March 2001
France:
Municipal and Cantonal Elections in France
Municipal and Cantonal Elections in France - March 2001
The most dramatic result in the recent French municipal election featured in the media has been the victory for the so-called 'Left' in the capital, Paris. "The first time for 130 years!" they cried. But what a gulf exists between the heroes of the Paris Commune in 1871 who tried to "storm heaven", as Marx put it, and the 'Plural Left' of today with whom the elite of the centre of Paris can feel perfectly at home!
The result in Paris, though significant, was anything but a victory for the ideas of socialism. The Socialist Party of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was the main beneficiary but, while unlike Blair's New Labour, it maintains some of the old phraseology, it has all but abandoned the basic programme of socialist change.
The head of the SP list in the French capital was popular for his apparently total dedication to Parisian affairs and the opposition camp was conveniently split. The previous head of the capital's administration - Jean Tiberi - had been too involved in shady dealing and scandal for France's right parties to give him official backing, but their own alternative candidate Seguin - backed by Chirac, fared worse than Tiberi in four Paris districts in the first round!
The Greens, partners of the SP in government but seen as a channel for a certain protest vote, won a substantial 12 % of votes in Paris in the first round. These were then added to those of the SP in the second round on March 18 and Delanoe's victory was confirmed.
This constitutes a severe blow for France's president, Chirac, himself Mayor of Paris for nearly two decades and hoping to be the Right's candidate again in next year's presidential elections. Nevertheless, the election results saw a 'wave of blue' sweep across the country rather than the 'wave of pink' anticipated by Jospin.
Unemployment officially standing at a 10 year low and growth in the economy continuing had given him some cause for optimism. In the event, the 'sleaze factor' at the top of French society and the concern of the working class over cuts in welfare spending and the lack of progress on local issues lay behind quite a widespread rejection of the 'plural left'.. It lost control of thirty major towns and, apart from Paris, the only major cities it gained were Lyons and Dijon.
The vote for the National Front and the other extreme right party, the split-off MNR, declined in most areas, giving the 'traditional' right forces a boost. (The average drop was around 5%). On the 'left', the Communist Party, which participates in the government, suffered its worst ever result, losing a whole swathe of municipalities. Faring badly even in what used to be the 'red belt' of workers' districts around the capital, it lost control of Drancy - a council they had held since 1935 - and Nimes, held since the War.
In industrial areas of France, the 'far left' and also some totally new groupings scored significant results in the first round on 11 March, usually at the Communist Party's expense. Lutte Ouvriere received 120,000 votes overall, out of less than two and a half million votes cast in the constituencies where they stood. In one depressed textile-producing area in Northern France, they got as much as 19%. The Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire fared better than expected - gaining five council seats in the Rouen district council, for example, compared with one in the last local polls in 1995. In the city of Toulouse, an electoral list of young people called 'The motivated', based on a group of anti-establishment musicians, scored 12%!
The French electorate also appears to have meted out particular punishment to candidates of the plural left whose interest in pursuing careers on a national level cut across their concern for local issues. The ambitions of five government ministers to continue as local mayors were brought to an abrupt end. Another minister who succeeded as Mayor may well now be ousted in a cabinet reshuffle.
The Socialist Party in government will have to take account of the increased vote given to their 'Green' allies. The mainly older voters who still supported the other coalition party - the 'Communists' - will put increasing demands for more public spending and fewer attacks on workers to regain some of their lost support.
[Since the early 1980s, the share of the national income going to workers has fallen from 74% to 60% today. A recent survey of opinion polls found that a majority of the electorate continues to support the numerous strikes and protests that are a feature of French life. And there will be much more fighting going on as France's economy is hit by the general contraction of the world economy, especially trade with the USA. Exports to America have already declined by 17% since December of last year.]
The rosy period for the 'Socialist' government in France may already be over.
The abstention rate in the first round was a massive 32.7% on average, and in some areas more than half. In the second round, a few more voters turned out the record abstention figure for local elections indicates a profound discontent with all parties.
The government has indeed created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but they are 'precarious' (temporary) and poorly paid. The elections are just one barometer of a situation that is extremely unstable, in spite of appearances. The votes for the 'far left' and the independents, plus a certain layer who took the step of voting blank, indicate a distinct radicalisation amongst youth and workers and the vacuum that exists because of the rightward movement of both the traditional workers' parties in France.
The comrades of the Committee for a Workers' International in France not only supported the lists put forward by the LCR and against the governing 'Plural Left'. They insisted on local representatives of workers and unemployed organisations being included on these lists. They argued in their material that what is most important "before, during and after the elections" is the struggle of workers and youth in the spirit of the great strike of 1995 - the 'tous ensemble' ('all together'). They also argue that the March local and cantonal elections only emphasise the need to step up the campaign to build a new workers' party to fill the gap left by the false 'communists' and 'socialists' of today's governing parties.
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