08.05.2002

For a social third round

Thanks to the support of the left, Jacques Chirac, the 'front runner' who could not even muster 20% in the first round, was re-elected president of France with just under 80% of those who cast a valid vote. Boosted also by the increased turnout, his vote went up from 5.6 million on April 21 to 22.5 million last Sunday. Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, ostracised and isolated by the establishment, was only able to pick up additional votes from his former party 'comrade', Bruno Mégret, who opposed him in the first round. Leaders of the mainstream left used a good deal of convoluted reasoning to cover up their class treachery and political cowardice. The bigger the vote for Chirac, so the argument went, the more obvious it would be that he was elected by the left as well as the right. This would somehow leave Chirac in hock to the working class and he would be forced to moderate his plans for a full-scale assault on the 35-hour week, pensions and health insurance and tone down his anti-working class 'law and order' measures. This was given the lie immediately. France no longer has a 'cohabiting' Socialist Party prime minister. Chirac appointed the rightwinger, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, until next month's general election, when together they will attempt to unite the right under the umbrella of a newly created 'Union for a Presidential Majority'. Whether this grouping sees the light of day or not, Chirac has made it clear that Raffarin's first task will be to push through new 'security' measures - ie, in response not to working class pressure, but to Le Pen's authoritarian, anti-immigrant agenda. Chirac certainly knows that he received many millions of votes from supporters of the left. But this was a free gift. It came unconditionally out of desperation, not strength. There were no promises asked for or given. He will now use his almost unparalleled authority to 'speak for the nation' in order to bolster the right in the general election and attempt to shore up the crisis-ridden Fifth Republic (the name he has chosen for the intended new grouping is apt in this respect). The next 'patriotic task' must be to ensure a stable regime - and that means a national assembly in tune with the president. The result of the first round left the Fifth Republic facing a crisis of legitimacy. Two candidates viewed with feelings ranging from hatred to contempt by the vast majority of the population had won through to the second round with, between them, the votes of around 25% of those entitled to cast their ballot. Either a 'crook' or an extreme rightwing chauvinist was set to become the next elected monarch until 2007. Here was an opportunity for the left to channel the anger directed mainly at Le Pen against the anti-democratic constitution itself and the system of capital that lies behind it. The call for an active boycott to ensure the annulment of the second round should have been on the lips of every left leader. Instead not only the reformists, but most of the revolutionary left as well, ended up defending the Fifth Republic by joining forces with the establishment to give Chirac his overwhelming victory. Thus the leaders of the now defunct 'pluralist left' administration - the Parti Socialiste, Parti Communiste Franà§ais and the Greens - were able to ensure that the anger and energy of the million-strong May Day demonstration was safely contained. In reality they were continuing their policy of collaboration with the right that had previously taken the form of the government of 'cohabitation' under prime minister Lionel Jospin and president Chirac. PS and PCF leaders claimed that the Fifth Republic was in danger and therefore the first duty of the workers was to cast their votes for the man they had previously described as the number one opponent who had to be replaced. They fell silent over allegations of corruption that still hang over Chirac from his time as mayor of Paris. The PCF-influenced trade union centre, the Confédération Générale du Travail, carried a banner on May 1 which read, 'On May 6 we will press our claims' - on May 5 they were backing the main representative of capital. The Fourth Internationalist Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire threw themselves enthusiastically into the anti-Le Pen demonstrations, but constituted themselves as the left wing of the establishment-led anti-FN consensus rallying behind Chirac. Of course the LCR preferred to call on workers to vote 'against Le Pen' rather than 'for Chirac', persuading itself that this was somehow a more principled way of saying the same thing. On the evening of May 5 it led a demonstration whose central demand was 'Jail Chirac' - the man for whom the comrades had just voted. But all in all the LCR seems to have displayed a woeful lack of ambition in relation to the mobilisation of millions on the streets. The immediate task on April 27 was to provide the leadership necessary to transform a movement against Le Pen into one against the current order, beginning with its undemocratic electoral system. But the LCR seemed to think that the second round had to be got over as smoothly as possible so that the left would be better placed when things got back to normal. In its different way that was in effect the view of Lutte Ouvrière too. LO had a very low-key presence on the demonstrations, conservatively dismissing, it seems, not only the threat from the extreme right, but the potential of the movement opposing it. Yet here was the raw material for the new workers' party it claims to want. Similarly, its advice to cast a blank or spoilt vote was not a call to action. It was viewed simply as a way for workers to participate in the election with a clean conscience. It is difficult to say how many of the 1.7 million people who did spoil their ballot papers (more than five percent of those who voted) were influenced by LO in view of its half-hearted intervention. In contrast to LO the reformist left paper Libération advised its readers to opt for "cholera" (Chirac) rather than the Le Pen "plague", and there was talk of voters going to the ballot box wearing rubber gloves or pegs on their noses as a sign of their distaste at this unpleasant 'duty'. However, as is always the case with such individualistic acts, there were few takers. The authorities warned that such behaviour would be "unconstitutional". Think how they would have reacted if workers had occupied voting stations or smashed the ballot boxes! A decision not to vote for Chirac ought to have been regarded as the starting point for principled action. The tactic of calling for spoilt votes might have been all that could have been achieved. But for LO it was merely a token act, to be carried out by individuals, not as part of a movement to challenge the whole political-constitutional system. Those who suppose that the millions of left votes given gratis to Chirac will weaken the right are badly mistaken. The fact is that the elected monarchy system of the Fifth Republic is at its most secure when its head of state, the president, can be portrayed as unambiguously "speaking in the name of France". However, despite his huge majority, Chirac is not the undisputed personification of the nation. The left votes delivered to him on a plate could so easily have been withheld. An active boycott on May 5 would have put the left straight onto the offensive. The crisis of legitimacy has by no means been resolved. It may have achieved the result it desperately needed after two rounds of the presidential ballot. But now the Fifth Republic faces a mass movement, above all the working class, that has seen its power on the streets. This unofficial France is increasingly looking for new answers and has already found some of them in itself. That is why we say: For a social third round!. Peter Manson