Fascism in the French regional elections
(updated Tuesday morning)
You will have seen the numbers showing tremendous progress for the fascists in the French regional elections.
The objective of regional elections is to elect regional councils who are responsible for many aspects of public services: transport, building higher education establishments, funding care for old people etc. This time round however, the national political debate has overshadowed specifically regional questions.
Since the previous regional elections were held under Sarkozy's presidency, the Socialist Party did really well and gained control of almost all the regions. It was expected then that the Left would lose several. The extent of the National Front success, however, was generally underestimated.
The FN got six million votes (two and a half times its vote in the last regional elections five years ago). It is in the lead in six of the thirteen regions and there is a risk of one or two regional governements being in the hands of the FN after the second round run-off next week. In two of the regions where the FN are in the lead, the Socialist Party has decided to withdraw its slates, preferring to have no regional councillors in these regions for five years rather than risk having a small group of councillors in a region run by the Front national.
In a third region the PS regional leader is for the moment refusing to follow the instructions of his national leadership and withdraw his slate. PS voters in his region are divided 50/50 on whether they think it is a good idea to withdraw and leave the Right and the fascists to compete alone for the second round. All such decisions must be made by Tuesday evening. The national Socialist Party leadership is disowning the dissident. But his approach is fundamentally correct: abandoning all Left ideas and supporting the Right in elections is a strategy which can only demoralize the whole of the Left and lead to further disasters in the medium term. It will also allow the FN to use to the full their argument that Left and Right are the same and in league against them.
There is still analysis to be done, but there is plenty of bad news. One of the worrying things is that, in the eleven towns which are run by a town council under the FN, the fascists got very high scores, sometimes as high as 60%. Anyone still tempted to speak of a short-term "protest vote" is way out of line. Melodramatic responses, however, seeing the FN on the threshold of winning the parliament and presidency, are harmful in the present situation. The FN has managed to carry off on a national scale what previously it could only do locally. Still, its activist machine at a local level is generally weak, it cannot mobilize mass demonstrations, and the majority who oppose its ideas can get organized to defeat it, though confusion is far more common than planning right now.
The objective of regional elections is to elect regional councils who are responsible for many aspects of public services: transport, building higher education establishments, funding care for old people etc. This time round however, the national political debate has overshadowed specifically regional questions.
Since the previous regional elections were held under Sarkozy's presidency, the Socialist Party did really well and gained control of almost all the regions. It was expected then that the Left would lose several. The extent of the National Front success, however, was generally underestimated.
The FN got six million votes (two and a half times its vote in the last regional elections five years ago). It is in the lead in six of the thirteen regions and there is a risk of one or two regional governements being in the hands of the FN after the second round run-off next week. In two of the regions where the FN are in the lead, the Socialist Party has decided to withdraw its slates, preferring to have no regional councillors in these regions for five years rather than risk having a small group of councillors in a region run by the Front national.
In a third region the PS regional leader is for the moment refusing to follow the instructions of his national leadership and withdraw his slate. PS voters in his region are divided 50/50 on whether they think it is a good idea to withdraw and leave the Right and the fascists to compete alone for the second round. All such decisions must be made by Tuesday evening. The national Socialist Party leadership is disowning the dissident. But his approach is fundamentally correct: abandoning all Left ideas and supporting the Right in elections is a strategy which can only demoralize the whole of the Left and lead to further disasters in the medium term. It will also allow the FN to use to the full their argument that Left and Right are the same and in league against them.
There is still analysis to be done, but there is plenty of bad news. One of the worrying things is that, in the eleven towns which are run by a town council under the FN, the fascists got very high scores, sometimes as high as 60%. Anyone still tempted to speak of a short-term "protest vote" is way out of line. Melodramatic responses, however, seeing the FN on the threshold of winning the parliament and presidency, are harmful in the present situation. The FN has managed to carry off on a national scale what previously it could only do locally. Still, its activist machine at a local level is generally weak, it cannot mobilize mass demonstrations, and the majority who oppose its ideas can get organized to defeat it, though confusion is far more common than planning right now.
A good chunk of the responsibility for the rise of the FN lies squarely on the shoulders of François Hollande. The policy of cuts and public sector wage freezes, the continuing rise in unemployment, despite all the promises, as well as the state of emergency and the support for anti-muslim laws all make Hollande much less distinguishable from the Right than the Socialist Party used to be. Although his gesticulations in the last few weeks have raised his personal standing in the polls from pathetic to just unpopular, this was not enough to make people of the Left come out and vote for his party. Half the electorate stayed at home, and polls showed that if 50% of Left sympathizers "intended to go out and vote" a few days ago, 58% of Front national sympathizers did - even more in the regions where they might win a majority on the regional council.
