BY JEAN-LOUIS SALFATI AND RAFIK BENALI
PARIS - Working people across France sharply rejected the government's austerity policies in parliamentary elections held here May 25 and June 1. The ruling conservative coalition parties were trounced, with the parties linked to the trade unions - the Socialist Party (PS), Communist Party of France (PCF), and their electoral allies -taking a majority of legislative seats. The fascist National Front also gained, netting its biggest vote yet in a national election and winning a seat in parliament.

French president Jacques Chirac had called the election nearly a year early. At the time his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party - the party of former president Gen. Charles de Gaulle - and the Union for French Democracy (UDF) held a large parliamentary majority. Chirac hoped to win a new mandate in this election to have a five-year run at implementing an austerity program to slash the social gains working people have won over the last half century by waging giant class battles.

Instead, the PS went from 57 to 241 seats in the 577- member parliament. The CPF won 38 seats, up from 24 in the last legislature. The Radical Socialist Party, allied with the PS, took 12 seats and the Green party won 8. A coalition of these and other "left" parties will form the next government.

The RPR and UDF ended up with 249 seats between them. Chirac, whose term does not expire until May 2002, remains the president.

In the May 25 first round of the general election, which better reflects the electoral balance between the different parties, the PS won 25.5 percent, an increase of more than 8 points from the last general election in 1993. The Communist Party won 9.9 percent, an increase of one point. The RPR and UDF won about 36 percent between them. The National Front, headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen, received 15 percent of the vote.

Only candidates with at least 12.5 percent in the first round were eligible to stand in the final vote. While other parties made alliances to stand single candidates for the second round, the National Front made no electoral pacts, maintaining all 133 of its candidates who qualified for the June 1 ballot.

Reaction to Juppé plan
The elections took place while France is in the depths of the sharpest economic crisis since World War II. At least 3.5 million people are out of work, wages are stagnant, and growth rates continue to decline. At the same time, French capitalism faces severe competition with its imperialist rivals over markets and shaping the European Union in its interests.

The high PCF and PS vote is another expression of the resistance by workers against austerity plans and assaults against the social wage launched by Prime Minister Alain Juppé during the last two years. In November and December of 1995, millions of workers took to the streets and went on strike to oppose the Juppé plan, which was an attempt to go after the social security and to raise the number of years government employees would have to work before being entitled to retire. After several weeks of strikes and protest, Juppé finally gave up on the main aspects of the plan.

In December 1996 thousands of truck drivers blockaded the country for 12 days demanding a wage raise, retirement at 55, and shortening of the workweek. They won most of their demands. Encouraged by this victory, thousands of bus drivers throughout the country fought for the same demands. In several towns substantial gains were won by the truckers.

In the wake of these fights, the PS and PCF issued a joint electoral platform that outlined the goal of creating 700,000 jobs for young people and the progressive reduction of the working week to 35 hours with no cut in pay.

During the last days of the campaign, however, as returning to the prime minister's office appeared more than a vague possibility, PS head Lionel Jospin's promises became less concrete. "On the 35 hours, it is not 35 hours right now," he said. "We have to be very clear. We have a three- year lead time, first we need a legal framework, and then the opening of negotiations between social partners."

Commenting on what the French rulers still need to take away from the working class in order to reverse their falling profit rates, an article in the May 26 Economist complained, "The whole of Francés bloated public service and vastly generous welfare system needs overhaul... Labour markets are inflexible, employment costs are far too high. Public pensions will be soon unaffordable. Far too many big firms remain in state hands."

That's not what workers have in mind. "I hope Jospin does something to stop the Vilvoorde closure now that he is prime minister," said Sayad, an immigrant worker from Morocco at Renault, referring to the auto company's plan to close its facility in Vilvoorde, Belgium. "Otherwise it will be like the Union of the Left all over again." The Union of the Left was the PS-PCF coalition government in 1981 under PS president Francois Mitterrand.

Jospin attended a demonstration in Brussels in support of the Renault workers' fight against the plant closing a few months ago. "The Union of the Left was in power and Renault was owned by the government, but the PS and PCF did nothing to stop the closing of the plant and layoffs of thousands of workers," said Sayad, who had worked at Renault's Boulogne-Billancourt factory before it was shut down 10 years ago.

After the first round of voting, Manuel Alvarez, a 28- year-old worker at GEC-Alsthom in Paris, commented, "The results of the left give hope, but we'll have to take the streets so that things don't start again like in 1981." He was referring to the fact that despite Mitterrand's electoral promises, the government in fact began to attack workers' conditions under Prime Minister Jacques Delors. The same Delors is now slated to become a special adviser to Lionel Jospin.

Crisis in Gaullist coalition
Trying to save the neck of the RPR-UDF coalition in power, Chirac dismissed Juppé - associated by most workers with his austerity plan - and after the first round hinted he would appoint Philippe Seguin prime minister if the UDF- RPR won a majority in parliament. Seguin is portrayed as more "socially concerned" than Juppé. "It is a bizarre truth that there is no political party in France that is committed to true economic liberalism," lamented the Economist.

The French stock markets suffered their steepest drop in four years the week following the first round of the election, but stabilized and rose a bit after the final vote.

As a result of the electoral defeat of the parties of big business, many politicians called for a total reshaping of the current organizations. Phillippe Vasseur, ex-UDF minister said, "I think that in the following weeks, you will witness deep changes in the right." Nicolas Sarkozy of the RPR said in the same spirit, "We must imagine renewed forms of organization and method."

