it coming. What could you expect from someone whose father was a classic “gypsy bad dad”—happy to live on social security payments, showing no sign of looking for work or interest in jobs offered him, not sure whether his kids are at school, and with three different versions of why he couldn’t produce an identity card?

Debates in the Left Front

Such is the atmosphere in which the Left Front has been battling to get its anti-capitalist message through to people drawn to FN simplicities. It helps explain why the strategy debate within the Left Front, centred on where and how to look for the broader alliances that will win it hegemony over the PS and enable the Left Front to be seen as an alternative for government, has become so sharp.

In an October 21 blog comment, Mélenchon summarised his view of the situation facing the organisation after the Paris PCF decision: “At the level of Paris, the situation is simpler than it appeared—the Left Front continues with [lead candidate] Danielle Simonnet. There will be a pluralist ticket for the municipal elections, hundreds of activists and sympathisers will get involved among whom no doubt there will be a considerable number of communists.

“But at the national level, the situation is much more complicated. The loss of visibility is terrible for us. It helps the extreme rights present itself as the only alternative to the system.”

In the October 16 L’Humanité, before the PCF Paris vote began, the Left Front leader had insisted: “We are not in a logic of wheeling and dealing, but of political and ideological conquest. For us the local and the national are the same reality.”

Asked about local tickets between the Left Party and the Greens, he contrasted these with what the PCF was proposing for Paris: “The line is to bring together everything we can against austerity and for solidarity rather than curling up on the old turf of alliance with the ‘Solferians’, who repel anything that moves or fights in the country… I am opposed to the unilateral surrender of our forces for the sake of a single town.”

The PCF leadership viewpoint previously had come in an interview in the October 14 Le Parisien where Pierre Laurent said: “It’s not a question of allying with the people who are carrying out the government’s choices, but of creating on the ground a coalition of men and women of the left who don’t identify with this austerity policy. These voters, who could come from the ranks of the socialists or ecologists, have the feeling of being trapped. It’s not the time to shut ourselves off in our own domain, but to extend them a hand.”

Concretising the PCF perspective at the September L’Humanité Fair, Laurent had said: “To build 500,000 extra public housing units, to open health centres, to build new systems of public transport, to create new networks of solidarity where communities are being torn apart, for my part I am ready to take part in the broadest coalitions of the left if that is in the interest of the people.”

As for the future of the Left Front, thrown into doubt by this conflict between its two main affiliate organisations, Laurent said: “I fight with all my strength against the idea that a difference of assessment over the municipal elections opens a crisis in the Left Front. We need the Left Front for today and for the future. So let’s stop polemicising, dramatising, and caricaturing each other’s positions.”

An October 21 statement by the PCF leadership, called “A Big Ambition for the Left Front”, proposed that the front adopt four campaigns in order to revitalise its work and draw in broader forces. These are an exposure campaign around the cost of capital; a campaign for fiscal justice; a campaign around the need for new solidarity- and democracy-based foundations for Europe; and a campaign for a Sixth French Republic.

Mélenchon has not been so sanguine. Describing the PCF Paris choice as “strategically incompatible” with the Left Front’s approach, the PG leader was appearing to signal a struggle against “a small minority, yes prestigious and well placed, that has abandoned us” even while “the unitary dynamic of the Left Front remains overwhelmingly in the majority in the rest of the country”.

Mélenchon also reminded readers of L’Humanité that the PS, while making endless calls for the “unity of the left”, was conducting a sectarian crusade against Communist and Green mayors, especially in the Paris “red belt” around Seine-Saint-Denis, Argenteuil and Saint Denis.

In an October 26 article on his blog titled “For whom tolls the bell?”, the Left Party leader reflected on the impact of the of the PCF Paris decision and on Pierre Laurent’s possible motives for conducting negotiations with the PS without informing other Left Front organisations.

“A lot of my friends are flabbergasted and bewildered. All are struggling to work out what has happened. How could Pierre Laurent lie to us for months while he was selling the Eiffel Tower to [PS lead candidate and Paris deputy mayor] Anne Hidalgo?

