20.06.2002

Permanent coup d'etat

So Jacques Chirac now has it all. Not just a second presidential term, which will protect him from the criminal investigation and trial for corruption and fraud that he so richly deserves, but a landslide victory for the hastily constructed 'centre-right' Union for a Presidential Majority. All, in essence, thanks to the bogey-man effect of Jean-Marie Le Pen's performance in the first round of the presidential contest, and the vacuous pusillanimity of the mainstream left. Only eight weeks ago Chirac looked like not just a lame duck, but a dead one; not just mired in personal corruption, but rendered impotent by the impasse of cohabitation with a Socialist Party-Green-French Communist Party majority in the national assembly. The smart money was on Jospin. Maybe Jospin's version of socialism - Blairism draped in a tricolour - had little to offer the workers, but at least he could coin a decent phrase: "A market economy but not a market society" was better than anything that Blair's guru, Tony Giddens, ever came up with, though that is not saying much. Perhaps our wiseacre commentators should have taken note when, in the week before the first presidential round, Jospin was virtually frogmarched into a working class bar, had a beer stuck in his fist and was made to appear like 'one of us'? Too little, and much too late. New prime minister Raffarin's pious talk about 'humility' was an accurate, if belated, acknowledgement of the fact that large numbers of the electorate were and are totally disillusioned with the metropolitan elite that governs in their name. This generalised malaise, a recurrent facet of French politics, was demonstrated by the fact that four out of 10 voters did not even bother to take part in the second round of the general election. Those who did opted overwhelmingly, perhaps despairingly, for 'strong government'. Vive la république is the message from the leader-writers of The Times and The Economist, as they herald the arrival of an administration that, from the point of view of capital, is ideally placed to inject a strong dose of undiluted market economics into the French body politic. What does this mean for the French working class? A direct assault on their conditions at home and at work: the 35-hour week, relatively generous state-funded pensions and social security arrangements, the trade unions, the 'inflexible' labour market, immigrants and ethnic minorities - all these and more will soon be the target of a sustained attack by a regime that now enjoys more power and more 'democratic' legitimacy that any since the days of general de Gaulle. The results of the election are analysed elsewhere in our paper. What I want to do is look at the historical basis of the Fifth Republic. Many people, including no doubt some of our readers, would view France as just another boring parliamentary democracy, not unlike Britain or Germany, for example - fundamentally flawed and essentially undemocratic, obviously, but in terms of 'bourgeois democracy' as much as can be expected this side of the revolution. In his well-known 1964 pamphlet, Franà§ois Mitterand (not himself averse to the exercise of untrammelled presidential power a couple of decades later) described the Fifth Republic as a "permanent coup d'etat". Hyperbole, yes, but it still contains a profound truth: both in its origins and in its constitutional arrangements the 44-year-old Fifth Republic was the child of violence - threatened, though not enacted - but violence nonetheless. Figuratively, one could say that its father was Charles de Gaulle; its mother, the Algerian crisis of 1958; its gestation marked by the prospect of civil war. Yet even had de Gaulle never existed, even had the situation in Algeria not arisen when and how it did, it seems clear that the Fourth Republic would still have collapsed under the weight of its unresolved contradictions and internal tensions. To understand why this is so, we need to go back not just to the troubled 12 years of the Fourth Republic, but to the antecedent decades, marked by recurrent political and economic crises, war, invasion and occupation. Though France emerged from World War I as a victorious power, the costs in blood and treasure had been immense. Of the population of around 41 million, fully a third were peasants and small farmers; another third the industrial working class; the remainder comprised the middle classes, topped by the big bourgeoisie who accounted for no more than a couple of percent of the population. It was, however, the haute bourgeoisie and the elite administrative class derived from it that ran the country, just as in Britain. Ever since the 1789 French Revolution the peasants had been prone to conservatism and tended to look to strong government for salvation. The working class was very different; as shown by the revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1871. Because of them France stood at the storm centre of the world revolution. The Socialist Party that emerged from the wreckage of the 1871 Paris Commune was formally committed to Marxism. However, it soon cleaved into two distinct wings - and it was the right wing that produced Alexandre Millerand, who is