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In the second round of the French elections, held
May 6, the right-wing candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy,
won a rather narrow but decisive victory, 53 percent against 47 percent
for his Socialist Party rival, Segolene
Royal. The vote was strongly polarized and heavy, a record turnout of
85 percent.
Sarkozy’s main argument was that
French economic growth was being outrun by that of other capitalist
countries, and that in order to compete France
had to join in the "globalized
economy"—that is, in the capitalist offensive against the gains
made by working people in the past.
The rightist candidate tried to appeal to
French workers with a nationalistic, anti-immigrant line and the
argument that workers could earn more money if they worked harder and
longer, and that it was worth sacrificing their social gains for the
sake of more cash.
His election was followed by explosions in
the immigrant neighborhoods of Paris.
They were new indications of the growing desperation of this superexploited
and oppressed population. Sarkozy’s
victory, in fact, points to the increased inequalities that are typical
of the capitalist countries that have "joined the globalized
economy."
The declining standard of living and even
more precipitously declining quality of life of workers in the United
States, moreover, testify to what a
bad bargain it is to accept longer hours of work for promises of job
security and more money.
It is likely that French workers felt
isolated. France
has been an exception in the era of triumphant capitalist offensives in
other countries. The international capitalist press has been referring
to Sarkozy as a new Thatcher or Reagan, the model
political representatives of the capitalist offensive.
Analysts in the capitalist press have been
claiming that the rightist gained an impressive vote among workers. The
nature of his vote needs more analysis. But it is clear that the French
working class has suffered a setback, and the level of its political
consciousness may have declined. Sarkozy’s
major left rival, Segolene Royal, an admirer
of right-wing Labourism in England,
did not help to raise working-class consciousness. Actually, her model,
England’s
Tony Blair, hailed Sarkozy’s
victory.
But there is still a very large militant
vanguard in France
that can play a major role in organizing active resistance to Sarkozy’s
planned social offensive. In the first round of the French presidential
elections, held April 21, Olivier Besancenot,
candidate of the Ligue Revolutionnaire Communiste
(LCR), got 4.1 percent of the vote, or roughly 1.5 million votes. The
LCR is the French section of the Fourth International, with which
Socialist Action has fraternal ties.
The 2002 elections were marked by apathy and
disillusion with the Socialist Party (SP) government..
The SP was shut out of the second round, which ended up being between
the traditional rightist Jacques Chirac and the fascistic Jean-Marie Le
Pen. The election this year, on the other hand, was marked by a sharp
polarization. Many voters were impelled to cast their ballots for the
SP candidate order to prevent the right-wing parties from dominating
the second round.
The vote of the candidates to the left of the
SP shrunk from about 19 percent in 2002 to about 10 percent. Besancenot
was the only far-left candidate whose support held up against the
polarization. Besancenot’s vote increased by
about 200,000 over his score in the previous presidential elections in
2002, but his percentage did not go up because the total number of
voters had increased dramatically.
The vote for Arlette Laguiller
of Lutte Ouvriere,
long the most popular of the far-left candidates, dropped to 1.3
percent, from more than 5 percent in the 2002 election.
The Communist Party candidate, Marie Georges
Buffet, got only about 2 percent, in contrast to the 8 percent the CP
got in 2002. This was the first time the combined vote of the parties
identified as Trotskyist exceeded the vote of the
Communist Party. Besancenot alone got twice the CP
vote.
Following the announcement of the second
round results, Besancenot issued a statement:
"The populist demagogy used in this campaign is now going to give
way to the reality of antisocial, repressive, and antidemocratic
measures that will not fail to arouse very broad mobilizations. It is
to building such social and democratic resistance that the LCR now
intends to devote all its energies."
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