Special Report on France From Informations Ouvrieres

8/2/2019 Special Report on France From Informations Ouvrieres

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[Note: As French people go to the polls today, May 6, in the second anddecisive round of the presidential election, we look at the meaning of the firstround of the election in a series of four articles/statements published inInformations Ouvrires (Labor News), the weekly newspaper of the IndependentWorkers Party (POI) of France. All articles appeared in the April 23-30 issue of

the newspaper.]

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SPECIAL REPORT ON FRANCE --

IN THIS MESSAGE:

1) Statement by the Independent Workers Party (POI) After the First Round ofthe Presidential Election -- Issued at 10 p.m. on April 22, 2012

2) A Massive Vote Against the Consensus: Editorial -- by Daniel Gluckstein, Co-national Secretary of the Independent Workers Party (POI)

3)What is the Progression of the National Front, and Why Its Score? -- by YanLegoff

4) The End of Jean-Luc Melenchon's Campaign -- by Marc Gauquelin

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1) STATEMENT BY THE INDEPENDENT WORKERS PARTY (POI)AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

An immense rejection was expressed on 22 April 2012 in this first round of thepresidential election, in which almost 80 percent of registered voters refused tovote for President Sarkozy (an unprecedented fact, which deepens the crisis ofthe institutions of the Fifth Republic). A rejection of this government, its policies,its practices and its "affairs". A rejection that has been brewing for a long time,

one which enhances the message delivered in the win for the "No to theConstitutional Treaty" vote on 29 May 2005. A rejection of all the policiesimposed over the last twenty years by governments of every political stripe inapplication of the Maastricht Treaty.

Today, 22 April, the vast majority of the population - industrial workers, ruralworkers, office workers, the youth and the unemployed -- have said: We can nolonger stand the poverty and unemployment, we do not want this country to


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have imposed on it measures that would lead to every one of our rights sufferingthe same fate that the Troika [European Union, IMF, European Central Bank]wants to impose on Greece.

A majority wish has been asserted through both votes and abstention: "We want

to get rid of Sarkozy, but his policies too", expressing what had already beenpresent in the hundreds of strikes and other working class actions that occurredcontinuously right up to the eve of the election. This is a warning, linked to themovements that are developing strongly today from Greece to Spain, throughoutEurope.One demand is being expressed: There is an urgent need to reverse the courseof things, to put an end to the dictatorship of the IMF-European Union-ECBTroika which wants to impose policies of privatisation, poverty andunemployment. To put an end to this dictatorship and its directives which forbidthe prevention of job-cuts, which bail out the banks to the tune of billions upon

billions, and break up the rights and guarantees of the workers and the youth!There is an urgent need to declare null and void the plans dictated by thesupranational institutions and to re-establish the peoples' sovereignty overdecisions that commit them. This is called democracy.

Having won the first round, Franois Hollande is stating his intention to"renegotiate" the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG)signed on 2 March in Brussels by Sarkozy and Merkel.

But there is a simple fact that everybody must know: the TSCG Treaty, like anyother European treaty, cannot be amended or renegotiated in any way once ithas been signed by the other twenty-five heads of state and government. Otherdocuments can be adopted and annexed. But the treaty itself is untouchable:the obligation to write permanent austerity into law (the "Golden Rule") and tocut 80 billion euros of public spending by 2013 (starting with the budgets of theSocial Security system and the local authorities), the system of automaticsanctions, the sending of European emissaries tasked with dictating theexecution of murderous plans in our country, etc. -- none of this can be modifiedor renegotiated.

The day after the second round of the presidential election, what will the electedPresident decide on this crucial question?

The vast majority of the population have spoken: they aspire to come together inthe broadest possible unity to turn back the offensive by finance capital, theoffensive by the hedge funds and all sorts of speculators who are trying todictate their demands to all the peoples of Europe. They do not want a "Super-


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Maastricht".Democracy demands that this majority wish is responded to, that the electedPresident refuse to begin the ratification process: and then, the Treaty will not beratified and will not be implemented in France, and as a result it will be difficult toimpose it on other peoples of Europe.