remembered by history for having had the dubious honour of being the first socialist to sit in a bourgeois government. He served as minister for commerce from 1899-1902. Millerand heralded the international split in socialism in 1914. In 1920 this was sealed with the formation of the Communist Party by the left. The right followed the path of reformism and parliamentary bargaining. Government at any price was the aim. For the Socialist Party (then known as the SFIO), the need to form coalitions had serious consequences, since it had broken away from the wartime union sacrée coalition and was itself still deeply divided about its attitude to the Bolshevik revolution. The centrists managed to retain their hold over many thousands of members. The post-war centre-right alliance of parties known as the Bloc National pursued an increasingly aggressive foreign policy towards defeated Germany that culminated in the 1923 occupation of the Ruhr and led to a swing to the left. The SFIO's Edouard Herriot became prime minister over a centre-left alliance, the Cartel des Gauches. But the problem then and right through the inter-war period was that any successful alliance government depended on the supposedly centre-left Radical Party, which was itself a profoundly unstable kaleidoscope of conflicting interests. Behind that lay the stand-off between the main classes in society. The working class could not yet take power, while the ruling class was ruined by World War I and unable to crush the working class. Although in the decade from 1920 the Communist Party (PCF) lost nearly two thirds of its membership (from 110,000 to some 30,000) - a calamitous 'third period' cost it dear - it retained a mass base among the industrial working class and the unemployed, who endured appalling housing conditions and few social provisions. France's political and social instability between the wars led to the problem of inflation and a chronic failure to balance budgets. The war and its aftermath saw a wholesale debasement of the franc as governments simply printed money in order to finance first the war effort and then reconstruction. A growing lack of confidence in the currency, febrile speculation and the flight of capital were the foreseeable consequences, devastating the rentiers, a sizeable stratum of the population who relied on fixed incomes for their survival. The Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression exacerbated an already critical situation. Although in terms of unemployment, for example, the impact of the slump on France was not so severe as in other capitalist countries, its effects were far more prolonged. This was basically because no government lasted long enough nor had the courage to countenance the sort of formal devaluation which in the UK (1931) and the USA (1933) produced some measure of economic stability and began renewed capital accumulation and tooling up for World War II. The working class was too strong in France and the forces of capital too weak. Between 1918 and 1940 France had 42 governments, lasting on average about six months. In the three years from 1932 alone, there were no fewer than 11 governments presiding over no less than 14 economic recovery plans. In the absence of a clear working class alternative, chronic insecurity, especially among the petty bourgeoisie of small farmers, small manufacturers and shopkeepers, led them to look to the extreme right for a solution to their plight. Democracy, presided over by a political class of overwhelmingly middle class deputies, anxious only to line its own pockets and promote local interest in order to gain re-election, was not just devalued, but derided. Nationalism, clericalism and anti-Bolshevism combined to produce a strong anti-parliamentary brew. Even as early as 1924, the formation of the Jeunesses Patriotes by Pierre Taittinger, with its fascist undertones of paramilitary units and a commitment to street action, had shown the way, but the most notable rightwing group to enter the French political scene during the period was the Croix de Feu. Founded originally as a war veterans' organisation, it acquired a strong following among the middle and small bourgeoisie, reaching some 150,000 members at its peak. Anti-communism, anti-socialism and anti-semitism were its hallmarks, welded into a determination to destroy a republic that was perceived (and which indeed was) decadent, corrupt and helpless. Parallels between the Croix de Feu, Action Franà§aise (the most virulent of the proto-fascist organisations) and Le Pen's Front National can easily be made. In February 1934, Action Franà§aise and other rightwing groups took to the streets in reaction to the Stavisky affair, in which a number of leading politicians were caught up in a financial scandal originating in the fraudulent dealings of a Ukrainian jew. They even invaded the national assembly building. Xenophobia, anti-semitism and visceral anti-parliamentarianism combined to provoke a critical confrontation with the police in which 13 were killed and more than 2,000 injured. The immediate result was the ousting of Radical Party prime minister Daladier, but the most far-reaching consequence of this crisis was the formation of