French politics polarise

Andrew Coates, Ipswich CLP

The centre of French politics is "threatened with collapse" historian Jean-Francois Sirinelli commented just days after Tony Blair addressed French MPs. The British PM's call for a new "radical centre" was quickly forgotten as a political storm broke out. With 15% of the vote in the March regional elections (over 30% in some districts), France's far-right Front National, led by John-Marie Le Pen, became the referee in hung councils.

Local leaders of the conservative-centrist UDF (founded by former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing) answered the Front's appeal for a joint "minimum programme". In traditionalist Picardy, the Centre, Bourgogne, and, also in Languedoc-Roussilon, where many North Africans and ex-colonial pieds-noirs live, UDF council leaders were elected with FN support.

Le Pen's party's municipal policy is "national preference" for French citizens. The FN, which runs its own private security services, wants to set up special municipal police to enforce order. With these echoes of Vichy, even many French conservatives issued accusations of "collaboration". Convicted of violence against one Socialist candidate, Le Pen seems temporarily out of the way. Anti-fascist Gaullists and many mainstream commentators remain horrified. Under this pressure, Bourgogne and the Centre region backed down.

But others continued their alliance. In the Rhone-Alpes, UDF's Charles Millon ignored demonstrations in the streets of Lyon and Grenoble to govern with FN votes. Travelling to the National Assembly he received the sympathy of many right-wing deputies. Millon claims he is creating a new "national movement". The umbrella body, the UDF, the alliance of nationalist-liberals, Christian and centre parties, can hardly survive intact.

With the right in disarray, France's left dominated the result. Thirty six per cent of the vote and 676 seats was a high score for regional politics, influenced by localised patronage and low turnouts. Councillors have joined the mass protests. In turbulent scenes inside council chambers the "plurielle" left -- Socialists, Communists, Greens and Citizens' Movement -- attacked the pacts.

In the elections other left groups emerged. The League Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) had gained respect for their work with the unemployed and the "sans papiers". Before the election they had face-to-face meetings with Political Bureaux of the Socialists and Communists and had a small breakthrough by winning three posts. Lutte Ouvriere -- run as a clandestine organisation of "soldier monks" (Le Monde, 18.3.98) -- now has twenty councillors to promote their brand of Trotskyism modelled on the early Bolsheviks.

With the centre ground disappearing, France is now polarised. Insecurity and exclusion have fuelled the far-right's success. But spokespersons for the unemployed body, AC, Christophe Aguiton and researcher Catherine Levy, have stated that unemployed movements that have swept through the country have transformed people's passivity and resignation. They have connected people across the continent in the fight against the breeding ground of fascism: Europe's elites' concern with monetary unity at the expense of employment. With the right imploding it is up to the left, in government and outside, to ensure they do not despair of the future.

High politics remain cloudy. Prime Minister Jospin backs the Common Currency but supports measures to fight the dole-queue. His backing for the 35-hour week has met a hostile, ultra-liberal bosses' organisation, the CNPF. They want Blair-style flexibility and welfare reform to go with European integration. By contrast, the Socialist Party left, the Gauche Socialiste, Greens, Communists and the Citizens' Movement, are committed to a People's Europe, and sceptical about the Euro. Nevertheless, they are not realistically able to provide an alternative government.

On the ground AC and others have organised hard. The workless, in a myriad of different bodies, largely co-operated for last year's cross-Euro marches. They dominated the headlines this winter by occupying dole offices, the Bank of France, and the top university Ecole Normale Superiere. This alliance of activists unites people from many backgrounds, including Communist trade unionists and LCR supporters. By linking up with the unions they may well be able to influence the Government's course.

With the uncomfortable importance of the street some French professional politicians are attracted to Blair's ideas -- from Gaullists to the post-social democrats. Tony Blair was invited to the National Assembly by former Prime Minister Laurence Fabius. Perhaps Fabius was nostalgic for the 1980s when modernisers, spin doctors and the wealthy friends of President Mitterrand ran the show. Now, France's modernisers have had to compromise with the left and been submerged by mass politics. If the UDF splits, a section may want to ally with the Socialists.

Far from heralding Blair's dream of a new Centre, this would create strains for Jospin, whose party could not easily work with its enemies of thirty years' standing. Whether the left will emerge as the final winner, with European integration at stake, remains unclear.

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