% FIRST ROUND Mitterrand (SP) 34.10 Chirac (RPR) 19.90 Raymond Barre 16.55 Union for French Democracu (UDF Union for French Democracy (UDF) Jean-Marie Le Pen 14.41 National Front (NF) André Lajoinie 6.78
Communist Party (CP) Antoine Waechter 3.78
Greens Pierre Juquin 2.10 Independent Left Arlette Laguiller 2.00
Workers' Struggle (Lutte Ouvriere) Pierre Boussel 0.38
Movement for a Workers' Party (MPPT/PCI)
Votes (1981) 16,676,335 (52.22) 14,192,937 (47.77)
Votes (1981) 10,326,369 (25.9%) 6,025,376 (18%)
5,010,577 (28.3%)
4,363,603
2,053,764 (15.3%)
1,145,502 (3.9%)
636,761
604,524 (2.3%)
116,474 7
FRANCE tion. A study of the electoral map shows an essentially urban and socially-distinctive vole.
In the capital and the Paris region, Pierre Juquin obtained some quite good results, with scores overall well above the national average. There were other significant results in te provinces, such as 3.10 in sults in the provinces, such as 3.77% in Grenoble, 3.94% at Saint-Egrève, 5.1% in Bastia (Corsica) and 3.5% or higher in a number of towns like Clermont, Rennes, Montpellier, Brest, Toulouse and so on.
With few exceptions, the candidate did best in the traditional bastions of the Communist Party, where he evidently captured an electorate who, while critical of the CP leadership's orientation, do not intend to throw the baby out with the bath water. It is also in such areas that the rénovateur current has its strongest implantation. In Brest, for example, only 13 votes separated Juquin from the CP candidate, André Lajoinie. The results in the Finistère department, where the local Communist federation was recently the victim of a "normalization" procedure, also confirm this phenomenon.
In Blenod (Meurthe-et-Moselle), where the rénovateur Alain Amicabile was a candidate in last year's cantonal elections, Juquin got 10.6%, while Lajoinie trailed far behind with 6.9%. In the same region, similar results turned up in workers' towns like Homécourt (8.8%) or Auboué (6.9%).
Total far left vote was the biggest ever
In some departments, Arlette Laguiller came in front of Juquin. But, even in these instances, the tendency that I just described was confirmed. Juquin was clearly ahead of the other "far left" candidates in the big industrial towns, with scores much higher than his national average.
Although obscured by the evident failure on the national scale we can still see a real recomposition at work here. It remains in its very early stages. But it nonetheless represents a basis for building a new anticapitalist force, the lack of which is cruelly felt today. This is why we should not allow ourselves to be discouraged; the outcome of this campaign must be analyzed in a balanced and responsible way.
Despite the frightening score for Le Pen, the first round of this presidential election has revealed another reason for hope, one that escaped most of the political commentators. The total vote for Juquin, Laguiller and Pierre Boussel [Lambert] came within a whisker of 4.5%. A threshold that has never before been reached by the far left, as was underlined by a clear-sighted and worried Figaro editorialist on April 25: "The dynamic created by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the name of a fully-fledged ideological rearmament, in reaction, given a boost to the left of the left'."
This observation should make everybody 8 stan nd thing and as cp to dispel tre seetarian bluffing that has cost us so dear. * International Viewpoint #141 • May 16, 1988
JEAN-MARIE LE PEN
Beyond the shock IT WAS the shock of April 24. With four and a half million votes, the fascistic leader was hot on the heels of the two classical right-wing parties. The threat is sufficiently serious for a close-up study of this new electorate and for conclusions for action to be drawn. LAURENT CARASSO W HERE DID the National
Front's votes come from? There are a number of pointers to begin to understand this new phenomenon. The first is that Jean-Marie Le Pen's vote "shattered" the classical right. Between this election and the 1986 legislative election, the extreme right won 1.6 million votes and the right lost 1.5 million.
Looking at the national results, the left appeared to have been spared from the surge for Le Pen since the left candidates' vote grew by 1.4 million votes, essentially profiting Mitterrand and, marginally, the extreme left. Even if assuming that this was the case, the essential fact remains that the vote for Le Pen was a massive vote for a candidate who openly defends an ultrareactionary programme....
The second thing to note is that in general there was not a simple shift from the right to the extreme right, even if this occurred in a few departments.
Le Pen won substantial working class vote
Even a superficial analysis of the comparative results between 1986 and 1988 in the "red belt" departments of the Paris suburbs, or working-class towns like Bouchesde-Rhône, shows clearly that Le Pen continues to eat into the working-class electorate.
The third point is that Le Pen's vote has become national. In 1986, Le Pen received less than 10% in 65 departments and only went over 20% in two of them. Today, there are no more than 20 departments where his score is less than 10%. He got over 20% in 8 departments. From this it is clear that Le Pen's vote does not only include that of the "marginalized, unemployed and de-classed" , or of the "poor whites" in the urban suburbs protesting against immigrants.