“With what criteria and what collective goal? If alliance with the Socialists is his collective goal, why not trade off Paris for peace in towns with communist leaderships, under attack from the Socialists in the municipal elections? Why did he get personally engaged to the point of pushing for a national dramatisation of the stakes involved? Why such brutal arm-twisting of local communist leaderships? On [national TV station] France 3 we saw a communist elector say he was voting for the alliance with the socialists ‘under compulsion and duress’!

“All that merely, as the press says, to save the senator’s seat that he has been occupying since the departure of Senator [former PCF senator Nicole] Cohen-Seat?[i] A lot of people around me couldn’t believe it. There must be another factor. Maybe a psychological one? A pressure which, for the moment, we don’t know about.

However, for Mélenchon the important issue was not to reflect on Laurent’s psychology, but to grasp the political ramifications of the PS-PCF deal.

“For the moments the goal of the ‘Solferians’ has been achieved. In Paris, disarray is total. Among the communists, hundreds of members are demoralised. But our people have also taken a big hit. Campaigning without the communists was really not what they wanted. But that the communists will be forced to campaign against them, that’s really depressing…

“At a national level the leaks in the commanding vessel can be seen from afar. The general staff has been decapitated: how can you hold campaign coordinating meetings with people who are active on opposing tickets? Moreover, our public message gets distorted: all our interviews are taken up with explanations concerning ‘the end of the Left Front’, demanded with gluttonous jubilation. And what is certain is that this is just a foretaste of what awaits us in the local elections.”

The Paris agreement

The strength of the shock to PCF ranks is reflected in this resignation letter of Maeva Nicotra, the branch secretary in the 15th arrondissement, after the Paris decision in favour of joining PS lists.

“I am a revolutionary Left Front militant, committed to implementing [ìts program] Above All, the Human and to the Sixth Republic.

“Given such irreconcilable differences, there is no way I can continue to lead the branch.

“I can’t on the one hand condemn the PS’s machinations and on the other support it in its campaign, even at the municipal level.

“If I had wanted to be a social democrat I would have directly joined the PS.

“I respect the decision of the majority, but cannot in any case renounce my ideals.”

Part of the reaction of the Paris PCF leadership to this sort of response has been to insist that the PS’s Paris administration has not been applying austerity.

In an October 21 interview in Líberation, Ian Brossat, PCF lead candidate for Paris, said: “The policy carried out in Paris is not one of austerity. The level of public investment has more than doubled since 2001. The policy carried out in Paris is not that implemented by the government. That’s why the majority of communists have judged that convergence is possible in the capital but not nationally.”

The programmatic agreement for the 163-seat central Paris council assigns the PCF 13 councillors in electable positions (up from eight) and as well as 32 councillors in electable positions in the city’s 20 arrondissement councils (364 seats in all).

The agreement commits the two parties to:

• Increase the rate of social housing construction so that by 2030 30% of all housing is social housing (proposal of PCF—the present level is 17.4%);

• Create 5000 new childcare places;

• Create a network of direct food distribution allowing cheaper prices to consumers and higher returns to producers (proposal of PCF);

• Guarantee a minimum supply of free water per household (proposal of PCF);

• Develop community health centres, especially in the poorer suburbs and oppose the closure of the emergency department at the Hôtel Dieu, Paris’s oldest hospital;

• Improve cleaning services and keep those that are still public in council hands;

• Follow the example of the PCF-run council in Seine-St Denis in providing extended support services to domestic violence victims and their children, as well as boosting education around the extent of violence suffered by women;

• Create mechanisms for greater social participation, including a participatory budget structure;

• Reject “all austerity policy” and refuse to accept financial arrangements with the state that would prejudice the ability of the council to carry out the undertakings on which it was elected.

• End the freeze on hiring of council staff (proposal of PCF).

