With the French Presidential election looming on the 22^nd of April 2007 those to the left of the Parti Socialiste (PS) are in disarray. The duel between Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy of the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), and the Parti Socialists’ Ségolène Royal, may push other candidates aside. An attempt to present a sole radical anti-capitalist contender has foundered. The Communist (Parti Communiste Français, PCF), Marie-George Buffet, will stand. As will Olivier Besancenot, of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR). Of those who never co-operated with this project, Arlette Laguiller of Lutte Ouvrière (LO) is campaigning (as in every election since 1974), and the ‘Lambertists’ of the Parti des Travaillieurs, (PT) are backing Gérard Schivardi, a Mayor from the Aude, on an anti-European Community and pro-local communes, platform. The atmosphere created by this inability to agree (notably between the PCF and the LCR) is sour. Many from the non-party ‘anti-liberal’ left are, at the last minute, trying to mount a challenge with the agricultural workers’ leader, José Bové. This looks hard work.

Unravelling the reasons for this fragmentation is complicated. However it takes us to themes that are relevant to the Left in other countries.  Tied up with the development of capitalist globalisation, the response of social democracy to this, and the response of the left, Marxist or not, they reveal how difficult presenting an alternative to the dominance of neo-liberalism has become.

SOCIALREPUBLICANISM,ANTI-GLOBALISATION AND NEO-LIBERALISM.

Since the wave of strikes and protests that erupted in 1995, which helped bring down right-wing Prime Minister Alain Juppé in 1997, the French Left has been renewed.  Priority to informal movements over trade unions (French unionisation stands at 8 – 10%, dominated by the public sector) seemed validated by the defeat of Juppé’s plans to reform the welfare state. During Socialist leader, Lionel Jospin’s, ‘co-habitation’ with President Chirac (1997 – 2002), tens of thousands were mobilised in other movements, from the various ‘sans’ campaigns (housing, work, the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers), to Bové’s own Confédération Paysanne. In the realm of ideas the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the authors of the pamphlet series Raisons d’agir (Reasons to act), rediscovered the role of the activist intellectual. France’s left think-tank, the Fondation Copernic, was launched. The association ATTAC, launched by Le Monde Diplomatique, and geared to demand the ‘Tobin Tax’ on financial transactions became the centre of a cluster of ‘other-globalisation’ (altermondialisation) campaigns. At its height in 2002 ATTAC had 28,000 members. Issues raised extended beyond domestic politics to European Community deregulations, genetically modified crops, Third World debt, economic delocalisation, and the struggles of oppressed peoples across the planet.

A majority of activists in these initiatives did not reject participation in existing political institutions, in order to transform them. Nevertheless some echoed the theories of Hardt and Negri (who have strong French links with the review, Multitudes) on the serpentine ‘multitude’: a collection of autonomous agents interlinking in work and out of it, and not reducible to the ‘singularity of class’. They criticise, “the concept of representation itself.”(P 295) Instead of the sovereignty of the people they outlined a new democracy, “distinct from centralised forms of revolutionary dictatorship and command to network organisations that displace authority in collaborative relationships.” A similar hostility to parties and states is found in John Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power (2^nd Edition. 2005), which argues, for ‘social self-determination’ through ‘anti-power’ since “the state is the negation of self-determination.” A home-grown French version of this strand is Alain Badiou’s L’Organisation Politique which had some activity in the campaign to regularise the situation of immigrants without legal documents (the ‘sans papiers’) Badiou calls for “politics without party.”(1) Such ideas, not necessarily directly, nevertheless, are, with the long history of French suspicion of ‘récupération’ (being taken over) by political organisations, and the State, permeate the radical milieu.

Despite this, the Trotskyist LCR has been active in many social movements. It has some respect for its, generally, non-manipulative operations and willingness to treat its partners as equals. The PCF, and to an extent the left of the PS, began to take seriously the anti-globalisation ferment. Both in need of some ideological bolstering criticised the globalised ‘market society’. To demonstrate the wide appeal of ‘other-globalisation’ (though possibly its ineffectiveness), government Ministers would troop along to Social Forums (and subsidise some of the movements).