Many factors taken together prove that, in four years, the National Front has stabilized an electorate essentially won over from the traditional right. This has been achieved on the basis of a programme advocating tough anti-labour solutions in hard times, and putting forward "law and order" themes that pay off inside the petty-bourgeoisie.
Within this, Le Pen has won a good part of the previously Gaullist electorate that the RPR has not managed to hold onto. This combines with the gains he has made from the crisis inside the workers' movement, another reason for his success.
"Anti-establishment" image
While the three principal candidates said that everything in the garden was rosy, while cohabitation has ensured that the masses paid for the economic crisis, while they showed disregard for unemployment and the high cost of living, Le Pen was allowed to cultivate his "anti-establishment" image.
With his popular rhetoric he managed to appear sensitive to people's concerns, even though he encapsulated the most anti-working class programme there is, and even though he would be the first to reduce taxes on the rich....
The ball is therefore now in the court of the workers movement, and in particular with those who want to fight the social-democratic management of austerity and the declining spiral of the CP. They have a role to play. They have a huge responsibility to map out a way forward that is credible to workers and youth and that can really change the situation. *
FRANCE
How the cancer spread THERE ARE many examples to confirm the various breakthroughs made by Le Pen. In Alsace (Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin), Le Pen beat Raymond Barre, coming ahead of all the other right-wing candidates in the two departments with scores of over 20%. Here it was neither the high immigration rate nor the CP's slide (they got less than 6% here in 1981) that can explain Le Pen's result.
There was a clear polarization, marked on one hand by an increase for Mitterrand — who got the highest score in the two departments, unlike in 1981 - and on the other hand by the dizzy fall of Barre.While Chirac's vote held up, Barre lost more than 50% of the votes previously won by Giscard d'Estaing. So Le Pen's vote here was a politically reactionary one, coming from the centre right. In Vaucluse, a rich agricultural department, the National Front also saw its vote climb, essentially to the detriment of the Barre current.
Beyond this trend, the most spectacular "effect" was obviously in the industrial areas, where Le Pen won votes from the traditionally Gaullist and left electorates.
wing candidate. In the traditional Communist stronghold of Saint-Denis itself, Le Pen won 6,000 votes, beating the CP candidate Lajoinie by 600.
This phenomenon was identical in all the working-class Paris suburbs. In the Val-de-Marne, even if the CP could hold its head high in Ivry, in CP leader Georges Marchais' home town, Champigny, only 300 votes separated Lajoinie and Le Pen.
The other determining factor is obviously in the decimated industrial regions. In Moselle, for example, Le Pen won many new voters, getting 20% or 40,000 votes in a region that has been successively abandoned by both the governments of the left and the right. In Hayange, in 1981, the CP's candidate came top of the list with 27.48%. Today, Le Pen got 20% and Lajoinie only 11%.
In Bouches-de-Rhône, this trend continued — a trend that has been noticeable since 1983. In traditional Communist municipalities like Gardanne en Septèmes, Le Pen beat the other candidates.
In Marseille, a town symbolic of the Front's growth, the traditional right lost 50,000 votes as did the CP, with Mitterrand
LA FRANCE AUX FRANÇAIS
In Seine-Saint-Denis, a large and Le Pen respectively winning 30,000 part of the CP's vote fell and 40,000 votes in comparison with 1986.
into the pockets of Le
So, in most departments one can trace the various sources of Le Pen's score. The only
Pen and Mitterrand, with Le Pen also regions where Le Pen got less than winning votes
10% were Poitou-Charentes, the
Massif Central and Brittany, but from the traditional right.
even here his vote increased.
Here also, Le
DEHORS
Finally, the National Front is now
Pen was the well-rooted in the departments
LES
ARABES around the Mediterranean leading rightcoast, due in part to the number of repatriated French Algerian voters and the consequences of massive unemployment. In Var, for example, where the left vote held up, Le Pen got the most votes of all the candidates. The same was true for La Seyne, where Marchais came first in 1981, as well as for traditionally reactionary towns like
Fréjus, Hyères and Saint-
Raphaël. *
ANDRE LAJOINIE hide the irreversible nature of the CP's decline. The day of
CP reckoning is here.
continues
GEORGES VILLETIN
"T
HE REAL influence of the
Communist Party is much its decline greater." CP leader Georges
Marchais' remark on election night will only reassure the blind, but certainly not the tens of thousands of Commu-
A NUMBER of critical CP nist militants crushed by Lajoinie's result.
members voted for their
The wishful thinking of those who are precandidate, André Lajoinie, to siding over the CP's decline cannot hide the realities: the party lost three points com-
"save the party".
". Now, all the pared with the national assembly elections
9 leadership's quibbling cannot in 1986 and half of its 1981 presidential
FRANCE election score.
