The French Election Result:

The widely-predicted victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election has prompted a fairly nauseating display of triumphalism from all those who believe that strikes are only legitimate when they take place on the territory of Middle Eastern countries from a height of thirty thousand feet. They should perhaps recall the equally triumphant mood among US conservatives when George Bush beat back the challenge of John Kerry in 2004.

The workers’ movement in France is sure to face a renewed onslaught from Sarko and his team whenever the opportunity presents itself. Its success or failure in meeting that challenge will affect the political terrain all over western Europe. But before indulging in crystal-ball gazing, let’s recall what led France to this point. There’s no question that Sarkozy has won a clear mandate for a right-wing platform. For anyone who believes that socialism has a future in Europe, this needs explaining.

French Fairy Tales

A lot of the commentary on the French elections in the English-speaking press has had a surreal quality. Not least when it comes to the Partie Socialiste (PS). There have been repeated assurances from the wise men and women of the media that the PS needs to reform itself, show that it accepts the free-market system, and embrace social democracy. Segolene Royal’s defeat supposedly owed much to its failure to do so with enough conviction.

It’s hard to be sure what party these experts are talking about, since it can hardly be the Partie Socialiste. Any fear (or hope) that the PS might break with capitalism was well and truly buried by the experience of the Mitterand government in the 1980s. Having come to power with a promise to “change life”, and begun its term with a major programme of nationalisation and state intervention in the economy, the PS changed course after massive pressure from the French capitalist class.

Since that about-turn, there has been no doubt about the party’s commitment to liberal economics. The Jospin government which held office from 1997 to 2002 privatised more state-owned companies than its right-wing predecessor. Its spokesmen offered the following slogan as their credo: “Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.” Hardly the rhetoric of latter-day Bolsheviks.

So when we’re told that the PS needs to embrace capitalism, the barely concealed message is this: it’s not enough to accept the capitalist system, and manage it when you’re in government. You have to jump up and down, proclaiming how wonderful capitalism is, and make it your aim to remove any limits on the power of businessmen to do whatever they damn well please. The intolerance of the folk who manage our political consensus is really something to behold.

What the pundits obviously mean is that the French Socialists should follow the example of Tony Blair, who made a point of distancing himself from the traditions of the Labour Party and any kind of left-wing principle. That alone will deliver success at the ballot box. Someone should really tell the wise men to have a look at British politics, where they might see that Blair’s popularity has slumped. In the 2001 election, Tony the Miracle Worker won fewer votes than Labour had managed under Neil Kinnock’s leadership in 1992; four years later, he distinguished himself by taking the Labour vote below its 1987 level. The fetish for Blairism is just so 1998, man.

The picture painted of French society has been equally bizarre. In the more hysterical sections of the commentariat, France has been presented as the Cuba of western Europe. Even the most sober journalists are keen to depict a country in thrall to collectivism, state intervention and all kinds of heretical anti-market policies. Only Sarkozy can shake up the status quo and return the French economy to health (having served as finance and interior minister over the past five years, he might be thought to bear some responsibility for the country’s high unemployment rate, but only an incorrigible extremist would be so rude as to point this out).

It’s true that France has not gone as far as Britain or the United States in rolling back the gains made by working people after the Second World War. But neo-liberal economic policies have been the norm for the past twenty years, under both Gaullist and Socialist administrations. The idea that France is a bastion of unreconstructed welfare socialism is almost as absurd as the notion that Britain is a thriving, prosperous society where anyone can do well if they’re prepared to work hard.

Sarko's road to victory, paved by the socialists:

Anyway, it would be a good idea to set aside the dodgy stereotypes and look at the reality. The build-up to this year’s election began immediately after Jacques Chirac was re-elected in 2002. In that poll, the two major parties were squeezed by the far right and the radical left. The Socialists had to endure the humiliation of seeing their candidate eliminated by Jean-Marie Le Pen (although by a very narrow margin, something that was often overlooked in the panic that followed the first round of voting).

Nicolas Sarkozy responded to the advance of the National Front by launching a shameless bid to steal the clothes of Le Pen. For the past five years, Sarkozy has been cultivating the far-right electorate by pandering to racism. His strategy paid off in the first round of the latest poll, when a large section of voters transferred their allegiance from Le Pen to Sarkozy.

Le Pen’s weak performance was one of the bright spots of this year’s poll, but it was hardly a victory for tolerance and diversity. The people who defected to Sarkozy haven’t changed their minds, or abandoned their prejudices. By taking up the traditional themes and arguments of the far right, Sarkozy has reinforced those ideas and brought them into the heart of French politics. Le Pen may be licking his wounds, but his influence is still very much in evidence.