After the results gave a majority of seats for the PS and PCF, Le Pen immediately called for Chirac to resign. National Front leader Bruno Mégret, in order to hasten the decomposition of these parties, said, "The right must understand that she is definitely lost if she does not consider the Front National as a possible partner."

U.S. ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan cheered the election results as "part of the baptismal ritual of a more coherent French party of the right for the 21st century." In a June 4 column he castigated Chirac's coalition as "so politically correct and so intimidated by the media and intelligentsia that they will not co-opt the best of the National Front's agenda: its populism, its patriotism, its nationalism and its insistence on a halt to the immigration from North Africa."

Debate on Europe
For several years the French ruling class has hidden behind the criteria for the European Monetary Union (EMU) as a pretext to push for austerity measures. According to the Maastricht treaty, governments entering the EMU on the first round must have budget deficits of no more than 3 percent, which Paris is not set to meet. This became a point of debate in the election campaign.

Most wings of the capitalist class in France broadly agree that moving toward a single currency and establishing military alliances in Europe is the best way to defend their interests in the world. Jospin said in an interview just before the second round, "We are in favor of a single currency from the beginning.. but we pose a certain number of conditions." These conditions are to negotiate more flexibility on the budget deficit criteria, include the weaker currencies Italy and Spain in the first wave of monetary union, and set up a "European economic government" to counter-balance the German dominated central bank. Even Seguin, a prominent RPR "eurosceptic leader," recently became "pro-Europe."

The real discussion in ruling circles had more to do with how far and fast it is possible to carry out massive attacks against the working class. A few months ago, after the truck drivers strike, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a former conservative president and at that time, strong partisan of the franc fort (strong franc) and the single currency, had argued for a devaluation of the franc to make French industry more competitive and trim down the pressure on unemployment. That is also what Jospin's pretenses about social Europe are about.

The PCF, for its part, led a chauvinist campaign. PCF national secretary Robert Hue said, "We refuse to sacrifice the nation and its sovereignty to the building of Europe." In some places, PCF and Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) held common candidates like in Aix-en-Provence. Both parties called for an immediate referendum on EMU.

In addition to a campaign against immigration and in favor of "national preference" or French First, Le Pen stood against Francés participation in the EMU. "Through the Euro [the single currency], Chirac wanted to submit France to the Europe of Maastricht. France does not know, but we are in war against America. Let's recall the failure of the European to get the NATO command in Naples," he said. "Let's recall Francés failure in Central Africa in face of American diplomacy, in Rwanda and in Zaire. More and more for Europe, is less and less for France."

Increasing polarization
In some areas harshly hit by the social crisis, the National Front received a high percentage of the vote, and in some cases came in first in the May 25 ballot.

In a working-class neighborhood of Marseilles, Jean- Jacques Susini of the FN, got 30.8 percent, just ahead of the PCF candidate. North Marseilles has a large immigrant population, mainly from North Africa, and a high rate of unemployment. In France, immigrants who are not citizens do not have the right to vote. Susini was one of the top leaders of the Secret Army Organization, a paramilitary group that carried out a terror campaign in Algeria during the independence war, assassinating thousands of Algerian independence fighters and civilians. While in exile in Italy after the Algerian revolution, he was twice sentenced to death by French courts, the second time for attempting to assassinate General de Gaulle. He was later amnestied by Mitterrand. Asked to comment about his past he said, "My past is my honor."

His presence in the election in Marseilles was seen by many youth and workers as a provocation. The racist campaign of National Front provoked protests, mainly among youth. On April 19 in Ales, a small southern town, more than 5,000 mobilized against a public meeting held by the National Front leader Mégret.

In the northern town Lille, 5,000 demonstrators, many of whom were young, protested a public meeting by Le Pen. The demonstration was led by the Sans-Papiers (Without Papers) coalition. In Tourcoing, an industrial suburb of Lille, the National Front got 25 percent, one of its highest scores. The Sans-Papiers are undocumented immigrant workers fighting to have the right to work and stay with their families in France. Such groups spread throughout the country since 300 undocumented workers sought refuge in Saint-Bernard church in Paris last year. Some 20,000 people demonstrated in solidarity with their fight in Paris on Sept. 28, 1996. In several towns, Sans-Papiers still occupy public buildings or churches.

In Nantes, Oullins, Vannes, Montpellier, Toulouse, and many other towns, similar counter-mobilizations to the FN took place.

In Mantes La Jolie, a working-class town near Paris, Marie-Caroline Le Pen, daughter of the National Front leader, was the Front's candidate. She got 28 percent of the vote. When Jean-Marie Le Pen came there to support his daughter, he assaulted the Socialist Party candidate, who was sent to hospital with numerous injuries.

The Jeunes Socialistes /Young Socialists issued a statement during the campaign and distributed it during anti- Le Pen demonstration and at street tables. "The use of immigrants and women as scapegoats for unemployment, as well as the rise of fascists movements show the true nature of capitalism," the statement said. "Its only hope of surviving lies now in using more and more criminal alternatives." The YS is calling for the right to vote for all immigrants, French troops out of Africa and Albania, the shortening of the workweek with no loss in pay, and the end of the embargo against Cuba.

As the election results became known, a group of Sans- Papiers went to the PS headquarters in Paris and shouted "We want papers." A Sans-Papiers march from Angouleme in the south to Paris started on June 2 and is due to arrive on June 10.

Florence Duval contributed to this article. Duval and Rafik Benale are members of Young Socialists in Paris.  
 
 
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