In an October 14 opinion piece on the Mediapart web site (“A Cheap Agreement with a Heavy Political Price”), Alexis Corbière commented that the 30% social housing target was nothing more than that stipulated by law and one whose implementation was impossible to guarantee, given the distant target date. In addition, the PCF-PS deal contained no commitment to return privatised cleaning services to council ownership, its childcare places target fell well short of need and it had abandoned the Left Front demand for the €1.6 billion owed to Paris by the state for services provided be paid.

As for the undertaking of “no austerity in Paris”, how could that be guaranteed when seven PS Paris councillors were also MPs who had voted for the €75 billion austerity package of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault? “Can they oppose, in the Town Hall, the measures they support in the Borbon Palace [seat of the National Assembly]?”

On October 24, seven Left Front affiliates announced the main points of the front’s Paris campaign, led by Danielle Simonnet. If focusses on rent controls and prohibition of evictions, requisitioning of unoccupied housing, priority to social housing, re-establishing council ownership of privatised services, increased extracurricular activity for school children, as well as reforms to the health system, an extensive program of housing insulation and free public transport—all to be financed by greater use of taxes on capital.

Their statement said: “Paris is a rich city (with a budget of more than €7 billion) which has the means of financing an ambitious solidarity-based anti-crisis program, at the local and metropolitan level.”

The statement ended: “We want to make Paris the capital of resistance to austerity, of struggle against real-estate speculation, of eradication of casual work, of promotion of new forms of solidarity, of implementation of real equality of rights, of an ambitious collective urban development process, of international cooperation with the South, and of a democracy that serves citizen participation and allows Parisians to take back their town!”

PCF differences elsewhere

The internal PCF discussion has also been sharp outside Paris, such as the department of Hérault and its capital, Montpellier. In the October 16 edition of L’Hérault du jour, PCF departmental secretary Michel Passet criticised the party’s Montpellier branch for voting to support a Left Front ticket when “in Montepellier there are things that need changing, but the town is on the left and that’s where it should stay. It would be terrible if elected communist representatives didn’t take part in the new majority.”

Two days later the secretary of the Montpellier PCF branch, Claude Avenante, replied: “Why the rush to be on a PS ticket at any price, run by [PS mayoral candidate] J-P Moure, whose proposals are still unknown but whose political practices and neoliberal orientations can be measured?”

He added: “Today we are engaged in a process of jointly evolving an alternative project for Montpellier that will be up to meeting the social needs, expectations of democracy and environmental requirements of the people of our town. We do not look for convergence around the Left Front, but look for a convergence of the majority, with the Left Front as the tool that we communists have chosen to bring that about…”

A similar contest broke out in the Brittany department of Finistère when departmental secretary Eric de Bour came out in support of an alliance with the PS from the first round, provoking the circulation in the PCF’s Brittany region of a pro-Left Front petition, “For a Clear Left Alternative”.

Repercussions in the far left

These struggles are also beginning to affect France’s far-left forces, particularly the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), whose predecessor, the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) promoted “100% Left” tickets in the 2008 municipal poll and achieved results like 15.3% in Clermont-Ferrand, 7.5% in Nancy, 7% in Limoges and 6.5% in St Denis.

To date the NPA has yet to announce a general approach to the 2014 municipal poll, but has already taken several local initiatives, including the creation of a ticket with the Left Party in Évry. Évry is the base of Manuel Valls. The PCF in Evry voted not to maintain its alliance with the PS but is critical of the NPA-Left Party ticket and is proposing a Left Front ticket.

In St. Denis the NPA is promoting a far left “mobilisation” ticket against the PCF-Left Front list.

In Arles, the NPA has joined the Left Party and other Left Front affiliates in supporting an opposition ticket to the incumbent PCF mayor. According to Christian Schwab, member of the Left Front affiliate Anti-Capitalist Left, “The orientation of the municipality is not what you would expect from the Left Front, there’s no break from what the PS could do.”

In the Channel port city of Dieppe, the PCF mayor could face a PG and Greens challenge over the issue of the transition to sustainable energy..