On the other hand, the Socialists responded to the 2002 election with a totally different approach. Having lost millions of votes to a variety of candidates on its left, it would have seemed logical for the PS to follow the same path as Sarkozy at the opposite end of the political spectrum, by tacking left and adopted some of the radical ideas that had such obvious popular appeal.

But nothing of the sort happened. A leftwards turn by the PS would have involved far more courage than Sarkozy’s move into Le Pen territory. It’s easy to scapegoat immigrants or young people from the suburbs, but turning the heat on big business, neo-liberalism and the EU (even rhetorically) is a very different matter. Winning votes by challenging powerful interests is a risky course to follow, and it was never seriously considered by the Socialist leadership. Instead, Segolene Royal charted a course to the centre.

The orientation of the Partie Socialiste helped pave the way for Sarkozy’s victory. Like its counterparts in Britain and Germany, the PS has endorsed the neo-liberal consensus. In the French context, this means accepting the dogma that only liberal “reforms” can solve the country’s economic problems and reduce unemployment. Having conceded this dubious point, the PS was in no position to challenge Sarkozy’s call for a “rupture”.

The victory of the right in the presidential election suggests that a majority of voters have been convinced by its economic arguments. This is not all that surprising, when you remember that the major party of the Left has failed completely to challenge those arguments. When people are told again and again and again, by everyone who has a platform in politics and the media, that there is only one way for France to reduce its unemployment rate and restore economic growth, it would be amazing if the relentless barrage didn’t start rubbing off.

Was there any alternative?

There was another path open to the Socialists. It would have involved challenging neo-liberalism with energy and determination, questioning its assumptions and putting forward alternative policies. Now, according to the conventional wisdom, such an approach would condemn the PS to perpetual opposition and render it “unelectable” (one of the most damning terms in the lexicon of modern politics).

But that assumption was severely tested by the defeat of the EU constitution in 2005. A clear majority of French voters rejected the exhortations of the mainstream parties and voted against the treaty. While there was certainly a far-right component to that vote, the main drive behind it came from the “left of the left” – an alliance that stretched from dissident Socialists like Fabius and Melenchon, through the Communist Party, as far as the revolutionary LCR (not to mention a wide range of non-aligned activists).

It was clearly unthinkable for the PS to respond to that vote by changing its strategy and putting itself at the head of a popular alliance against neo-liberalism. Not because it would be unable to win an election that way – rather, because it would be incapable of dealing with the situation created by an electoral victory.

In the present climate, any government that breaks with the right-wing economic orthodoxy is bound to face stubborn and unrelenting opposition from the capitalist class and its allies. No matter if its programme is perfectly compatible with capitalism, and doesn’t go further than the social-democratic consensus of the post-war decades. That was what the PS learned in the 1980s, when the Mitterand government came to power and tried implementing a serious reform programme.

The retreat of that government mid-way through its first term of office was not inevitable. But overcoming the opposition to its policies would have required taking initiatives that were (and are) beyond the horizons of any social-democratic party. It would have meant imposing drastic restrictions on the freedom of capital. But above all, it would have required mass mobilisation of left-wing supporters, in workplaces and communities all over France.

The same would be true if the French left won an election today with an anti-liberal programme. There’s no middle way between submission and confrontation. The path followed by left-wing governments in Latin America is likely to be repeated in Europe. To put it crudely, the choice is between Chavez and Lula – between a determined opposition to neo-liberalism that demands huge mobilisations of support from below and calls the whole capitalist system into question, and a strategy that abandons all the traditional policies of the Left in order to please the powers that be.

Royal's Failure

It was never on the cards that the Partie Socialiste would move to the left after 2002 – its whole culture made that choice almost inconceivable. Instead of trying to win back the votes lost to the radical left with a positive programme, the Socialists contented themselves with blackmail. And it seems as if this strategy was very successful (though not enough to win the election).

The PS was lucky to have not one but two bogeymen with which to scare left-wing voters back into their camp. The frustration of a second round run-off between Chirac and Le Pen in 2002 was at the forefront of many people’s thinking. The Socialists made the call for a “useful vote” into one of the main themes of their propaganda.

As well as the sneaking fear that Le Pen might repeat his 2002 performance and knock the Socialist candidate out in the first round, there was a real danger that the centre-right politician Francois Bayrou might finish ahead of Royal. This goes a long way towards explaining both the strong performance of Royal (who more than doubled Jospin’s vote in the 2002 election) and the weak performance of the radical left (which lost over a million votes). Royal was able to win back votes from parties to her left almost as effectively as Sarkozy regained support lost to the National Front, but without moving away from the centre ground.

