National Front on the offensive
It is one year since the National Front won control of the town councils in Toulon, Marignane and Orange, and tripled their number of municipal councillors. Arnaldo Castelleras of the anti-fascist group Ras l'front explains how the neo-fascists have launched their own "socioprofessional" organisations to combat the trade unions, and are trying to elect their members onto the management and consultation bodies responsible for France's municipal social housing (HLMs). In all parts of the country, in every domain of life, they are on the offensive.
THE NATIONAL FRoNt (Front National, FN) reacted to the November-December 1995 public sector labour militancy with a double discourse: criticising Prime Minister Juppé's counter-reforms, and criticising the "social agitation" of the labour movement. Workers" frustration was legitimate, the Front explained, but the "established" unions had no right to organise a mobilisation around the question. "Many National Front voters and sympathisers are on strike. It is our duty to show them the way in which they are being fooled" wrote the FN's National hebdo, 12/1995.
This is not the first time the FN has used a double discourse when it is overtaken by events. The party presents itself as the alternative, not to the government, but to the two-party oligopoly. Social movements are not the far-right's favourite fighting ground, to the point where party leaders cried conspiracy. "This is a displacement of the political debate from the national sphere, where the FN is unbeatable, to a make-believe social sphere" Social-nationalism
On May Ist 1996, the National Front presented itself as the "trade union of the French." Party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen's newsletter Français d'abord (French First) chose the provocative title "Social means FN!" The party's militants organised May Day events under the slogan "May First: national, popular and social".
Le Pen has never shown much sympathy for the "labouring masses," due to their unpleasant tendency to vote socialist or communist. But, now that their affection for those two parties is declining, he is re-evaluating them... as potential FN voters. lence the FN's May Day banners calling for ly wage of 7,000 FF (€950)
and, of course "jobs for the French"
The FN recognises the battle over deregulation of the public sector, and the massive cuts in services, as a chance for them to pick up some discontented voters. Leading FN theorist Bruno Mégret recognises that "there is a certain lack of support for the FN among civil servants... [and yet] we recognise them as servants of the state, which is the spine of the Nation... The FN is committed to defending the state and, as such, can only conceive political activities which support, rather than attack, the servants of that state." As the anti-fascist group Ras l'front commented in their June magazine, the new thesis seems to be "civil servants = state = nation = National Front."
The party's proposals for civil servants are clear: "make the criteria of priority for citizens in recruitment untouchable, reestablish the impartiality of the administrative sector, re-place the state in its proper position, give the civil servants the tools they need to do the job, and re-establish their prestige in the eyes of the public." Obviously, these promises are combined with a number of obligations, notably "reserve, and limitations on the right to strike."
Mégret's promises to civil servants are part of an attempt to improve the party's image among manual and white collar workers. This re-orientation has already brought positive results for the party: a record number of workers and the unemployed voted for the FN during last year's elections. Having won these new supporters, the challenge for the far-right is to keep them. For many of those who vote Le Pen in protest, have neither read, nor agree with the entire programme of the National Front.
Party leaders disagree on how to stabilise the working class support for the FN. But a number of elements seem widely accepted in
National Front May Day demonstration, 1996, statue of Joanne of Arc, Paris the party's inner circle.
First of all, of course, there is "the national preference," applicable in all domains of life, as the answer to all kinds of problems. The "French first" panacea enables the FN to propose order in social chaos, and rationalises the racist fantasies of a significant minority of the population.
"National preference" may not be legal, but it is the central element of FN policy in the towns where they dominate the municipal council, and wherever they are able to influence administrative bodies, including a worrying number of ANPE (state job placement centres). Those who implement this illegal, racist preference for the (white) French-born are by no means all militants of the FN. Which is all the more worrying... Cases of discrimination, including refusal to authorise marriages where one party is foreign-born, are increasing.
The FN has three times more municipal councillors than before the elections. Which gives the party unprecedented visibility in the local media. Their outrageous policies seem increasingly banal, even legitimised. They are present on school governors committees, they have proposals about the municipal budget... everywhere you tum you see them
Since the Nice Congress in 1992, the FN has been trying to intervene in the working class, with associations like Fraternité française, a charitable organisation running
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* France soup kitchens, and distributing aid to the homeless... of certifiable French origin, of course.
But now the party has launched its own trade unions, in the police force, and in the public transport utilities of Paris (RATP) and Lyons (TCL).
