12.02.2009

Everything to play for

Jean-Michel Edwin examines the New Anti-capitalist Party

France’s new anti-capitalist party (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) was officially launched in the Paris working class suburb of La Plaine-Saint-Denis over the weekend of February 6-8.

The 600 delegates decided to retain the provisional NPA name after numerous other proposals had been eliminated and the choice was narrowed down to two alternatives: NPA or ‘Anti-Capitalist Revolutionary Party’. The 50-odd majority in favour of ‘new’, as against ‘revolutionary’, was surprisingly small, given that words like ‘revolutionary’ and ‘communist’ are considered less attractive to “the radical youth”. Best not to headline such terms if you want to build something larger than the Revolutionary Communist League.

The previous day had seen the final congress of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, whose 150 delegates voted overwhelmingly to dissolve the 40-year-old group in order to build the NPA. Christian Piquet’s rightwing Unir tendency accounted for most of the 20 or so who opposed the decision - not, it must be said, because Unir fears that the new party will result in the liquidation of the LCR’s revolutionary Marxism, but because for Picquet and co the NPA is not ‘broad’ - ie, liquidationist - enough.

As it is, the character of the NPA remains open. There is no doubt that it received a big boost from the media coverage, with all television channels, daily papers and weekly magazines focusing to a greater or lesser degree on its founding congress. This coverage was inevitably linked to the high profile of LCR leader and presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot - one recent poll made him the second most popular politician in France (after Nicolas Sarkozy). According to Xavier Bertrand, general secretary of president Sarkozy’s UMP party, Besancenot is the de facto “leader of the opposition”.

At the founding congress comrade Besancenot’s keynote speech was full of the fiery anti-capitalist rhetoric that we (and the media) have come to expect of him. He focused also on Sarkozy himself, whose hour-and-a-half question and answer session two days before had featured on several TV channels: “Those 90 minutes have given us 90 reasons to mobilise,” said Besancenot.

The new NPA leader promised a “hard line” against Sarkozy and talked about another general strike to follow the January 29 24-hour action (called by all the trade union federations in protest against Sarkozy’s economic policies). Comrade Besancenot even held out the possibility of a new “May 1968”.

But, like the LCR, the NPA leadership has so far failed to put forward an independent political line for the unions. Along with the Parti Communiste Français, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s new Left Party, the Parti de Gauche (PG), and 10 other left-reformist organisations, the NPA has signed a statement supporting the CGT and the other seven main trade union federations in putting “the maximum pressure” on the Sarkozy government to “oblige it to enter discussions” with the unions.

Sarkozy himself also wants “discussions”: he wants to avoid a social explosion and come to an arrangement with the unions through “shared decisions” on how to tackle the economic crisis. No doubt he would be prepared to move in the direction of the unions, when it comes to Keynesian-type gestures to ‘stimulate the economy’. But, as January 29 demonstrated, millions of workers are angry and it is not at all certain they would settle for a cosy consensus with the government. They need a clear political lead and a programme to break with the token protests of the union bureaucrats.

In practice, however, the NPA is vague on this question, as it is with so many others. It certainly wants to appeal to the two million workers who had taken to the streets the week before, as well as to the disillusioned, anti-neoliberal members of the PCF and Parti Socialiste. Not to mention the radical, but politically inexperienced, youth. The new party will “take the best from the traditions of the workers’ movement, be they Trotskyist, socialist, communist, libertarian or Guevarist,” said Besancenot - and it is this ill-defined mix that he hopes will prove attractive.

Comrade Besancenot proudly announced that the NPA had 467 local committees and no fewer than 9,123 signed-up members. This is a remarkable increase compared to December 20, when only 4,448 voting members had been registered for January’s local congresses. However, even if this doubling of the membership in six weeks is unlikely, there is no doubt that the NPA has substantially more members than the 3,000 claimed by the LCR itself

What about the founding congress itself? Unsurprisingly, the time allowed for debate was completely insufficient in view of the 600 amendments to the draft constitution and founding statements. Most were simply not reached and it will be left to the newly elected national political committee (NPC) to decide their fate. Congress accepted that there should be proportional representation for all major viewpoints on the leadership, but Unir is complaining furiously that this has not been adhered to.

Unir describes the “rushed” procedure which resulted in the non-election of its leader, Christian Picquet, as a “coup” by the ex-LCR majority, which will “seriously damage the NPA’s image” (www.unir.asso.fr). Only 13 members of the alliance led by Unir, called Sensibilité Européenne, were elected to the NPC, when the 15% vote achieved by Sensibilité Européenne for its motion in favour of a broad left front to contest the European Union elections should have given it double that number, according to Unir.

Comrade Picquet had called on the NPA to sign up immediately to the ‘Left Front’ proposed by Mélenchon to contest the EU elections in June, along with the PCF, PG and others. While this was rejected by the congress, a common left front was not ruled out completely. The NPA will decide later, although ultimately it will probably rebuff Mélenchon.

The Besancenot leadership says it will join the Left Front only if there is a long-term agreement not to enter into any alliance with the Socialist Party in future elections - the regional elections in 2010 to start with. However, a key factor that makes NPA participation unlikely is the question of nuclear energy. The NPA has adopted a strongly anti-nuclear radical line, while the PCF and Mélenchon’s PG are in favour of nuclear energy. It is difficult to see how Besancenot can compromise on this question. Apart from the ex-LCR, the largest NPA tendency - although, rather obviously, unorganised - is made up of anarcho-environmentalists, who would not tolerate it.

The line on the EU itself is another reason. While the difference between Piquet and Besancenot does not appear large on this question - both regard the EU as a key area of work and a site for European working class unity - Piquet’s ‘European Sensibility’ tendency is quite prepared to enter into alliance with some strongly anti-European Union (not to say petty nationalist) elements in the EU elections. Mélenchon himself is not averse to using ‘anti-European’ rhetoric to appeal to patriotic voters and his Left Front will even include left nationalist Jean-Pierre Chevènement and possibly the Lambertist Europhobes who make up the largest component of the newly formed Parti Ouvrier Indépendant.

However, the NPA leadership is likely to reject a common list with the PCF and PG for mainly electoral considerations. With Besancenot riding high in the opinion polls and pundits predicting an 8% return for the NPA, as against 4%-5% for a Left Front list and 2%-3% for Lutte Ouvrière, why should the NPA rush to compromise? If the NPA really did win 8%, that would entitle it to a large slice of French/EU financial support.

Rather than doing most of the practical campaigning on behalf of the Mélenchon-PCF national reformists, the NPA should use the EU elections to make propaganda for Marxism and working class unity across the EU. It should formulate a minimum platform that goes beyond the refusal to enter a PS government - one that looks to the independent action of workers across the continent. If Lutte Ouvrière and others will join it on that basis, so much the better. If not, then the NPA should use the election to build its own profile and structures.

Among the many other questions not decided by the congress, one of the most important concerns the new party’s paper. Rouge, the LCR weekly, is dead along with the LCR. But the content, title, etc of the new NPA paper is still unresolved. And how long will it take to come out? Nobody knows.

Another unknown is the party structure (apparently “the members will decide themselves” how they organise themselves locally). Can the NPA’s 467 local committees be transformed into active, campaigning branches? And can the hundreds of recruits be incorporated into a disciplined, centralised and democratic force?

The atmosphere in the congress was very militant - even “revolutionary”, according to one comrade. Despite the confused shambles resulting from the event’s lack of focused decision-making, there is everything to play for in the NPA.