In nearly all departments, CP candidates were beaten by Mitterrand. The same goes for most of the municipalities run by the party. Sometimes, they were even overtaken by Le Pen in the historic bastions of the previously "red suburbs" of Paris, like Montreuil or Saint-Denis. Depending on which electoral system proportional or first-past-the-post] is in force, there is a big risk of the CP losing most of its municipalities and parliamentary representatives in the future. Lastly, it is interesting to note that, in a significant number of towns, the combined votes of Juquin and Laguiller equalled, if not surpassed, those of the CP.
Historic and irreversible collapse
This historic and irreversible collapse is not linked to the contents of the programme defended by Lajoinie, but to the credibility of the party itself. The many zig-zags by the Marchais leadership — which has defended one thing and then its opposite with identical self-assurance - have discredited the party so much that most of its old electorate Will no longer listen to it. After each new turn, more and more supporters are left behind. The one thing the different political lines have often had in common is having no relation with the demands of social mobilizations....
Naturally, this crisis also profoundly affects the 19,000 elected CP officials, who are facing a growing marginalization because of the national electoral results of their party. It is still difficult to predict the scale and the results of this new stage in the crisis which will be, in part, determined by the attitude of the leadership. But, already, on the evening of April 24 the ex-federal leadership of Meurthe-et-Moselle and the deputy Colette Gueuriot called on their comrades "to think deeply and draw the lessons of these elections", ', because "they should not be satisfied with the national leadership's explanations".
In the face of their party's decline, tens of thousands of Communists are striving to understand what is happening and, like us, are not prepared to abandon the struggle against capitalism. Our proposal to them is that we discuss and act together, to help in the building of a revolutionary party. * 10
Bitterness and disappointment TWENTY-FIVE towns, 25 Communist Party fiefdoms, 25 disasters! Ivry is the only one of the CP's municipalities, won in the heroic age, where Lajoinie came ahead of Mitterrand. But Mitterrand won twice as many votes as the CP in Nanterre, Montreuil and Choisy. The same was also nearly the case in the most symbolic area of all, Saint-Denis [a working-class and Communist stronghold for half a century. ALEXIS VIOLET IN MONTREUIL, Colombes and Saint-Ouen something much worse happened: Le Pen beat the CP, with close to — or sometimes more than — 20% of the vote. The only slight breathing space was in the southern Parisian suburbs of Ivry and Vitry where the Communist candidate lost 11 thousand votes compared with the 1981 presidential election. All the same, this was less tragic than Saint-Denis, where he lost 8 thousand votes out of the 13 thousand won in the legislative elections in 1981.
This is nothing less than a real, and often understandable, catastrophe for those members who lived through a time when the CP made it easily into the second round. For these members, over a number of decades, these municipalities were real liberated zones.
The working-class electorate has given its verdict. Their response was menacing when, in their rage and disappointment, they voted for Le Pen. It was pragmatic when they judged that the CP was no longer revolutionary and that, therefore, it was better to vote for the biggest re formist party. It was encouraging when they expressed a continuing attachment to the communist ideal, in spite of the errors of the CP leaders, by voting for Juquin.
in some big towns where the CP controls the town hall, the results are similar. In the biggest, Le Havre, they lost 10 points in comparison with the legislative elections in 1981. The CP was even beaten by Le Pen, and came 22 points behind Mitterrand. The figures speak for themselves! In Le Mans, Lajoinie got under 10%, with a vote a quarter that of the Socialist Party and half that of Le Pen. Only in Alès did the CP keep a narrow lead over National Front. At Venissieux, a working class town near Lyon, and at Echirolles near Grenoble, Le Pen also overtook Lajoinie.
A general phenomenon that the CP leadership can no longer cover up is that a part of the CP's electorate voted in 1988 for the extreme right. After the "glory" of Stalin, it is the appeal of anti-fascism - in the ascendant in 1934-36 and under the occupation and the liberation -that is collapsing. The repercussions will be profound, and this will undoubtedly be a new factor aggravating the CP's crisis. In Longwy, Lorraine — a town that is a symbol of the iron and steel industry crisis — the CP fell from 26% to 12% from one presidential election to the next. If Le Pen is growing in this region as well it is because the CP did not appear as a real defender of the metalworkers in the last big fight for jobs. A final point: in towns like Rouen or Clermont-Ferrand, the combined votes for Juquin, Laguiller and Boussel overtook that of the CP!
But we should keep a clear head. Elections always give a deformed snapshot of reality. The skin of the bureaucratic bear is not for sale; we have to build an alternative. But it is sure that, in light of the depth of the CP's crisis and its foreseeable developments, a number of municipal post-holders are going to hesitate for some time before choosing between the official line of the leadership and what they judge to be best for defending their own local interests. The municipal elections in 1989 will be a test of that. *