Some underlying issues

Above and beyond the heated debate of motives revealed by the PCF’s Paris decision lie important differences on the key issue—how to broaden the Left Front’s base of support, specifically which sections of a potential broader social base to focus on winning. Disappointed PS members and voters? The less “political” disillusioned masses being tempted by the FN? Young people, especially the unemployed?

The prevailing approach within the PCF is to try to build anti-austerity and anti-right majorities that are as broad as possible, involving, wherever possible, parts of the PS, especially its official left tendencies. The call is on these currents and the PS membership and sympathisers to drag the Hollande and Ayrault government away from austerity policies.

Supporters of this approach often find Mélenchon’s tone towards the PS too abrasive. On October 28, author and PCF local councilor Antoine Blocier wrote on his blog: “His main argument revolves around the idea that Hollande’s policies are disastrous and must be fought at all levels and that Hollande must ‘be punished’ (his words).

“Obviously, I share his point of view on the policies being carried out at the moment and the cruel disappointments they bring. But I find this business of ‘punishing’ too strong a coffee for me.

“Who indeed would be ‘punished’ if the elected representatives of the Left Front (and in particular the communists, whose competence is recognised in the municipalities), were absent from local councils? Not François Hollande, not the employers, but the people living in the towns…”

Blocier then asks: “Do we go along with Mélenchon’s injunction or do we decide case by case?

“If it’s to play a bit part and have no impact on the real debate, I’m against agreements with the PS…But, yes, wherever it’s possible for us to have agreements with the PS and the Greens without selling our soul but on the basis of clear human values and ambitious social objectives, I am for…

“I don’t want to demonise PS members as a whole. Some of them are real left citizens. Some of them are just as angry as we are with the backsliding of the government. There are mayors who have resigned from the PS. In short, they are the sort of people we can get somewhere with.”

Among the comments on Blocier’s piece appeared this note (from Paris PCF member Christophe Adriani):

“I agree on the basic point, even if I didn’t make that decision [in the Paris vote] because I didn’t find it relevant. The [Paris] majority decision breaks the momentum of the Left Front not because one should never ally with the PS nor ever govern with them, but because accords between chiefs-of-staffs (even with ‘steps forward’) rob us of a Left Front campaign—participative, inventive (you’ll remember ‘the order is--there are no orders’), broadening the base of the movement by bringing together not just organisations but citizens …

“Your arguments are above all valid to justify technical mergers in the second round, to move towards taking part in executive (yes, let’s be useful), but after having campaigned for a project as a whole, for a political alternative.”

In an “Open Letter to the Communists of Paris and Elsewhere” on the Mediapart web site PCF member Jean-Jacques Barey made a similar point before the Paris vote: “If we stand broad Left Front tickets in all the arrondissements on the basis of our analysis and program and we run a an aggressive, popular and dynamic campaign (something, pardon the reminder, that will not be the case in the event of a joint first round list with the PS), we will confront the question of a merged ticket in the second round with a strengthened balance of forces. And if we get over the 10% threshold, a realistic goal, we’ll achieve very good negotiating conditions for obtaining a lot more elected positions.”

Underlying such positions is the sense that the Left Front can’t advance much without helping build a popular fight back against the demoralising impact of the PS government, and that its election campaigns and tone have to aggressively promote that. That is what Mélenchon embodies, including for thousands of PCF members. In the words of Corbière: “What Hollande is doing weighs upon people’s morale. His message has ideological consequences: he disorients people and the first result is abstention. To be understood you need strong voices.”

In the October 25 L’Humanité PCF executive committee members Isabelle Lorand and Frédérick Genevée published a “Letter to Jean-Luc Mélenchon” that, while regretting the decision of the Paris PCF majority, sought to bring out underlying issues.

“If what bring us together is stronger than our differences, it remains the case that we have differences. Some are trivial. Others are more serious. We see two—over convergence and centralism. In an interview with Inrocks you show that your intellectual point of departure is a choice that’s thought-out, tenable and one for which you take responsibility: ‘What interests me is the most determined fraction of our people, that part that is ready to mobilise to construct an alternative. I build on what keeps going.’ And you add: ‘I believe conflict creates consciousness’.

