In French election
Left takes struggle against fascism into the streets
By G. Dunkel
Two weeks of daily demonstrations throughout France, which
hit a high on May Day when more than 1.5 million people came
out in more than 60 cities, gave President Jacques Chirac a
sweeping majority in the national election May 5, with 82.2
percent of the votes.
The only choice for French voters in this runoff election
was between fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen and Chirac, a rightist
who represents the French and European imperialist ruling
class. The vote for Chirac was a big jump from what he had
received in the first round--less than 20 percent--when there
was a large field of candidates, including many parties on the
left. He will continue as president for the next five
years.
Even Chirac himself in his acceptance speech didn't take
this vote as a mandate. In the last week of the campaign there
had been a strong movement proposing that those voting for him
should wear hazmat suits or rubber gloves or clip their noses
with clothespins to demonstrate their disgust. This move was so
strong, in fact, that France's highest court declared such
behavior illegal. People did it anyway.
The vote for Chirac was actually a vote against Le Pen, who
is seen as not just another corrupt bourgeois politician, but a
fascist with blood on his hands. The slogan in the
demonstrations summed it up: "Vote for the crook [Chirac], not
the fascist."
Le Pen is leader of the National Front, which is not a
fascist movement in the full sense. But if there were one, he
has the background to lead it. He has been convicted in French
courts for delivering anti-Semitic and racist speeches. He
physically attacked a socialist running for a seat in
parliament against his daughter a few years ago. For that
crime, the French courts sentenced him to loss of his political
rights for a few years.
But Le Pen's earlier work as an intelligence officer for the
paratroopers in the French war against Algeria reveals his true
character. In 1958, according to an article in the May 4 Le
Monde, the platoon commanded by Le Pen tortured Ahmed Moulay to
death. Mohammed Cherif Moulay, who had just turned 12, along
with his five brothers and sisters and his mother were forced
to watch and listen as their father was agonizingly killed. All
Moulay had a chance to say to his wife before he died was,
"Take care of the kids."
This report was widely circulated and confirms an earlier
report in the newspaper Libération 17 years ago. The
revelations had an obvious impact and were part of the
widespread and vigorous media campaign against Le Pen, whose
economic program would have been a disaster for French big
business.
Defeat in the streets
While Le Pen did get the formal endorsement of another
fascist-type party, his percentage of the vote went up less
than 1 percent from the first round to the second.
Opinions on whether to vote for Chirac varied among the
parties that are called "the left" in France--which range from
social democrats like the Socialist Party to the Communist
Party to groups that call themselves Trotskyist. These seven
parties totaled about 40 percent of the vote in the first
round.
Lutte Ouvrière, or Workers' Struggle--the group whose
candidate Arlette Laguiller got 1,630,045 votes, or 5.72
percent, in the first round--called for casting a blank or
spoiled ballot in the second round. This call, and similar ones
from smaller organizations, obviously had some effect. The
percentage of spoiled ballots went from 3.38 percent in the
first round to 5.31 percent in the second round.
Other left-wing parties took a different view. The
Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), whose candidate Olivier
Besancenot got 1,210,562 votes, or 4.25 percent, in the first
round, issued a statement after the first vote saying, "We must
bar the road to Le Pen, the worst enemy of the workers, in the
street as in the elections. The LCR will mobilize so that Le
Pen scores the lowest possible vote on Sunday, May 5. We
understand those electors who will vote for Chirac to oppose Le
Pen, but we do not think that Chirac is a rampart against the
new rise of the far right. On the contrary, he is among those
responsible for it, and there is no doubt that following his
election he will take measures against wage earners, youth and
immigrants."
On April 28, the LCR raised the idea of a third round--in
the streets--on May 6 to prepare for a struggle of "all
together" against Chirac's policies.
Other groups had the same idea. Celebrations on May 5 and 6
drew members of the LCR, militants from the French Communist
Party, anarchists, members of the Association of North African
Workers, anti-racist and anti-Le Pen groups to discuss future
struggle in the streets: a Third Round.
Two rounds of parliamentary elections are coming up in the
first two weeks of June, when Chirac's right wing is going to
be sorely tempted to make deals with National Front leaders.
There the strength of Le Pen's party, as well as the rest of
the left and right currents in the electoral arena, will be
more easily seen.
But the struggle against fascism and racism took to the
streets these past two weeks in France, and it appears many
people want to keep it there.
Reprinted from the May 16, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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