Shift to the left in French local votes
By
G. Dunkel
Published Mar 22, 2008 8:38 AM
Nobody disputes that the UMP, the right-wing governing party, suffered a major
defeat on March 16 in the local elections held all over France. Marseilles was
the only large city where the UMP kept its control, but even that control was
diminished. Of the thirty other large cities where the right confronted a
“left” party, the right lost.
The dominant left party in France is the Socialist Party—which is hardly
more left than the Democratic Party is here—but the French Communist
Party has traditionally had a strong implantation on the local level. Other
parties which present a more anti-capitalist program, like Workers Struggle
(LO) and the League for Communist Revolution (LCR), also have a noticeable
presence.
Although the left combined for this string of victories, the percentage of
votes it obtained was not that dominant.
The answer to why such a major shift in electoral support for Nicolas
Sarkozy’s UMP took place has a number of factors. Some of his supporters
were perturbed by his divorce and remarriage, conducted in a glare of
publicity, with no concern for propriety. A few months later Sarkozy made an
extremely crude and sexist comment to someone who refused to shake his hand,
and this was caught on the French version of YouTube.
Regarding political program, other voters might have been objecting to
Sarkozy’s interventions in Chad with the Zoe’s Ark kidnapping,
along with the military intervention defending the French puppet in early
February, followed up by French special forces getting caught well inside the
Sudan.
Sarkozy has also promised to send French troops to reinforce Canadian troops in
Afghanistan. He has taken other foreign policy steps that indicated that France
was now following the lead of U.S. imperialism more consistently in its foreign
entanglements.
Workers overall and residents of the predominantly West African and North
African suburbs, where social problems and inequalities are particularly harsh,
were turned off by Sarkozy’s attacks on pensions, medical care and
workers rights under the guise of improving France’s
“competitivity.”
The fascist-right party called the National Front at most got one seat on a
regional council.
In the Spanish state a week earlier, the PSOE—Spanish
socialists—won the national election for a new parliament with 43.64
percent of the votes as against 40.12 percent for the right-wing Popular Party.
While the PSOE didn’t get a majority, which means it will have to set up
a coalition government, it did get five seats more than in the last election.
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