Another trend, which has far less international resonance, has been the rediscovery of the French socialist tradition of  ‘social republicanism’, which is closely connected to the concept of laïcité (secularism). A phrase of Jean Jaurès (1859 – 1914), that the French republic must be ‘social’ implies that the word ‘fraternity’ in the French devise should be taken seriously. Inside the PS former Trotskyists, Jean Luc Mélenchon (ex-Lambertist) and Julien Dray (ex-LCR) organised tendencies around this theme, such as the Gauche Socialiste. A high point was in 1999 when a programme, Pour une République Social Européenne was launched. Its core was a demand for European people’s sovereignty in a reformed EU, an end to neo-liberal deregulation and privatisation, a continent-wide upgrading of welfare standards, including anti-discrimination measures, and rights at work, to the “best national practice.” (2)

Jaurès’ legacy is not uncontested on the Left, particularly his efforts to marry a Marxist analysis of the economic class struggle with an ethical dimension to politics (Idéalisme et Matérialisme dans la Conception de l’Histoire. 1894). But the social republican move had the effect of melding a moral concern with human rights (previously the preserve of the anti-Marxists who enthuse over ‘humanitarian intervention’) with a programme of structural political reform (not without some cross-over with not too distant voices inside the LCR). Its European angle avoided the ultra-republicanism of former PS leader, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, and (increasingly) the Lambertist PT – who stake everything on French national sovereignty. This Left presented some of the few plans – made five years before the 2005 revolt of the ‘banlieues’ – to improve living conditions in the bleak French suburbs. In another contrast to the UK this Socialist Party Left remained, and remains influential, winning (until more recent realignments) up to 2/5^th of the annual inner Party votes. That is despite constant attacks by the establishment liberal-left on the ‘Jacobin’, centralising nature of French republicanism, and the calls for decentralising ‘Girondin’ values. (3)

 FROM A CRACK TO A FISSURE.

A generally upward curve of support gave the radical, non-PS left, the confidence to attack the actions of Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. His Cabinet of the ‘Gauche plurielle’, incorporating the PCF and the Verts (Greens), failed to shield him. At first, the government introduced the 35-hour week (though not to all employees). This was a central demand of the Left who saw it in Marx’s terms as a victory in the ‘civil war’ between capital and labour, and a “modest Magna Carta” of workers’ rights. But Jospin’s claims to negotiate higher standards of social protection through liberal globalisation appeared weak when there were denationalisations, raising some $40 billion (equivalent to the Right’s sales between 1986 and 1997) in his period of office. While the state retained controlling shares in most of these enterprises, and the main utilities were unaffected – waiting for the onslaught of European directives on competition, Jospin looked complacent towards aggressive capitalism. Unemployment remained stubbornly at around 10% Increasingly the Left described the PS as ‘social liberal’. This, in retrospect, seriously undermined support for the Socialists.

The shock of April 2002, when Jospin scored only 16,2% of the vote in the first round of the Presidential elections, and Le Pen got 19,2%, thus creating a run-off between the far-right Front Nationale and Chirac (who won comfortably), should not be underestimated. That Olivier Besancenot received 4,25%, ahead of the PCF’s Robert Hue 3,4%, and only just behind LO’s 5,2% was largely unexpected. In the legislative elections that followed the PS had 141 seats (down from 248), the Verts kept just 3, and the PCF escaped by a whisker losing its right to form a Parliamentary group with just 21 deputies. Nobody from the radical left won in these ballot boxes. Nor did the Front National. After the inevitable recriminations, hardly touching a buoyant LCR; the PS retrenched. The social movement Left was not profoundly affected. But that the PS has not forgiven Besancenot is behind their refusal to give him any sponsorship from elected officers (500 are required) for this year’s Presidential contest.