the Front Populaire as an anti-fascist, pro-republican umbrella organisation. Under instructions from Moscow, Maurice Thorez, leader of the PCF, brought an end to the party's hostile relations with the socialists and, in the cause of anti-fascism, even sought a modus vivendi with the Radical Party. By July 1935 this alliance of communists, socialists and Radicals was a reality. A year later, campaigning on a soft left programme that had more in common with Roosevelt's 'new deal' than with socialism, the Front Populaire was able to form a government under Léon Blum, though the communists stayed out of it, so as not to frighten the horses. The popular front government was, perforce, reformist, though it did try to introduce significant measures to improve living standards and working conditions for the proletariat, together with some limited nationalisation. Among the workers themselves, however, especially in view of the cauldron of social tension and frustration which had preceded it, the FP government created vast expectations. In the interregnum before it took power more than two million workers engaged in a series of strikes and factory occupations which thoroughly scared bosses and trade union leaders alike. Spontaneous action from below was the last thing they wanted. Faced with a renewed flight of capital prompted by an economic and fiscal regime that at long last (however inadequately) sought to address the needs of the masses, and by the desertion of its flaky Radical Party allies, the Blum government had little alternative but to announce, early in 1937, a 'pause' in its reform programme. With the onset of the next economic crisis, Blum sought emergency powers. The house of deputies said yes, but the senate said no, and he duly resigned. Thereafter the FP disintegrated against a background of increasing political dislocation and the looming threat of war. Had it survived longer, the FP government's milk and water reforms would certainly have disappointed not only the (large and fast-growing) membership of the PCF but also the leftwing of the SFIO. In the event, it was enough, however, to create panic and an apocalyptic vision of anarchic social disintegration among the right and the propertied classes. Blum was a jew, so the whole FP experiment came to be denounced as a jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, against this background, the far right began to reorganise and gain much fresh blood. Banned in 1936, the Croix de Feu re-emerged as the Parti Social Franà§ais (800,000 members), while the more overtly fascistic Parti Populaire, led by the former communist Jacques Doriot, could claim a membership of around 250,000. By the time that France entered the war in September 1939 and its invasion and conquest (in five weeks) by the Wehrmacht in the summer of 1940, it was already a state torn apart and polarised by long years of political and economic insecurity, a state whose bourgeois democratic institutions and values were, for various reasons, detested by large numbers of its people. The de facto end of the Third Republic came in July 1940 with the establishment of the Vichy government under marshal Pétain and his quisling prime minister, Pierre Laval. Its de jure conclusion had to wait until October 1945, a few months after general Charles de Gaulle had made his triumphant return to a liberated country of which he saw himself not merely as a symbol, but as the very embodiment - nous sommes la France. With his special vision of his own historic destiny, combined with a contempt for democracy shared by so many of his generation, de Gaulle was not just totally inexperienced in but temperamentally unsuited to the requirements of party politics. Nor did he have any coherent body of support capable of being transformed into an orthodox political party. But what need had the country of a mere party to lead it, when it had him? De Gaulle's idea of the Fourth Republic - ultimately embodied, as we shall see, in the constitution of the ­Fifth - was of a sort of elected monarchy over which, in Bonapartist fashion, he would preside by transcending the divisions of class and estate, speaking oracularly as the voice of France itself and leading her back to greatness and gloire. Crude reality soon disabused him. The elections to the constituent assembly in October 1945, in which, it is interesting to note, French women were allowed to vote for the first time, showed overwhelming support for the left, in the broad sense of representing those forces that, despite Gaullist propaganda then and now, had formed the real backbone of the French resistance. On the basis of a turnout of 80%, the PCF took 26% of the vote and 159 seats; the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP - Christian democrats) 24% and 150 seats, with the SFIO polling 23% and 146 seats. With their commitment to tripartisme these three parties had the prospect of using their majority to found a stable reformist government for the first time. Initially, the PCF and SFIO had combined to support the idea of a unicameral parliament (ie, abolition of the senate) and a president with essentially ceremonial or decorative status. This was quite narrowly rejected by a