This demand is addressed to all the political forces that claim to stand for theworking class and democracy. On 22 April, it is addressed first and foremost tothe man who won in the first round of this election, Franois Hollande. Let himgive a clear answer to this question facing him, one that determines every areaof policy that will be implemented by the new government! Will he do it?

Unquestionably, someone won today. But for working people to win, it will not beenough to get rid of the outgoing President, there needs to be a clear break inpractice. The central question is indeed that of breaking with the European

Union, and as a first step, of not ratifying the Treaty. One cannot avoid notingthat this evening of the first round vote, not one candidate has referred to thequestion of the TSCG.For its part, the Independent Workers Party took the initiative of an appealagainst ratification of the Treaty. Over 40,000 workers and youth, activists fromevery tendency, have already endorsed it. Throughout the country, the numberof joint appeals is growing rapidly. Nothing is more urgent than forging unityagainst ratification of the "Super-Maastricht" Treaty. This is the meaning of theproposal by the Independent Workers Party (POI) to prepare a national

demonstration called jointly by all those who oppose ratification.

On this evening of the first round vote, we once again launch that appeal: Whathas been expressed on 22 April is an incentive to bring together workers, youthand organisations on a united basis, all those who want to put an end to theEuropean Union's policy of poverty, unemployment and decay - a wish sharedby all the workers and peoples of Europe, from Greece to Spain and fromGermany to Italy.

Paris, 22 April 2012, at 10 p.m.

The National Secretaries of the Independent Workers Party:

-- Claude Jenet, Daniel Gluckstein, Grard Schivardi, Jean Markun(The POI's National Bureau will meet on 28 April to review the situation.)

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2) A Massive Vote Against the Consensus

Editorial

By DANIEL GLUCKSTEINCo-national Secretary of the Independent Workers Party (POI)

It's been 30 years since the "austerity turn" was inaugurated by the FrancoisMitterrand-Pierre Mauroy government (and its PS and PCF ministers). It's apolicy that would later be pursued by the government of Mitterrand on the "left"and then his governments of cohabitation with conservatives - first with JacquesChirac, then Edouard Balladur.

In 1992, under the aegis of Mitterrand, with the support of the right, theMaastricht Treaty was signed and ratified. The result: Twenty years of ant-worker austerity imposed by all the governments, whether they be those ofcohabitation (Mitterrand-Balladur or Chirac-Lionel Jospin, which holds the sadrecord for privatizations) or those of the right. That includes the Chiracgovernment, which suffered the snub in 2005 of a "no" vote by the Frenchpeople on the proposed treaty for the Constitution of the European Union; a votesubsequently trampled on through the treaty ratification by a majority of theUMP-PS in parliament, under Nicolas Sarkozy.

This is what it comes down to: Thirty years of anti-worker consensus, dictatedby the European Union, was rejected April 22, placing the country on the edgeof an explosive situation.

The French people looked around them. They saw the destructive blowsbrought to Greece and Spain and everywhere else by the Troika [EuropeanUnion, IMF, European Central Bank]. So, on April 22, they said it is urgent toreverse the course of things and, therefore, to progress toward a break with thepast.

They said it in their own way, with the most diverse of instruments. And MarineLe Pen's vote total doesn't change this assessment at all. Is the National Frontan ultra-reactionary, anti-worker party? No doubt about it. But for those whocare, with reason, about its progression, we ask this question: Why did the "left"allow Ms. Le Pen the apparent monopoly on rejecting the consensus and theEuropean Union?


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If Francois Hollande and Jean-Luc Melanchon had been truly committed tosweeping away the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties; breaking with the EuropeanCentral Bank; refusing to pay the debt and to block the available funds for thesupport of jobs and the prohibition of layoffs ... how well would have Ms. Le Penfared electorally?

Still, Sunday night, mesmerized viewers were present for another consensus:Radio and TV silence on the European Union and the Treaty on Stability,Coordination and Governance (TSCG). All the candidates present circumventedthe question.