The subjective weaknesses of the radical left may also have played a role. Attempts to agree on a joint campaign from the left of the left ended in frustration, with four serious candidates running to the left of Royal. It’s possible that a more unified, credible challenge would have performed better. But almost certainly, the pressure for a “useful vote” would have limited the potential for a strong radical-left performance under any circumstances.

It has to be acknowledged, of course, that there would have been no guarantee of success for the PS if it had campaigned on a clear left-wing platform. But the victory of the “No” referendum campaign in 2005 showed the potential which existed. And the ultra-moderate course charted by Segolene Royal brought no rewards in the end.

After Royal’s defeat, it’s certain that the PS will come under pressure to shift even further to the right, from inside and outside the party. Bayrou’s strong performance in the first round has encouraged him to launch a new party, and there’s widespread talk of a new “centre-left” alliance inspired by the ruling coalition in Italy. It should be obvious that any such alliance has nothing to offer those who want to transform society.

Ways ahead for the left:

Whether or not there is a regroupment of the centre-left, the radical left will have to confront the challenge of building a new political force that can challenge the PS. The long-term decline of the French Communist Party has continued. A party that could win 20% of the vote in national elections until the 1980s saw its candidate humiliated, with a score below 2%. Since 1981, the French CP has lost 600,000 members and 15,000 elected representatives, a staggering decline.

The CP will be holding an emergency congress in the autumn, but whether or not it is capable of taking initiatives that can reverse its haemorrhage of support remains to be seen. Nor is there much chance of Lutte Ouvriere offering a lead. The hard-line Trotskyist group has generally followed an isolationist line, and the poor performance of its candidate Arlette Lagullier leaves it with limited reserves of political capital.

The main responsibility will surely fall to the supporters of Olivier Besancenot and Jose Bove. Bescancenot and his party, the LCR, were the only people on the radical left with reason to be satisfied with their performance in the election – Besancenot held his 2002 vote while everyone else fell back. Having established a national profile and won a significant following among young people, he has a real base on which to build for the future.

The LCR has a crucial role to play. It is still a small party with a marginal presence in the workers’ movement (about 3,000 members). Unlike many far-left groups, it has a healthy culture of democracy in its internal structures, with room for genuine differences of opinion and real debates over policy. Hopefully this culture will help the LCR to map out a principled but flexible strategy over the coming years.

Bove’s campaign was launched late in the day and failed to make an impact at the polls. His team of supporters was largely drawn from those activists who were most enthusiastic about the “unity collectives” that sought and failed to agree on a joint candidate for the election. This included minority factions in the CP and the LCR. Bove and his supporters were strongly critical of both parties: they now have the responsibility to show what their own approach will be, and how it can mobilise the large numbers of non-party activists who want an alternative to the PS.

One promising sign from the election was the greater political engagement from the multi-racial suburbs, from the section of the population feared and despised by Sarko and his admirers. The turn-out in areas like Saint-Denis increased dramatically. Much of this vote went to Royal, following the “anybody but Sarkozy” logic, but the people of France’s suburbs (especially the youth) need solutions far more radical than anything the PS is willing to offer. The radical left urgently needs to put down roots in the black and Arab communities, without which it can never claim to represent the most down-trodden people in France.

From Resistance to Reconstruction:

There can be no doubt that Sarkozy’s government will go on the offensive as soon as it seems the moment is right. His goal will be to inflict a clear defeat on the trade union movement, clearing the way for a roll-back of workers’ rights. There is no reason why Sarkozy must prevail: it all depends on the capacity of the French working class to resist his policies.

Two right-wing offensives were defeated by mass action while Chirac was president, in 1995 and 2006. There will definitely be another test of strength between labour and capital in France. There’s no point predicting how it will pan out until it comes. All we can say for sure is this: nobody should expect Segolene Royal or any other Socialist leader to mobilise opposition to the government. The initiative will have to come from the left of the left.

Fighting endless defensive struggles against neo-liberalism is not a viable strategy in the long run. In order to oppose Sarkozy and the forces he represents, it’s becoming more and more pressing for the workers’ movement in France to come up with a viable alternative to the status quo – in other words, an alternative that doesn’t just exist in theory, but can be taken up by millions of people as a goal to work towards. As many people have noted, it’s time to go beyond the slogan “another world is possible” and start explaining how – and not just in France.

The victories of the radical left in 2005 and 2006 haven’t been erased by Sarkozy’s triumph. Nor has the fighting tradition of the French working class. Sarko may end up biting off more than he can chew. His Anglophone admirers have proclaimed victory before the real battle has even begun.