referendum in May 1946, but in a second referendum held in the following October, the voters accepted a bicameral parliament in which the senate and the president would have strictly limited powers. By this time, finding himself unable or unwilling to cope with the resumption of normal politics and using an argument about defence spending as a pretext, de Gaulle had already departed in self-imposed exile to his villa in Colombey les deux Eglises. Not, however, without having set out his blueprint, in a speech at Bayeux, for his idea of a 'proper' constitution, in which the executive would be headed by a president 'above' party politics and in a position to represent the 'national interest'. Guess who? Such a president would be able to hire and fire prime ministers and other ministers without seeking parliamentary approval. In effect, the executive would be supreme and omnicompetent; the legislature a mere decorative fixture giving the regime the gloss of democratic legitimacy. The Fifth Republic, one can say, was first outlined in Bayeux as early as June 1946. Subsequently, aware of how the lack of a political party had robbed him of his chance to mould the Fourth Republic to his liking, de Gaulle put considerable energy into a movement of his own creation, the Rassemblement du Peuple Franà§ais (RPF). Had he done so earlier, it might have had some real prospects of success, but by 1947 it was too late. In any event, a party founded on the views of one man avowedly hostile to party politics and promoting 'patriotism' (ie, vocal nationalism) would have had a limited appeal in the context of the times. The general was already getting impatient, but eventually his time would come. The unity of the first post-war government was soon broken by events, specifically the onset of the cold war. As early as February 1947, the US state department was already claiming to have evidence that a communist take-over of France was a distinct possibility. Marshall aid, in the form of 2.6 billion dollars (the bulk of it non-repayable), was nevertheless forthcoming, intended no doubt to keep the workers quiet and, at the same time, as elsewhere, providing a ready market for American goods. The one good thing you can say about de Gaulle is that he recognised from the beginning the USA's hegemonic intentions in Europe. In May 1947, the socialist prime minister Ramadier, who had already started briefing 'reliable' military units about the possibility of a having to counter a communist coup, simply sacked the communist ministers in his government. So much for the democratic will of the people, who had voted in their millions for the PCF and were to continue doing so for years. The pretext was that Thorez had objected to wage controls and refused to back credits for the military campaign in Indochina. By the winter of 1947, our same good socialist Ramadier was deploying 60,000 troops and police as strike-breakers against 15,000 striking miners. By this time, de Gaulle, whipping up hysteria about a third (nuclear) world war and denouncing the coalition government, had virtually declared war on the Fourth Republic, but had not the political forces to put his threats into action. With the collapse of tripartisme and the ever-present necessity of forming coalition governments, the same syndrome came to afflict the Fourth Republic as had destroyed the Third. What came to be called immobilisme, with 26 governments in 12 years and recurrent political and economic crises, produced a pervasive sense of instability and impotence. Governments came and went - loose, complex and kaleidoscopic aggregations of the same faces, the same failures. Back in Colombey, de Gaulle was biding his time. What the situation needed was a catalyst capable of igniting the powder keg of discontent and disillusionment with parliamentary democracy. That came in the form of Algeria. In the years following the outbreak of violence in 1954 and the foundation of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), successive shaky coalition governments came and went. By 1957 more than 500,000 French troops, most of whom were young draftees and reservists, were engaged in a bitter struggle over territory that occupied a unique place in the French colonial empire. As the only colony under the direct control of the ministry of the interior, it was technically an integral part of France, as well as being home to more than a million settlers of European origin, the so-called pieds noirs. The professional component of the army engaged in this conflict, especially the officer corps, still bruised by France's humiliation in Indochina, scented political treachery as successive governments tried to find a negotiated solution. Militarily - thanks, it has to be said, to the large-scale employment of torture and terror tactics - the campaign was still going well in 1957 and early 1958, but at home there was growing political paralysis, as the Fourth Republic entered its death agony, precipitated by a bombing mission in Tunisia that missed its FLN target and killed hundreds of civilians in the village of Sakhiet, provoking international condemnation. By accepting US and UK demands for mediation over the incident, the government