Yet everyone knows that the two candidates for the second round have made acommitment to submit within the next few weeks -- with the agreement ofBrussels and its Troika -- a plan of brutal and unprecedented attacks againstworkers and the youth. Everyone knows that Social Security and the territorial

authorities are in the crosshairs. Everyone knows and everyone understandsthat the April 22 vote was against that. That's why no one talks about it.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso didn't have thisreluctance. The day after the election, he issued a call "not to yield." While herecognized "the economic crisis has exacerbated social inequalities," he stillconcluded, "the proper response is to introduce more Europe."

More Europe? That means the TSCG and, therefore, the dictatorship of the

Troika, which pillages and destroys everything. The dictatorship of consensushas already driven the country to the edge of misery and forfeiture -- with morethan 11 million poor people officially identified, with employment that doesn'tstop diving and with, for the first time, indicators that show "healthy aging"dropping.

The April 22 vote has the value of a mandate, that of beginning to reverse thecourse of things; to take a step on the path of rupture with the European Unionand its Troika. Simple respect of democracy requires that this will should berespected. It can start with the renunciation of the ratification of the TSCG. Will

this be the case?

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3) What is the Progression of the National Front?


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By Yan Legoff

The candidate of the National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen, came in third placeduring the first round of the presidential election, receiving 6.42 million votes, or17.9 percent of the total number cast. During the first round of the last election in

2007, her father received 3.84 million votes or 10.44 percent of the total cast.

However, 2007 was a bad year for the National Front. The candidate of theconservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy, captured asignificant part of the National Front's electorate.

Let us return to the first round of the 2002 election: Jean-Marie Le Pen came insecond position, getting 4.81 million votes or 16.88 percent. To that total, it mustbe added the 667,000 (2.34 percent) votes received by FN dissident BrunotMegret, bringing the entire vote total of the extreme right to 5.48 million votes or

19.22 percent of those cast. Marine Le Pen, therefore, received a lesser scoreby 1.32 points.

During the second round of the 2002 election, Jean-Marie Le Pen, facingJacques Chirac, received 5.53 million votes or 17.79 percent of the total cast.The abstention reached 20.29 percent or - within some decimal points- the levelreached during the first round last Sunday.

Conclusion: If the FN has progressed significantly relative to 2007, it actually

found its electoral weight in 2002. With more and with less.

The France-Presse Agency paints the following picture:

"As usual, they find the best results east of a line that traces between le-Pas-de-Calais in the north to the Pyrenees-Orientales in the south (...) The geography ofthe FN vote is, therefore respected, but the party progresses in western France.Obviously, it's in the countryside that Marine Le Pen wins votes. In Ille-et-Vilaine,the tens of little rural communes gave her scores that ranged from 20 percent to27 percent (Saint-Ganton), and even 31.5 percent (La Noe-Blanche) (...) It was

also in the rural region of Limousin that the FN candidate made the bestprogress since 2002, going from 10.3 percent to 15.3 percent (...) Finally, it is inthe large cities that Marine Le Pen seems to recede relative to 2002. Shecapped out at 6.2 percent in Paris (12.2 percent in Ile-de-France). In Lyon, sheonly got 9.8 percent (18.3 percent in Rhone-Alpes)."

In the numerous working-class and popular suburbs, the National Front alsodidn't achieve the scores it achieved in 2002. For example, the party received


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program on the points I just outlined. This is the way for us to represent acredible force and a real alternative in the new landscape that will open with the

probable victory of the Socialist Party (PS)."

We may share, or not share, some of the practical conclusions of the PCF. But

we can only approve of his implacable denunciation of "the false slogan of'social Europe' or of the 'reorientation of the euro.'"

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Abstention: Another Form of Rejection

The abstention, although less than forecast by public opinion institutes, reached20.53 percent, or 4.5 percentage points more than in the first round of the 2007

presidential election. This increase represents more than two million registeredvoters. This is one of the forms taken of the general rejection expressed in thiselection.

