The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.13           April 6, 1998 
 
 
Regional Elections In France Register Political Polarization  

BY DEREK JEFFERS AND RAFIK BENALI
PARIS - The elections for 22 regional councils and council presidents that took place across France in mid-March marked an increasing political polarization and a greater fracturing of the conservative coalition of President Jacques Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) and the Union for French Democracy (UDF).

In five regions, politicians from the RPR and UDF made last-minute alliances with the ultraright National Front (FN) to elect UDF regional council presidents March 20, including in the second-largest region in France, Rhone-Alpes. The UDF immediately suspended the five candidates. Both the UDF and RPR national leaderships had officially opposed any alliance with the National Front. The Socialist Party (SP), Communist Party (CP), Greens, and other forces began planning for a demonstration March 28 in Paris "against the alliance of the right with the FN." Anti-National Front demonstrations were organized March 23 before three regional councils and in the home town of Charles Millon, regional president of Rhone- Alpes.

Council elections reflect polarization
Each slate receiving at least 5 percent of the vote in the March 15 elections received proportional representation in the regional councils. The councils then elect their presidents.

The National Front, headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen, received 15.2 percent of the vote. This is similar to the results of the 1997 national legislative elections and 1995 presidential vote, and an increase over the 13.9 percent the FN obtained in the previous regional elections in 1992. In several regions, particularly urban areas hard hit by unemployment and industrial layoffs, the FN vote rose more rapidly, increasing by more than 3 points to 26.3 percent in the region around Marseilles, for example, where the FN now holds more seats than any party. The overall number of FN regional counselors went from 239 to 275.

For the first time parties seen as to the left of the SP and CP, Workers Struggle (LO) and the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), elected counselors with 23 altogether. These parties received 4.3 percent of the vote nationally. LO national spokesperson Arlette Laguillier was elected in the working-class suburbs of Paris, with 6.8 percent of the vote in the Seine Saint Denis.

Abstentions reached a record level of 42 percent, as compared to 31 percent in the 1992 regional elections.

The SP, CP and Greens, who make up the legislative majority of SP prime minister Lionel Jospin since June 1997, formed joint slates and received 36.5 percent of the vote, almost 6 points less than in the 1997 legislative contests and barely ahead of the RPR and UDF, which took 35.8 percent. The bloc of government parties, called the "Plural Left," elected a larger number of regional counselors than the UDF- RPR in 12 regions, which they had expected to govern. Since the 1992 regional elections, the Plural Left has held only 2 of the 22 regional presidents. After regional council meetings on March 20 and March 23, 13 regions had elected UDF or RPR presidents and only five SP presidents. Three others had to vote again, after UDF or RPR representatives elected with the votes of the FN resigned, following the policy of their national leaderships. The Corsican council was to meet later.

French capitalism in trouble
The election results are an expression of the crisis facing capitalists in France, as they confront increased resistance to their austerity measures at home and savage competition from rival imperialist powers abroad.

The wave of public workers strikes and mass demonstrations against the attacks on social benefits by then Prime Minister Alain Juppé in November and December 1995 marked a noticeable upturn in working-class struggles in France. It came after a successful campaign led by youth against a sub- minimum wage in 1994, and was followed by battles of undocumented immigrants for legal status. In 1996 and 1997, French truckers struck and blocked roads for better working conditions, a shorter workweek, and an increase in wages. More recently, campaigns organized among Francés 3 million unemployed (12.1 percent of the workforce) have taken over government offices demanding jobs, decent levels of unemployment benefits, and benefits for youth under 25.

Demonstrations against the FN have also spread. Thirty thousand took part in a recent action in Toulouse on March 5.

Several workers at the GEC-Alsthom transformer plant in the Paris suburb of Saint Ouen expressed concern about the growth of the National Front in interviews with the Militant. The vote for the FN "is dangerous," said Pablo Hormigos, 38 years old. "The FN was a small party 20 years ago, getting only 0.5 percent. They grew after the left came to power in 1981 with [SP president Francois] Mitterrand. All the political parties are responsible for the growth of the National Front. What do workers want - to have a job and to live decently. The left made us believe that they were going to do that, but in fact they are incapable of doing that."

Robert Helias, a 39-year-old worker at the tranformer plant commented, "What scares me is that the National Front is growing slowly but surely, because we had the right and then the left and it was the same thing."

The French rulers are also under growing pressure to defend their interests in areas of Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific, which have been their preserves and off grounds to other imperialist powers, notably Washington. The African tour of U.S. president William Clinton beginning March 23 will take him to Senegal and Rwanda, both economically dominated by Paris.