It was during the 2005 campaign against the European Constitutional Treaty that the issue of Left co-operation resurfaced. The Parti Socialiste undertook an internal vote, which resulted in a triumph for those in favour. But important figures, such as former PM Laurent Fabius, remained opposed. Outside the PS the supporters of a ‘Non’ vote worked together in committees, and joint public meetings. They drew participation from the PCF, the LCR, some of the left of the PS (Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the more traditional ‘Henri Emmanuelli), and an array of anti-globalisation groups, from ATTAC, the self-management ‘Alternatifs’, feminists, some greens, to those involved in the ‘sans’ movements. After the victory of the Non (at 54,87%) these collectives continued to function. They committed themselves to a general challenge to Neo-liberalism and to a People’s Europe. The PS experienced a virulent period of in-fighting, the results being all the more galling in that the previous year they had practically swept the board in the votes for control of the Regional Assemblies.

 Known generally as ‘les collectives anti-libèraux’ it was not clear what their role was, since they were neither a proto-party nor were their objectives realisable without some degree of political power. Last year, there was another enormous social upheaval, during which government plans to loosen labour laws for young people (the Contrat Première Embauche, CPE) were withdrawn. Then, with the Presidential elections approaching, it was decided to try to present a united ‘anti-liberal’ candidate. This step was far from easy. The PCF has not co-existed easily with the independent left since the end of the Second World War. In that period the presence of the anti-Stalinist Rassemblement Démocratique Révolutionnaire created enormous tensions – lightly fictionalised in Simone de Beauvoir’s Les Manderins. (1954). Working directly with Trotskyists is largely unheard of. The PCF, it is true, now permits open factions, and democratic centralism has been relaxed (for example many Communist representatives voted for the anti-ostentatious religious symbols law that the party opposed). The hostility of many movementists to Leninist groups has already been noted.  The Ligue itself has not always been above putting its own interests first, though its minority, the Picquet tendency, was more enthusiastic about the project.

Last year the Socialists (220,000 members) rediscovered the merits of internal harmony. Their programme, described (usually by those who have not read it) as ‘Blairite’, states that it is based on “democratic socialist values”. It proposes to renationalise EDF (the state electricity company), wage a pro-active industrial policy (with state capital participation in innovative new enterprises) give workers the right to participate in significant firms’ decisions, a big rise in the minimum wage, for “real equality” (through a series of measures such as building 120,000 units of social housing a year), the refoundation of the republic to restore Parliamentary control (with a Charter to defend secularism in all public services). As can be seen it is in fact a fairly robust social democratic platform. Later in the year after this agreed manifesto (or ‘synthèse’) PS members gave 60%-62% of their votes in ‘primaries’ to Ségolène Royal, 20,83% to the real Blairite, Dominique Straus-Kahn (who has connections with Peter Mandelson), and only 18,54% to the more openly ‘dirigist’ candidate, Laurent Fabius, supposedly incarnating the Left.

There is no doubt that Royal, her populism and ambiguity about the free market, poses a serious problem for the Left. She is already furiously backtracking on plans to get rid of tax breaks. But no-one should ever doubt the professional politicians, who dominate the PS, and their naked thirst for the power they hope Ségolène will bring them. Her candidature has been accompanied by the dissolution of the old Left of the Party, with some (Dray, and the leadership of another left group, the Nouveau Parti Socialiste) going directly to her camp, while others (Mélenchon, who supported Fabius) forming a new tendency, “Pour une République Sociale”.

Any dreams that the ‘anti-liberal’ collectives would provide an alternative were dashed in December last year. The LCR (3,500 members) withdrew from the unitary process, refusing to endorse anyone who would consider a call to vote PS (in the Parliamentary elections), or in the Presidential run-off. The Picquet minority ignored this ruling. Last December a fiery meeting of delegates from local groups of the collectives (700 claimed, though, according to some estimations, they have only only 15,000 members) failed to agree on a candidate. Before the meeting there had been allegations that up to 50 collectives were PCF inspired ‘phantoms’ (Le Monde. 7.11.06). In this increasingly poisoned atmosphere Marie-George Buffet, PCF, formally won against three other candidates, notably the feminist Clémantine Autin.  But since the conference was obliged to operate by consensus, serious opposition meant the result was meaningless. The PCF (100,000 members) promptly held their own internal consultation, in which, unsurprisingly, Buffet emerged victorious. In the process several leading ‘Refounders’ – the reformist wing of the party – resigned form their executive posts. The LCR has lost its leading economist, Michel Husson, in protest at the Ligue’s stand. At present there is a petition calling on José Bové (who had earlier withdrawn from the contest) to stand as a left candidate – a demand backed by Autin. At such a late date (nominations end on 16^th of March), and with possible ineligibility for public office resulting from Bové’s activities in uprooting genetically modified maize, this is not a serious prospect.

