The French presidential and parliamentary elections produced very contradictory results for the broadly defined radical left. Its collective vote of a little less than 9% in the presidential poll, while large compared to other industrialised countries, was down from 15% in 2002. However the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) bucked the trend and cemented its position as the most credible voice of the anti-capitalist left.
The score for all parties to the left of the Socialist Party (PS) is always squeezed by the pressure to cast a "useful vote". This was exacerbated by the traumatic experience of 2002 when PS candidate Lionel Jospin came in third in the first round of the presidential elections, producing a second round run-off between incumbent conservative Jacques Chirac and the far-right racist demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen.
While the vote for the other far left candidates in the most recent presidential election collapsed, the score achieved by the LCR's Olivier Besancenot only dipped slightly from 4.25% to 4.08%. Thanks to the record voter turnout, the absolute number of people who voted for him actually increased by around 280,000 to just under 1.5 million.
The collapse in the vote for the Lutte Ouvriere (Workers Struggle — LO) candidate Arlette Laguiller was most dramatic, falling from 5.72% in 2002 to 1.33%. Laguiller, who has been the LO candidate over several elections, had built up a reasonable support base. However LO's dogmatic and inflexible approach to politics meant it was unable to respond to a changing situation.
After running on a joint ticket with the LCR for the 2004 French regional and European Union elections that met with great success, LO retreated back into its shell and insisted on going it alone, confusing and disappointing many. Furthermore, unlike the LCR, which throws itself into every workers' and social movement struggle that comes along, LO restricts itself to distributing its propaganda. Clearly preaching abstract anti-capitalist politics is not enough. In contrast the LCR was able to combine its record in struggle with a very well organised campaign and an effective candidate. In fact, Besancenot is rated as France's most likeable political figure!
Following on from the successful "Vote no" campaign in the referendum on the European Constitution in 2005 and the fight to force the government to drop the First Employment Contract law in 2006, hopes were raised among many activists that the left might come together behind a single ticket. Collectives were set up around the country to promote such collaboration.
However uniting the left for single issue campaigns is one thing — coming to an electoral agreement is more difficult. The LCR declared that it was prepared to support a united ticket on the condition that the ticket's candidates refuse to accept posts in a possible PS government cabinet. This was never going to be acceptable to the Communist Party (PCF), which also made it clear that it would only support a united ticket if its leader was chosen as the presidential candidate. Meanwhile, radical peasant leader Jose Bove, who many hoped would stand, remained aloof from the process and issued an ultimatum that he would only nominate for the position if no one else did.
The PCF crudely intervened in the collectives, stacking branches and getting a national gathering of the collectives in Paris to endorse its candidate, thereby destroying the credibility of the whole process. At the last moment Bove announced he would run anyway, becoming the unofficial candidate for some of the misnamed "united left" and polling 1.32%.
In the end, it was the LCR that demonstrated an ability to build a hearing for a consistent but non-dogmatic anti-capitalist voice in French politics. It is now grappling with the challenges from having replaced the PCF as the stronger left voice. As a small organisation with only around 3000 activists, it has been swamped by membership applications (around 2000 a month during the elections). The new applicants span a diversity of backgrounds, from disillusioned PCF and LO supporters, to people who have never identified as radical leftists before.
The LCR has used its new position of strength and authority to call for the foundation of a new anti-capitalist party [see accompanying article], in which it hopes to link up with the widest layers of its supporters and collaborators. In September it will start the process with a series of regional meetings that it hopes will lead to "a national founding of this new anti-capitalist, feminist, ecologist, internationalist, and socialist party. Resist, mobilise and organise, act, discuss and decide, is what we propose to do together, on equal terms."