The terrorist attacks have also helped the fascists. Whereas for many years "unemployment" had been at the top of electors' priorities in the opinion polls, in the last few weeks "security" has overtaken it easily. The government's decision to allow town councils to employ armed police, among many other measures, pushed the all-security agenda forward, and the Front national has a reputation of being "firm" on this issue.
The terrorist attacks have also helped the fascists. Whereas for many years "unemployment" had been at the top of electors' priorities in the opinion polls, in the last few weeks "security" has overtaken it easily. The government's decision to allow town councils to employ armed police, among many other measures, pushed the all-security agenda forward, and the Front national has a reputation of being "firm" on this issue.
The Left Front, whose MPs and senators (almost all Communist party) either abstained or voted in favour of the State of Emergency, had difficulty being audible, though votes in some towns are over 20%. The Left Front campaigned on an anti-austerity and anti-racist base, and sections of it protested loudly against the loss of civil liberties in the State of emergency.
Activists on the radical Left are very much divided on what to do in the second round of the elections. Some are prepared to vote for the Right if they stand alone against the FN, others will refuse to vote for the Socialist Party against the traditional Right wing parties and prefer not to vote. Facebook has plenty of activists throwing moralist invectives (« You will be rightly condemned as a traitor if… » "As long as there is a breath left in my body..." Fill in your own conditions).
Slates which get more than 10% can if they wish go through to the next round. Slates which get between 5 and 10% can if there is agreement merge with another slate which got more than 10%.
In areas where the Front de Gauche got more than 5% of the vote, the FDG slate can if it wishes ask to merge with the Socialist Party slate. The Fdg got just over six and a half per cent in the Paris region.
Such mergers can be of two types : either a political merger based on a joint declaration of policy, and implying that FDG regional councillors will participate in governing with the PS and take on official responsibilities within the regional governments in case of success. Otherwise it is possible, if the Socialist Party agrees, to ask for a « technical merger » : that is to have people elected on a joint list with the PS but not to take official responsability, and not to promise general support for the PS regional government if elected.
In the region "Midi-pyrénees-Languedoc-Roussillon" the Front de Gauche and the PS have decided on a "technical merger". The merged slate includes candidates from the anticapitalist grouping, Ensemble, which I am a member of.
Mathematically, the mergers make a difference, because whichever slate gets the highest vote in the second round gets a « leader’s bonus » of 25% of the seats, and so has an easy majority on the regional council.
Politically, radical left activists and anticapitalist activists are divided on the question of possible merging with PS slates. Some think that the Socialist Party policy, especially nationally, makes it impossible to make a joint slate, even for « technical » purposes. Others think our voters will be best served if we propose a merger of lists, while maintaining political independence (this is my view).
The biggest need in France is a broadly based movement against the Front national. There are many local groups, with some coordination between them, and they do good work. However there is little consensus on what to do. Many Left activists consider that encouraging strikes and class struggles is the only way to cut the grass beneath the feet of the fascists, forgetting the different time scales involved (defeating austerity will take a long time, marginalizing the fascists and making it impossible for them to organize events could be done much faster with a sizeable movements ). Others consider that "there is no real difference between the Front national and the austerity-mad socialists", forgetting all the lessons of the 1930s. Others again think that physically stopping the small, hard street-fighting nazi groups should be a priority over defeating the FN (which however is the main engine for far right progression and helps all the others). Finally, sectarianism and "anti-party" sectarianism are very common in antifascist networks...
John Mullen December 2015
PS for those who were wondering, the NPA did not have candidates in this election. Much of its leadership called to vote for Lutte Ouvrière.
The biggest need in France is a broadly based movement against the Front national. There are many local groups, with some coordination between them, and they do good work. However there is little consensus on what to do. Many Left activists consider that encouraging strikes and class struggles is the only way to cut the grass beneath the feet of the fascists, forgetting the different time scales involved (defeating austerity will take a long time, marginalizing the fascists and making it impossible for them to organize events could be done much faster with a sizeable movements ). Others consider that "there is no real difference between the Front national and the austerity-mad socialists", forgetting all the lessons of the 1930s. Others again think that physically stopping the small, hard street-fighting nazi groups should be a priority over defeating the FN (which however is the main engine for far right progression and helps all the others). Finally, sectarianism and "anti-party" sectarianism are very common in antifascist networks...
John Mullen December 2015
PS for those who were wondering, the NPA did not have candidates in this election. Much of its leadership called to vote for Lutte Ouvrière.
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