As always, the abstention was particularly high in the cities and the working-class and popular neighborhoods. In this regard, the fact that abstention inFrance (without talking about overseas departments and territories) was thehighest in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis (26.54 percent) is particularlysignificant. And this rate was even still higher in certain cities of this department:

31.2 percent in Clichy-sous-Bois, for example. Moreover, such rates are found incities such as Roubaix in the north (31.4 percent). We could multiply theseexamples in all the departments.* * *

Serial Siphoning

Nicolas Sarkozy lost 1.69 million votes as compared to 2007. However, this netnumber masks a crude collapse even more important. Indeed, Francois Bayroureceived 6.82 million votes in 2007, compared to 3.28 million today (or 3.54million fewer votes) - after the "siphoning" of centrists by the UMP over the lastfive years. It is likely that a significant part of Bayrou's lost votes went toSarkozy, who, without this support, would have lost even more votes. Therewere, therefore, a lot more than 1.69 million voters, who having voted forSarkozy in 2007, did not do so again in 2012. You don't have to look very far forthe 2.58 million votes won by the National Front.


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4) The End of Jean-Luc Melenchon's Campaign

By Marc GauquelinIt is a question hard not to ask: How does one explain that Jean-Luc Melenchon,who is well aware of the destructive character of Treaty on the Stability,Coordination and Governance (TSCG) - the "Super-Maastricht - and who,moreover, rightly denounced it in the preceding phase of the campaign, thensuddenly soft pedaled the major question of its ratification?

These elections have just confirmed the power of rejection by the masses of thepolicy of "consensus," conducted for the past 30 years - in the name of respectfor European Union treaties - by the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) andthe Social Party (PS), with the "critical" support of the French Communist Party(PCF).

We imagine the disappointment of the activists who still want to believe in theinformation put out by Le Canard Enchain (April 18). According to thisnewspaper, Jean-Luc Melenchon would be announcing on the evening of April22 during a rally organized at Stalingrad Plaza that he would demand fromFrancois Hollande the holding of a referendum on the European treaty, if

Hollande were elected. But Melenchon did not even hint at that in his officialstatement, following the first round, in which he calls on the French to vote "May6 - without asking anything in return - to beat (Nicolas) Sarkozy."

Why a sudden discretion on this major question?Not one word on the new European treatyJean-Luc Melenchon himself provided the answer to all these questions in aninterview he gave to Echos, Thursday, April 19, two days before the election.

"I think," he said, "that Hollande will be obliged to come around to my methodsand it will be enough to wait for him. Financial circles will attack him, just as theyattacked Sarkozy. There aren't but two solutions: to resist or to capitulate. And Iam betting he'll make the choice to resist."

A declared admirer of Francois Mitterrand, he claims his political family and hisheritage: "Under (former Prime Minister) Lionel Jospin, it was the left of the PSthat set the tempo, with 35 hours without loss of salary (...) We had a useful


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contribution."

Speaking in the journal of finance capital, he said not one word on the TSCG.This is unfortunate, but this is the truth."Reorganize Europe on new foundations"

Melenchon goes right up to the point of defending the European Central Bank(ECB) against the hijacking by finance of the role he would have allegedly fixed:"It's a scandal!" he declared. "The ECB has become a bank of defeasance forthe toxic assets of all the banks in the euro zone. Where is that trillion? It wasn'tinjected into the economy (...), this is unacceptable. In metallurgy, the Union ofMetallurgies Industries (UIMM) is reduced to financing the PMEs (small andmedium-sized businesses), which cannot find the money from banks. But whereis it?" It's difficult to track down.

As to the question of what attitude to adopt with respect to the European Union

and its institutions, Jean-Luc Melenchon is clear: "Facing a European systemthat cannot hold, three postures are possible: Blindly defend the austerity plansin saying they will eventually work; leave Europe; or reorganize Europe on newfoundations. This third posture is ours."

The words have meaning. The "European system" about which he speaks to us,is the European Union, based on precise treaties. "Europe," from which hedoesn't want to leave, is the European Union. His "reorganization" is a reform ofthe European Union. This is what Hollande proposes with his "renegotiation" of

the TSCG.

Isn't this contradictory to what many had understood from his previousdeclarations? These are not the "tricks" aspired to by millions of citizens,beginning with the Left Front voters, who have clearly pronounced themselves infavor of a break ... and that all that remains to be done is to impose the solution.

This is why the fight for the organization of a national demonstration against theratification of the TSGC - as unified as possible and inclusive of anyone, despiteother differences we may have - immediately takes on decisive importance.

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Special Report on France From Informations Ouvrieres