BY DEREK JEFFERS AND ELISABETH SANGUINETTI

PARIS - "Get yourselves prepared for the revolution," French ultrarightist Jean-Marie Le Pen told young cadres of his party, the National Front, at a September 15 meeting. Le Pen received 15 percent of the vote, over four million of the ballots cast, in the 1995 presidential elections in France. Coming out of the mass anti-austerity protests in November and December of last year, the National Front appears to be stronger.

"Without a doubt," Le Pen declared to the leaders of the National Front of Youth, "we are going to live through moments of crisis. But it's crisis that's the great midwife of history.... It is certain that only the National Front can tear the country away from decadence.... There will be a moment when everything will stop, and that will be the revolution. The extreme left is preparing for that in its own way, because they can always hope. So I think that you, too, must get prepared, because at a certain point the rotting structures of our system will collapse. You must prepare your spirit and heart for it... because at a certain point we will be called on by the people."

Le Pen spoke as the economic crisis in France deepens and labor resistance springs up anew. All public sector unions, representing several million workers - including all rail, postal, telecommunications, and power plant workers, as well as teachers, Air France workers and many others - are organizing a national 24-hour strike and demonstrations October 17. The workers are protesting a 1996 wage freeze, job cuts, and plans to sell off shares of state-owned companies to private investors.

Unemployment now officially stands at a staggering 12.6 percent and is rising rapidly. In the second quarter of 1996, the French economy declined by 0.4 percent.

The conservative government of Prime Minister Alain Juppé, supported by President Jacques Chirac, is planning further deep cuts in social spending and tax increases in the name of meeting economic criteria necessary for qualifying to participate in a European Union common currency planned to take effect in 1999.

Juppé's cuts are aimed to reduce the budget deficit to 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product. A recent opinion poll for the conservative daily Figaro gave the Juppé regime its lowest rating ever, with only 27 percent expressing confidence in the prime minister and 71 percent stating their disapproval.

The Socialist Party (SP), the main bourgeois party in the opposition, opposes early legislative elections that could unseat the government, preferring to wait until the next scheduled elections in 1998. The French Communist Party, in turn, is aiming to reach a satisfactory agreement for an electoral alliance with the SP for 1998.

In this context, the National Front has carefully turned up the volume over the last six weeks. At the conclusion of a national meeting it held August 30, Le Pen focused national media attention on himself by telling reporters, "Yes, I believe the races are not equal; it's obvious."

Immigrants from Africa are a key component of the French population today, more so than elsewhere in Europe. This is particularly true in industry, where African immigrants are generally employed. A recent study shows that of the 3 million Africans legally resident in the 15 member states of the European Union, over 1.6 million live in France. Of the 2.1 million immigrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia present in the European Union, two thirds are to be found in France. This change in the composition of the working class explains the high stakes involved for the French bosses, particularly during the current era of cutthroat world capitalist competition, in keeping immigrant workers intimidated and divided from other workers.

Le Pen's racist statement was condemned by all major French politicians. Yet, two weeks later, the National Front significantly increased its vote in the first round of a regional by-election in the southern French city of Toulon. In 1995 Toulon became the first city of over 100,000 inhabitants to elect a National Front mayor. Le Pen's vote rose from 18 percent in the previous regional election in 1994 to 34 percent. In the run-off election a week later, the National Front candidate lost out to a Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) official in a close 54 to 46 percent. Both the Socialist and Communist Parties supported the ruling RPR in the second round.

The National Front has also not hesitated to take to the streets. On September 9 a French 15 year-old was killed in Marseille by another youth of the same age, also of French nationality but born to Moroccan parents. Five days later, the racist party organized a local demonstration of 5,000 "against crime and immigration". Le Pen harangued the crowd for over an hour, denouncing "those really responsible for the crime - the French politicians."

He sharpened the attack two weeks later before a crowd of over 10,000 attending the annual National Front festival in Paris, zeroing in on "the corrupt politicians of the RPR," the party of Chirac and Juppé. Several former RPR ministers have been recently sent to prison on charges of illegally financing their campaigns and their lifestyles through kickbacks on government contracts.

"The RPR," Le Pen lashed out, "lives in corruption, by corruption, and for corruption." He accused prime minister Juppé, who is also the RPR's president, of "organizing a criminal association." He later threatened, "Before the French people I make the solemn commitment that when we will be in power all these thugs, all these swindlers, all these bandits will not only have to give an accounting, but will have to give their throats."

The National Front is also stepping up its efforts to claim that it has answers for the country's deep social and economic crisis. During last year's massive strikes by millions of workers, the extreme right movement was completely absent from the street mobilizations. Now its no. 2 leader, Bruno Mégret, explains, "Our strategy is based on three axes: immigration, crime, and social and economic policies. We are considered to be competent and credible on the first two. We intend to be recognized and competent as well on the third one."

The National Front has begun to organize unions linked to it not only in the police and among prison guards, but also among teachers and mass transit workers in Paris. In 1995 Le Pen won 30 percent of the votes of unemployed workers who cast ballots and 25 percent among factory workers. Immigrants cannot vote in French elections.

The on-going seven-month-long fight of hundreds of undocumented immigrants demanding legal status has been the main resistance by labor against Paris's assault on immigrants that fuel Le Pen's racist campaigns. Most of these immigrants have been working in France for a long time, often with documentation, until the adoption of antidemocratic legislation in the last few years.

Their determination, standing up to repeated police attacks and arrests, winning significant backing from the trade unions, taking to the streets again and again, has drawn support and sympathy from larger sections of the working class - far more than those previously attracted to antiracist actions. This movement has forced the government to make some concessions. On October 8, Juppé began unveiling new legislation on immigration that promises to grant legal status to some of the undocumented currently in France, while facilitating deportation procedures at the same time.

Derek Jeffers is a member of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) at the GEC-Alsthom transformer plant in Saint Ouen. Elisabeth Sanguinetti is a member of the Young Socialists in Paris.  
 
 
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