Sam Wainwright
Discussion in the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) about whether or not to present a candidate in the 2007 presidential election has become a source of front-page speculation in the French media. The LCR, famous for its part in the May-June 1968 student and worker uprising, plays a central role in France's many social movements and militant union struggles. At the organisation's 16th national congress in January, delegates voted by a narrow margin to prepare to stand a candidate of their own rather than pinning their hopes on the emergence of a "united left" candidate capable of grouping together the country's large, diverse left.
Unlike Australia's preferential system, French elections are "first past the post" with a second round run-off between the first and second place getters if no-one gets an absolute majority in the first round. While this latter provision makes the process slightly more democratic, it still puts a lot of pressure on the smaller players to drop off in favour of the social-democratic Socialist Party (PS), in order to help its candidate tip out the incumbent conservative Jacques Chirac.
However, the PS record in government over the last two decades has been every bit as pro-business as the British and Australian "labour" parties. While the PS may be France's largest "left" party, its vote is in serious decline. Its 2002 presidential candidate Lionel Jospin polled a miserable 16.2%, coming third behind the far-right National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen and not even qualifying for the second round. Desperate to avoid a repeat of this disaster, the PS has convened a "meeting of the left" on February 8 to discuss a joint presidential candidate, but strictly on its own terms.
While the Greens and Communist Party (PCF), which polled 5.25% and 3.37% respectively in the 2002 election, received invitations, the LCR, whose 4.25% contributed to a record 10.4% for the far-left, did not. Both the Greens and the PCF participated in the last pro-business "plural left" PS-dominated government. This process particularly damaged the PCF. In the immediate post-war years it was France's biggest party, but today it struggles to differentiate itself from the PS, and its former working-class heartland increasingly votes for the other left parties or the National Front.
Despite the manoeuvres of the PS, there exists among activists and left-wing voters hope for a presidential campaign that unites some, if not all, of the "real" left. This aspiration is fuelled by a desire to finally kick the conservatives out, the massive workers' protests and strikes by French workers in October 2005, and the rejection by voters of the pro-market European constitution in the May 29 2005 referendum. The "No" campaign brought together a section of the PS, the PCF and the far left.
However Alain Krivine, the LCR's historic leader, argued in Le Monde on January 21 that "There are not the organisational or communication structures" to bring forward a single candidate, and "the left's 'no' is not enough to make a program". He suggested that the PCF, after drawing things out for a while, would stand its own candidate.
On the congress floor, 48.57% of the delegates voted for the general platform supported by Krivine and the majority of the outgoing leadership. The vote of the other 51.43% of delegates was split between four different platforms. However the specific proposals regarding election preparations proposed by the outgoing leadership were adopted by a relative majority (48.9% in favour, 44.2% against and 6.8% abstaining).
France's onerous electoral laws require prospective presidential candidates to obtain 500 signatures from town mayors and the like. The congress committed the LCR to immediately embark on a signature drive so that it can stand in its own name if a united left campaign does not get off the ground. It decided to hold a special congress in June to decide the matter once the outcomes of the PS initiative and the PCF's congress in March are known.
From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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