FRANCE: A new party but the same old problems

Their bold decision to launch the NPA initiative is based on an analysis of the state of the French workers’ movement and on the growth in support for the LCR in recent elections.

French workers have frequently shown themselves to be the most militant class fighters in Europe. Throughout the 1990s and over the last decade, France has been repeatedly rocked by intense class struggle. However, the outcome of these displays of workers’ militancy has been mixed. Major victories, such as the successful fight against plans to limit the wages and rights of young workers and the resounding rejection of the neo-liberal European constitution, have demonstrated the strength of the workers’ movement.

On the other hand, there have been key areas of struggle (such as pensions) where, despite the militancy of the working class, major gains have been rolled back. Successive governments have been able to carry out a gradual privatisation of parts of the public sector, whilst regressive authoritarian attacks on immigrants have continued apace.

The electoral victory of President Sarkozy’s right wing UMP last year signalled the chance for the bourgeoisie to change the balance of forces decisively in its favour by transforming the patchwork picture of defeats and victories into a decisive victory for the ruling class. For the LCR, the road to preventing the right from carrying out their anti-worker and anti-immigrant attacks lies in the creation of the NPA.

Clearly, there is a space for an alternative to the reformist left in France. The Parti Socialist (PS) and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) both failed miserably in the 2007 elections, despite the widespread hostility of workers, youth and immigrant communities towards the UMP. The PCF in particular suffered, forced to confront the fact that it was no longer a national force, its ongoing decline brought sharply into relief by its abysmal election result that placed the PCF below the LCR.

The LCR is correct to place the fight for an alternative to the reformist left at the top of its agenda. The working class is facing a decisive struggle against the government, but whilst the willingness to fight the government is clearly there, French workers lack an organisational force to give their spontaneous outbreaks of struggle a concrete and coherent political form.

But what kind of party does the working class need? At first glance it seems that the LCR is advocating a very different kind of party from the traditional reformist parties, since it is calling for an anti-capitalist party. Already this has caused problems in the leadership of the LCR with the remaining minority faction, organised around Christian Piquet, arguing against an anti-capitalist party and in favour, instead, of an alliance with the left wing of the PS, the PCF and the Greens. The NPA, they claim, will be an obstruction to such alliance since most of these forces will run a mile from anti-capitalism.

So is the LCR bucking the recent trend amongst the European far left who have been promoting broad left reformist formations? Is the NPA going to be a revolutionary party? Certainly, the LCR claims that they want to mobilise the “tens of thousands” of men and women who want to “revolutionise society”. But this does not mean they think that the way to do that is by building a revolutionary party. Their charismatic and affable spokesperson, Olivier Besancenot, makes this clear in a response to the question of whether the NPA will be a revolutionary party:

 “Probably not . . . Otherwise, we could merely continue – and continue the LCR! – as before, but better obviously! We need of course, a common foundation: the defence of radical proposals, opposition to the capitalist system, a strong commitment to mobilisations, political independence from the PS. This common platform will not answer a priori any questions, tactical or strategic. Some will remain open. But we believe that there are tens of thousands of men and women that are available to build a party for struggles and mobilisations.” (International Viewpoint 398, March 2008)

Elsewhere Besancenot has argued that the NPA would be ecological, feminist, even Guevarist, but certainly not revolutionary.

So why the ambiguity? Why, if the LCR is convinced that a party organised on the basis of “opposition to capitalism” is a real possibility in France today, do they not draw the obvious programmatic conclusions and fight for the NPA to make a clear break with the discredited politics of reformism and declare itself a revolutionary party?

On paper, the LCR rejects this approach for two reasons. First the LCR argue that a Leninist or Trotskyist party would be unable to attract the new layers that are searching for an alternative. Secondly, the LCR argues that the programme of the party has to emerge organically from the committees that will form the NPA, rather than being imposed from above. This is in fact the old argument for a “half way house” party re-hashed. It is one we are very familiar with in Britain, it was the basis of the Scottish Socialist party, the Socialist Alliance, Respect etc. Workers aren’t revolutionary enough, we have to create, militant but non-revolutionary parties to attract them. It is a dishonest and disastrous tactic. And where does the LCR think the programme is going to “emerge” from in the committees, except from the most militant and politically experienced members? It is an excuse for the LCR to look for ways to blunt their own programme, because they have no confidence in its appeal to “broad forces”.

Besancenot has correctly argued that top-down approaches to unity have failed (whilst failing to acknowledge the role of the LCR in pushing for these kind of unity initiatives with various forces, from the critical Stalinist Pierre Juquin to various dribs and drabs of the post-68 “alternative” movement). However, he then goes on to conclude that this means there is no place in the NPA to discuss the legacy of the past. In other words the NPA will not be the place to discuss that old chestnut, reform or revolution, since the new layers drawn to the NPA will not “identify” with this debate.

In fact, far from being a break from the politics of the past, this is in keeping with the “top-down” approaches to unity, only then the issue of reform or revolution was shoved under the carpet to keep the reformist leaders on board – today they have no faith either in their own conception of the revolutionary programme, or in the openness of the working class to different ideas.

What is positive, however, and a welcome break from the past, is that the NPA initiative is rooted in local communities and ongoing workers’ struggles. The LCR has clearly recognised that in the absence of a left force or grouping capable of mobilising the most militant sections of the working class, it is possible to go directly to the workers in their localities and in their struggles. In this alone the NPA is to be welcomed.

Since the beginning of the year, local committees have sprung up around the country. The national meeting of local committees held in June this summer brought together 800 delegates representing 300 committees, and demonstrated that the NPA was attracting layers beyond the LCR. In addition there are 50 youth committees.

The PCF and the PS are clearly rattled; the PS has even set up a special group to monitor the fortunes of the NPA. Lutte Ouvrière (LO), the other main Trotskyist organisation in France, living up to its infamous sectarianism, has refused to be involved in the NPA, preferring to cosy up to the PCF and even the PS. Last year LO stood on joint electoral platforms with the reformists and currently serves as a left cover for reformist local administrations.

The NPA has the potential to be a crucial tool for organising and uniting the various struggles that are taking place in France. But it also needs to be a forum for serious debate about what political programme is needed both in terms of fighting the immediate attacks launched by Sarkozy and his government, and in mapping out a strategy that can given concrete meaning to “anti-capitalism”.

Revolutionaries must play a key role in this discussion, and not shy away from the key questions of power, the need to smash the state etc. Yes, the programme of the NPA must be forged organically from the working class struggles on which the NPA wants to base itself, rather than being imposed by a bureaucratic elite with a prepared agenda, but leadership consists in saying what is needed if capitalism’s iniquities are to be uprooted and not just ameliorated.

Tue 02, December 2008 @ 17:48