was seen to have 'capitulated'. Army officers, rightwingers and some long-standing Gaullists began plotting an insurrection against the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle himself remained in the background, but was kept constantly informed of developments and did nothing to discourage the officers' treasonable plans. On May 13 1958, a committee of public safety took control in Algiers, headed by the notorious general Massu, a fervent Gaullist. Parachute drops around Paris, to link up with anti-government troops, were in preparation and civil war looked probable. Pflimlin of the MRP, the last lawful prime minister of the Fourth Republic, together with his socialist deputy, Guy Mollet, and president Coty himself all put out feelers to de Gaulle. On May 24 Corsica was taken over by the rebels and the Fourth Republic lasted only three more days. The choice was between a formal putsch followed by a military dictatorship, or 'inviting' de Gaulle to assume power. On May 27 de Gaulle, in total contempt of the constitution and all bourgeois legality, finally announced that he intended to form a government. Subsequently he was given emergency powers by the national assembly and set about establishing the 'government of national unity' that is customary in such cases. Thus the Fifth Republic came into being as the direct result of a threatened coup d'etat by elements of the French army, with the foreknowledge and acquiescence of de Gaulle himself. But that, of course, is not how the general recorded it for the benefit of history: "On June 18 1940, answering the call of the eternal fatherland "¦ de Gaulle, alone and almost unknown, had had to assume France. In the month of May 1958, on the eve of a disastrous tearing apart of the nation and faced by the utter prostration of the system which was supposedly in charge, de Gaulle, now well known but with no resource except his legitimacy, had to take destiny in his hands" (C de Gaulle Mémoires d'espoir 1970, Vol 1, p22f). Utter piffle, of course, but one has to admire the sheer grandeur of the general's vanity as he notes the fulfilment of a dream that began in Bayeux some dozen years earlier. What the constitution of the Fifth Republic did amount to and still does, is a fundamentally undemocratic, quasi-monarchical system in which the head of state (unlike our own dear queen, god bless her) disposes of real, indeed ultimate power over the whole state. The constitution was drafted by two carefully selected committees, one chaired by de Gaulle himself, the other by his old friend (and co-conspirator) Michel Debré. Having being given a purely notional oversight by parliament, it was approved by a massive majority accorded it by a people who were exhausted by years of political insecurity and instability. Technically (if you are a constitutional lawyer), the constitution of the Fifth Republic does not embody a purely presidential system, since it provides for a dual executive of president and prime minister. Although the prime minister is chosen by the president, he can be removed by a parliamentary vote of censure, which theoretically confirms the principle of executive accountability. In reality, however, the Fifth Republic rests on a degree of executive presidential power that you will not find in western Europe - the closest parallel being the USA. Hiring and firing prime ministers; chairing cabinet meetings (which, in the absence of cohabitation, means dictating every aspect of government policy); dissolving the national assembly - a power which de Gaulle himself employed successfully; submitting any issue you see fit to a national referendum (the old Bonapartist tactic to keep parliament in line) and the assumption of supreme power in a state of national emergency, which, need it be said, the president can define and dictate. Of course, the general never envisaged the possibility of the cohabitation that was to become a dominant feature of French politics in the 1990s and was to render the president much less powerful. But that situation is now at an end, at least for the time being. President Chirac can don the mantle of the revered general and rule France, for good or ill, as if he were an emperor. Or can he? That rather depends on the working class. I was going to say that it depended on the left, but in the light of recent events that statement sounds ridiculous. Was it not the general secertary of the PCF (an organisation with such proud origins that is lamentably fast disappearing up its own backside), comrade Robert Hue, who told his members to vote Chirac in the second presidential round in order to "rescue the honour of France"? Was it not Hue who was happy to have his comrades serve in the Chirac-Jospin administration for the last five years? After Le Pen's showing in the first round of the presidential election, millions of French workers went on to the streets. They were not just protesting against the racist bastard himself and his hate-filled politics, but against the crooked Fifth Republic system as a whole. For a few days, unofficial France, above all the working class and its allies, felt its latent power and solidarity. It is they who will have the last word. Maurice Bernal