13.11.2008

Move to a French Die Linke

Left split from SP aids right in LCR, writes Jean-Michel Edwin

The French senator, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a prominent Parti Socialiste leftwinger, has made a sudden but not unexpected announcement: he, together with Marc Dolez MP, is leaving the PS in order to set up a new party. And he won immediate support from the right wing of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire.

A strong opponent of the European Union who had played a leading role, alongside the Parti Communiste Français and LCR, in the successful campaign for a leftwing ‘no’ vote against the EU constitution in 2005, Mélenchon had backed the ‘Hamon motion’ for the November 14-16 PS congress. But in the preliminary ballot for rival statements Benoît Hamon’s PS left had obtained only 19% of the membership vote - Ségolène Royal’s motion, with 29%, won the most support, while two other rightwing declarations proposed by Bertrand Delanoë and Martine Aubry received 25% and 24% respectively.

Mélenchon and Dolez declared that, in view of the balance of forces revealed by this vote, it was now impossible to ‘reclaim’ the PS for the left. Their press release, issued a short time after the results were announced, was headed “Ça suffit comme ça!” (Enough is enough!).

They first point to the fact that Royal’s successful motion proposes an alliance with the centre: “Thus the orientation that has dominated European social democracy has won out, even though it has brought failure everywhere.” Then comes the main and immediate reason for their decision to split: next year’s EU elections, which would mean acceptance of the Lisbon treaty and the European socialist manifesto.

Hence their decision to break with the PS, with the aim of creating a new party and building a “front of leftwing forces” in France for the European elections. Mélenchon and Dolez, in their public statement, propose following the direction “Oskar Lafontaine has taken in Germany with Die Linke”. A sentiment that found an immediate echo on the right of the LCR in the shape of Christian Piquet’s Unir tendency.

Mélenchon connection

At the November 8-9 national conference of the committees for the new anti-capitalist party (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste - NPA), Unir was busy distributing a leaflet welcoming the Mélenchon move. The NPA conference was called to prepare for the founding congress of the new party at the end of January 2009, but Piquet et al have dismissed as “ultra-left” the initiative of the LCR majority to set up a party that aims to “revolutionise society”.

According to Unir’s leaflet, “Because their break has come from the heart of the formation that has dominated the left … Dolez and Mélenchon have opened the way to a possible redistribution of the political cards. As we have been doing for years - along with others, moreover, in the Communist Party, the alternative movements, among social republicans and ecologists - they have come to pose the question of a new left party that would concentrate the energy of all those against neoliberalism and capitalism, and create a space comparable to that occupied by Die Linke in Germany, the Synaspismos-Syriza coalition in Greece or the Left Bloc in Portugal.”

It would be “tragic irresponsibility” to let this opportunity slip by, claims Unir. The LCR majority and NPA must seize the moment and immediately open up a dialogue with “these socialists who have dared to glimpse the future” in order to cement a partnership capable of affirming a “credible left response to the capitalist crisis” and mount a campaign for a “grand coalition for the European elections”.

However, to the disgust of Piquet’s liquidationists, Mélenchon’s proposal was not discussed at the NPA conference, although it was, together with the conference itself, one of two stories dominating the media’s coverage of French politics. This was reflected in the conversations among delegates between sessions, many of whom commented on the fact that Piquet had come out for Mélenchon immediately he broke with the PS - those who believe it was just a matter of an off-the-cuff reaction are surely naive. In fact, everything about the move to create a Die Linke à la française had been organised long before the event. Mélenchon has built up a considerable network of support and Christian Piquet is clearly his lieutenant in the LCR.

However, the period immediately before the NPA founding congress does not provide fertile ground for rallying comrades to a French Die Linke. The vast majority of the LCR, together with the smaller far-left groups and individuals at last weekend’s conference, wanted a clear working class, anti-capitalist position: they are convinced the world is divided into two antagonistic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; a revolution is necessary for the proletariat to take power and it is a question of socialism or barbarism.

Even if this position is not always expressed in such a straightforward way, and even if there is no guarantee that the LCR leadership will not be tempted into all sorts of opportunist compromises, it is, nevertheless, the majority opinion. An opinion far from Mélenchon’s strategy for a ‘left front’ that will be “useful for France”, as he put it to the press.

The LCR leadership, while it officially agrees with this majority opinion, has been engaged in a series of ‘soft’ manoeuvres to keep control of the whole party-building process. The idea is to leave every road open, including the tactic to be adopted for the European elections. It is “too early” for such decisions to be made and there should be no “abrupt statements” which may frighten away future members. The watchword is ‘wait and see’ and, in the meantime, the Mélenchon connection is working away inside the NPA.

Before the NPA’s founding congress there will be another opportunity for the ex-Socialist Party lefts to make some gains - the December 11-14 PCF congress. Mélenchon will be doing everything possible to win a friendly majority for his plans.

PCF allies

Who are the senator’s allies in the PCF? The most obvious are the refondateurs - the right wing represented by Pierre Zarka, Patrick Braouzec and Roger Martelli, who refused to present their own text to the congress, claiming it would be an “anti-democratic farce”. But their own position was the real farce: they have no substantial disagreement with the line of Marie-Georges Buffet’s liquidationist majority, so why bother with an opposition document? Their differences are mainly those of personal ambition, based on the Darwinian ‘life struggle’ over who will be a PCF candidate in key towns and departments and who will win more influence. Getting elected brings financial rewards too.

However, the Mélenchon connection in the PCF is certainly not limited to the refondateurs. The big fish is the Buffet leadership itself. On October 24 the PCF national council majority launched its own appeal for a “left front” for the European elections that is very similar to the senator’s. The Mélenchon connection has already been at work and made its pronouncement before the leader of the new project had presented himself.

At the congress, we can expect the Buffet majority to uphold the ‘Parti Communiste Français tradition’ and stress the symbolic importance of its name: the aim will be to isolate the ‘nostalgics’ and the left and carry with the leadership as many of the old-guard loyalists as it can. But we can also expect the general secretary to appeal for comrades to be realistic. The immediate task of the PCF is to build a broad front alongside Mélenchon next June - and take a positive and constructive attitude to the French Die Linke he hopes to create.