Keeping some room open to maneuver in the Mideast was likewise behind the French government's efforts in February to present itself as the champion of diplomatic means to force Baghdad to allow UN "weapons inspectors" free reign in Iraq. Paris presented this policy as a progressive stand against U.S. dominance and in the interests of "Europe." A major editorial in the French daily Le Monde characterized Washington's moves to expand NATO as reflecting "the failure of European policy dominated by a Franco-German axis in favor of a NATO under American/British control," with Poland as a favored ally in the East.

The conclusion of Le Monde that "Europe" does not exist as a political entity and that France must look out for itself was closely echoed in National Hebdo, a pro-National Front weekly.

Chirac's and Jospin's common stance on Iraq, presenting French policy as independent of Washington while supporting moves to prepare war, was not seriously challenged by any party standing in the recent elections. None of them, including LO and the LCR, denounced the imperialist attacks on Iraqi sovereignty during their campaign. The left parties had previously prepared to call a demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy in case the inspections deal, brokered by UN secretary general Kofi Annan and backed by the French government, failed. The demands of the protest were to be against the U.S. intervention (their emphasis) and the economic embargo; for democracy in Iraq; and for the dismantling of weapons of "mass destruction" in all the countries of the region. The demonstration was never held.

Some bosses begin to look to the FN
Faced with the growing interimperialist competition and their difficulties in dealing a blow to workers in France, some capitalists and their editorial and political representatives had shown signs that they were no longer hostile to an alliance between the RPR-UDF and the National Front before the March 20 and 23 election of regional presidents. According to Le Monde, at a March 3 meeting of the French Association of Private Enterprise (AFEP) its 75 year-old president, Ambroise Roux, proposed accords between the traditional conservative parties and the FN. Roux's remarks shocked some of the big capitalists present, according to Le Monde.

Jean-Francois Mancel, general secretary of the RPR from 1995-97, stated two days after the March 15 regional elections that the FN should "become part of the right of tomorrow.... I was one of the most pugnacious against the National Front, but when this strategy of war against the FN meets in total failure, you'd have to be crazy to continue it." He was expelled from the RPR the next day by the party's president, Philippe Séguin.

The morning after the election of the five regional presidents with the help of the FN, an editorial in the Figaro, the most prestigious openly right-wing French daily, said that all the fuss was excessive. "One still cannot put up with Jean-Marie Le Pen, but his voters are respectable French," the editors commented.

Alain Madelin, president of Liberal Democracy, a political formation belonging to the UDF, congratulated the regional presidents elected with the aid of the FN. He was, however, the only national leader of the grouping to do so. In a nationally televised speech on March 23, French president Jacques Chirac said he "disapproved" the regional alliances with the FN, declaring that "road can be dangerous."

Fascists maneuver the UDF and RPR
Taking advantage of the fact that the SP-CP-Greens slate held a clear majority in just one region, and only a plurality in 11 others, Le Pen proposed a "minimum program" to the RPR and UDF the day after the regional elections. In exchange for the votes of FN regional counselors for the election of regional presidents, Le Pen proposed an agreement around six points, centered on the lowering of taxes, priority for "public safety," and the "defense of the French and regional cultural identity."

In the Rhone-Alpes region around Lyon, Francés second largest city, Charles Millon, a UDF leader and defense minister in the Juppé government until 1997, accepted this "minimum program." He included the six points in his March 20 written declaration of candidacy to be reelected regional president. Earlier in the week he had met with Bruno Gollnisch, the regional FN boss. In the first ballot by the regional council, Gollnisch from the National Front and another candidate put forward by the Plural Left ran against Millon, and no one obtained a majority. Before the second ballot, Gollnisch asked Million if he really intended to apply the FN's six points. "Completely," responded the outgoing regional president, and the FN councilors promptly threw him their votes. Millon denied having made any alliance with the ultrarightist party. The process was similar elsewhere.

Regional councils were also elected March 15 in the areas of Latin America and the Caribbean incorporated into the French state. They showed an increase in support for pro- independence parties.

In Martinique the candidate of the Martinique Independence Movement (MIM) was elected regional president. The MIM received 24.5 percent of the popular vote. When Le Pen briefly landed on the Caribbean island last December, he was immediately greeted by protests. The FN did not present any candidate in Martinique, nor in Guadeloupe or Guiana, where independence parties also made gains.

In the second round of elections for half of the members of departmental councils in France held March 22, the SP and CP increased by 10 the number of departments where they hold majorities. They now hold majorities in 30 of Francés 95 departments.

Rafik Benali is a member of the Young Socialists. Derek Jeffers is a member of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) at GEC-Alsthom in Saint Ouen. Marcella FitzGerald contributed to this article.  
 
 
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