MOVEMENTS AND PARTIES.

The narrative emerging from the social movement Left is that the project to stand an independent Left Presidential candidate has been destroyed by two forces: the PCF and the LCR. There is a vast amount of detail around the events as they have unfolded which to listen to, from the outside, is as enticing as being stuck on a long coach journey with a bus spotter. Those protesting at the way the PCF and the LCR operate, whether from genuine naiveté or feigned, have been given a lesson in real politics. The PCF, it was obvious, was never going to launch a full-frontal assault on the Socialists, not least because their very existence as municipal, and regional Councillors, Parliamentary and European deputies, depends on electoral agreements with them. The hard-core of the LCR say that this illustrates that you cannot form an electoral campaign on the minimum basis of voting Non in 2005. This is also somewhat disingenuous as the LCR was predicting that this minimum ground would lead to much more ambitious results: a continent-wide mobilisation, led by the French and Dutch vanguard, to overturn the EU’s neo-liberal turn.

The present impasse results from deeper causes. The Collectifs’ document, Ce que nous Voulons.  (L’Humanité. 6.11.06) is a typical anti-globalisation manifesto. It covers everything from durable development, the resistance to finance capital, privatisations, all forms of discrimination, the defence of individual freedoms, and the inevitable “un autre monde est possible.” (another world is possible).  More comprehensive ideas follow.  But we should stop here for a moment, and pause for reflection. What is the vehicle that is going to implement this project? There is no satisfactory answer. “Un vaste movement populaire et citoyen”, in which “chacun(e) discute, decide, et contrôle” (a huge popular citizens’ movement in which everyone discusses, decides and controls). Which is as clear as mud. On the one hand, in Marxist terms there is no conception of actual agency, class or otherwise, that is the lever for the enormous transformations required to call a halt to neo-liberalism, an international structure with giant financial resources, a whole social layer of beneficiaries, behind it. There is a complete absence of how this has affected the classical class agency of the proletariat, changes which cannot be swept away by the rising of a citizens’ movement. On the other hand, there is no discussion of how a Presidential candidate, in the unlikely event of success, would handle her/his position, how such a person would be under popular control – a live issue at the moment in Latin America! Or how the state would become ‘popular’.

The depth and seriousness of the French left’s debates and divisions cannot be ignored. These remain in a state of flux. The anti-globalisation movement has reached a point where giant jamborees, or international Social Forums, are losing their appeal. The heart of the campaigns, ATTAC, has undergone a damaging internal feud, and membership is increasingly inactive and down to 21,000. Without any direct political presence its pretensions to intervene in the Presidential campaign carry less weight (Politis 11.1.07). Voting for Ségolène Royal becomes more attractive every time Sarkozy comes out with his Thatcherite and authoritarian ambitions to implement a “rupture libérale” (a liberal break). Is there an alternative? We can dismiss out of hand the isolated campaign of Lutte Ouvrière, and the barely visible official Verts. The anti-party current is as responsible as anyone for the blockage and offers no new perspectives. So it is clear that a new start is yet to emerge from the French ‘political laboratory’, a sense of the realistic basis of political agency in a world dominated by efforts to disarticulate any resistance. Nor is there at present a plain set of principles on how this agency could bring about the radical change socialists would welcome. There is certainly neither a coherent mass movement, nor one united on the kind of in-depth thinking that has historically marked out Marxism. In short, back to square zero.

(1) Multitude. Hardt and Negri. Hamish Hamilton. 2004. Pages 295, ix.,  Change the World without taking Power. John Holloway. 2^nd Edition. Page 232. Ethics. Alain Badiou. Verso. 2001. Page 117.

(2) Démocratie et Socialisme. November 1999. For ultra-republicanism see: La République expliquée à ma fille. Régis Débray. Seuil. 1998.

(3) Every one of these clichés can be found in Jean Marie Colombani. Les infortunes de la République. Gallimard. 2002.