The FN has also begun presenting candidates in elections to the management committees of HLM social housing projects. The programme of "Tenants' National Front" is strong on racism and obsessed with personal security. They propose, of course, "national preference" in waiting lists, and "peace and quiet in the projects, by expelling those tenants who disturb public order, and by preventing over-population of these apartments." The enemy is fairly clearly defined.
National Front ideas are also winning wider support. A recent Le Monde poll wider support. A recent Le Monde poll carried out by SOFRES suggests that 33% of the population agree with Jean-Marie Le Pen on immigration, 35% approve of his statements on security and justice, 31% support his initiatives "for the defence of traditional values. A second poll suggests that 45% of the population "dislikes" Arabs, the largest visible immigrant group, compared to "only" 42% en 1994, and 39 % en 1990. Just over 75% of the population in communes where there are few or no foreigners agree with statements like "there are too many Arabs in France," compared to about 45% of the population in municipalities where over 10% of the community is foreign-born. Terrorising the right
Only a small number of conservative deputies and councillors are tempted to join the FN. But a much larger number are adapting their discourse to the right to minimise the danger of a FN challenge in the 1998 parliamentary elections. National Front votes will hold the balance of power in a number of constituencies. The party's 1995 Summer School in Toulon outlined the strategy for eating into the conservative vote over the next two years. According to Bruno Mégret, councillors and deputies from the conservative parties (RPR and UDF) have a choice. Either live in illusions, and be rudely awoken in 1998 by the National Front, or start making their acts more coherent with their ideas... Inside or outside [of the Front] they should work with us in a wide regroupment, to lift the country out of the rut."
It seems, however, that the Front's leaders hesitate between Le Pen's grand dream of replacing the major right parties, and a strategy aiming to integrate the party in a realigned right. This second strategy will presumably gain ground inside the FN Vincent Scheltiens
"Jobs for our own people first!" That's the title of the new, "social" programme, launched by the Vlaams Blok on May Day in the east Flanders town of Aalst. In a sharp attack on the social democratic party, Vlaams Blok leader Philippe De Winter claimed that "we have taken their votes. Now we will take their symbols." He was referring to the social and cultural resistance symbolised by the struggle of the Aalst Catholic Priest Daens at the beginning of the century. After the symbols, "we will take [their] power," promised De Winter.
The fundamental motivation behind the "social" campaign is the Blok's inability to break out of the cordon sanitaire imposed by the other parliamentary parties at every level. This embargo has isolated the Blok, despite its 10% of votes in Flanders, more than 10 parliamentary deputies in the Flemish and Belgium parliaments, and hundreds of municipal councillers
The influential rightist monthly Voorpost confirms the strategic importance of De Winter's "left turn on the social front." The time has come to bite the Flemish social democrats: discredited co-managers of the austerity crisis. While keeping open to the possibility of a realignment with Flemish neo-liberals and the right wing of Christian Democracy, in a Flemish version of Forza Italia
All eyes are rightly concentrated on Antwerp. The port city is governed by a leadership to the extent that there are signs, from the outside, that the Front's ideas are more and more widely accepted on the right. Mégret can already list some progress: a number of RPR and UDF deputies recently signed a petition for the re-introduction of the death penalty; a number of recent parliamentary reports support FN thesis (Sauvaigo report on illegal immigration, Pic report on public housing); a number of anti-abortion amendments have been proposed in parliament. As the FN's ideologue boasts all these are signs of the growing weight of our ideas in French society... real progress on the ideological front for the National Front."
Unfortunately, Mégret is not wrong. National Front ideas have never been so well received. The government could hardly be doing a better job in preparing the ground for the Front national. * grand coalition, ranging from neo-liberals to the greens and most of the red-green coalition. To maintain this bloc against the 18 fascist councillors, the left in this coalition has chosen, vote after vote, to accept budget and policy orientations determined by the non-fascist right. Except for Fourth International supporter Nadine Peters the only left councillor who has refused to sign the coalition agreement of the majority bloc. She argues that the majority's repeated concessions will, sooner or later, enable the Vlaams Blok to capitalise on legitimate discontent with the council, and break out of their isolation.
In the French-speaking south of the country, the Front national (National Front) of Dr. Daniel Féret is loosing momentum, and divided into factions, opposing "leader-for-life" Féret and retired judge Marguerite Bastien. Both groups have appealed to their spiritual leader, French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, for "official" recognition.
Despite this marginalisation, and a series of corruption scandals, the National Front is continuing to put down roots in a number of new communes and districts of Brussels, the capital city. They are helped by the general climate: dominated by crisis, and influence by the government's obsessions with security and the "refugee problem". And by the continued decline in the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement in recent months. A gloomy picture. *