“The least that can be said is that your point of view is coherent. But you can’t be unaware that another point of view, sustained for a long time by the PCF, exists inside the genuine left. The majority of the people of the left must be brought together. Rather than divide, it is necessary to seek out the highest levels of convergence, in order to struggle and win together.”

The PCF leaders continue: “As for centralism, it will be at the heart of our future debates. From the autonomy of parliamentarians to that of campaign and policy areas we don’t have the same approach. We communists broke with democratic centralism in 1994. That wasn’t so it can be revived in the Left Front …”

The writers end with an expression of support for Laurent and an appeal to Mélenchon to stop flirting with the idea of a rejigged Left Front including the Greens and the NPA.

“Like so many others, we don’t want that because it would be a feeble Left Front without a future. What would France be without the Left Front? Deadly thought! Of course, the Left Front is going through a turbulent patch and some put that to good use: the Left Front will be dead, and Mélenchon and Laurent with it. We must put an end to these speculations.

“The astounding election campaign that you led produced a dynamic that overcame our differences. It did not erase them…Let’s never lose sight of the essential, let’s carry out the debate fraternally so that the Left Front lives.”

What phase?

What can be realistically expected for the Left Front in the present phase of French politics? Mélenchon has set the organisation the task of getting a higher vote than the PS in the 2014 European elections, but is that really feasible? It seems clear that such a perspective cannot be met unless there are favourable changes on the ground of social struggle and boosted support for the Left Front arising from that.

In an October 17 note on his blog, Christian Picquet, spokeperson for Left Front founding affiliate the Uniting Left, explained that the rise of the FN was an inevitable phase among “the weakest and most disoriented sectors of the popular classes”.

“That’s doubtless what explains why the Left Front, while henceforth a point of reference on the political chessboard, has not been able to expand the influence acquired at the last presidential poll … We are therefore prey neither to a crisis of dissolution that some interested parties proclaim, nor to a growth crisis that a bit of agility would allow us to overcome.”

For Picquet, the Left Front has now to focus, on the basis of “that unity which is our greatest achievement”, on showing the mass of people that even partial victories against austerity are possible and helping prepare them.

“For the popular sectors to overcome their lethargy and or a devastating feeling of powerlessness, it is critical that hope returns and a perspective is reopened of victories, be they partial in the immediate term. The present weakness of mobilisations, as revealed in the battle over retirement and pensions, is basically explained by the feeling of wage earners and citizens that they don’t have the means to turn the situation to their advantage.”

Whether the Left Front, after the turmoil of the last period, is in condition to provide the inspiration, organisation and leadership necessary to turn the tide will become clearer in coming months.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on the basis of the trend to majority PCF vote for Left Front tickets, is lately more hopeful: “I am not afraid of seeing communists in the streets distributing leaflets alongside Paris socialist MPs who voted for the National Interprofesional Agreement[ii], retirement at 66 and all the rest. It will not happen. Never. No way. Hidalgo has bought the wind! The communists are in the resistance. They are massively and fundamentally Left Front and not Huists[iii].

“As for us, let’s be patient. The split in the PS and the Greens is inevitable, just like the decomposition of the official left… But hold firm, because none of that will happen if we do not advance down our chosen road.”

[Dick Nichols is Green Left Weekly’s and Links International Journal of SocialistRenewal’s European correspondent, based in Barcelona.]

Notes

[i] In France senators are elected indirectly, by a combination of local and regional councilors and deputies (150,000 electors in all). The more local councillors a party wins, the greater its chance of having senators elected.

[ii] The National Interprofesional Agreement (ANI) is the Ayrault government’s “labour market reform”, negotiated between the main employer confederation (MEDEF) and some of the French union confederations.

[iii] Huists, followers of former PCF national secretary Robert Hue, who came to believe that the class struggle had ceased to exist.

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