By Sam Wainwright
PARIS — From November 8 to 11, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR), France's largest and most influential far left party, held its decision-making conference here. Green Left Weekly interviewed ALAIN KRIVINE, the party's national leader, to ask him how his organisation viewed French society and the place of the left within it.
French working people, like those throughout Europe, are being squeezed hard as capitalism and the Chirac-Juppé government seek to bring the country into line with the European Union's Maastricht convergence criteria. Meeting the criteria means privatisation, public service sackings and cuts to health, education and welfare.
However, working people have put up fierce resistance to the austerity drive. With overwhelming support from the population, public sector workers struck for two months over November and December. The strike forced the government to make a number of retreats.
Krivine explained the background and significance of these developments: "Millions of French people are experiencing unprecedented social and economic hardship due to the attacks by the conservative government since it came to office two years ago, and from the legacy of similar austerity measures under the previous Socialist Party [PS] government.
"Secondly, it is evident that the ruling class's agenda has very little popular support. The last opinion poll indicated that the present prime minister [Alain Juppé] has only 30% support at most, which is totally new. It's the first time in a long while that the head of government has polled so low; it's a total loss of credibility.
"The third factor is the continued growth of the neo-fascist National Front (FN). It is benefiting from people's frustration with the policies of the conservative government and the discrediting of the 'traditional left' [the PS and the French Communist Party (PCF)] as an alternative." The FN currently polls around 20%.
Strikes and protests have continued into 1996. Krivine sees the ongoing support for opposition to the government's policies as the most vital development in recent times. "Since the last big strikes in November-December, a new period has opened up, in which the mass of the population has decided not to tolerate the attacks in the way they had under the PS governments. They've decided to fight.
"The polls show a fantastic new development: more than 50% of people support the various strikes and say they are willing to participate in such action themselves. It is a new period of combativity."
The focus of discussion at the LCR conference was what the left needs to do to give an effective expression to this combative spirit. There were two main aspects to this: what to propose in terms of mass activity; and, with elections only a year away, how to deliver an electoral defeat to the present government without simply falling behind a new pro-capitalist PS government such as was experienced during the 1980s.
According to Krivine, an urgent task is to create organisations and alliances that can organise people and fight for their needs. To date the militant spirit in the population has lacked a political expression that can tackle head on neo-liberalism and the pro-capitalist political parties.
"There is an increase in the social movements, with new demands and drawing new people into activity. You could say there's a new working class in a certain sense, such as people who have been to university but have been unable to find jobs to match their qualifications; today you find them in the railways, the post office, hospitals and so on. They are fuelling the social movements, but don't have a political alternative.
"These social movements are increasingly independent of the traditional left parties. The PS and the PCF are more and more solely electoral vehicles with fewer links to the social movements. That does not mean that there has been a huge break from these parties electorally — people continue to vote for them — but a clear left-wing political response is really lagging behind the social movements.
"The PS and the PCF say they will not repeat the experience of the 1980s, because they could not get away with saying that they would. However, this can not be believed. Some of their leaders are already talking about a 'union of the left' which is not based on an anti-capitalist program, but only on winning the next elections."
In counterposition to tagging along behind a conservative PS campaign, the LCR has been promoting a radical recomposition and unification of the left:
"We have made a proposal on two levels. The first is to oppose a conservative 'union of the left' and instead suggest a new coalition composed of political organisations, trade unions and community groups. We explain that this new coalition has to be based on a program to be discussed by its prospective members.
"The program or goals are important because up until now the leaders of the traditional left have been avoiding discussion around content. We have proposed 10 main demands which flow from the demands of the current social movements, and we want a wide-ranging discussion around these minimum 'real left' demands, which could form the basis for united struggle both before and after the next elections.
"Secondly, we are prepared to work with all the left radical forces who are convinced that we should join together to campaign against the neo-liberal austerity drive. We believe such people exist inside the PS, the PCF and the trade unions. We are saying that we are ready to build a radical bloc now, including common electoral campaigns if it is possible and there is agreement.
"We have to explain to people that it is possible to defeat the right's attacks and help them to build that struggle. That is why we want to build coalitions with all people and organisations that want to lead that sort of fight, both at election time and in the day to day struggles."
Krivine pointed to a recent by-election in the south of France. "A bloc of the more combative left was formed to support the campaign of a PCF candidate. The other candidates included an ex-minister supported by the PS and an FN campaign. The second round was a run-off between the PCF and the FN, and the PCF candidate won with over 60% of the vote. This is a very good example of what could be achieved on a national scale."
It seems that the PCF, or at least sectors of it, are more open to the possibility of the left working together. Krivine explained why he thought this development had come about:
"With the fall of Stalinism, PCF members know that their party has to change, but the leadership is unable to identify and explain exactly what needs to change and why. However, their more open attitude to us is quite symbolic. For years they refused to recognise our organisation, and there was a time when they even attacked us physically. Things really changed two years ago when they invited us along with the PS to a big debate before 10,000 people in Paris. Since then they have agreed to hold discussions with us, and for the first time a leading member of their Political Bureau represented them at our conference.
"However, concerning their political perspectives, they are in total disarray. In fact there is a real crisis, with Stalinism, reformist social-democracy and even liberalism present within the PCF."
Is it possible that under conflicting pressures the PCF might split, part entering a conservative electoral alliance with the PS and another joining an anticapitalist alliance with more radical forces such as the LCR?
"It's more complicated than that. Due to their Stalinist heritage, the same people within the PCF can have left or even ultraleft views and at the same time right-wing social democratic positions on other things. Today it is difficult to identify either a left-wing or a right-wing current, except in the case of some leaders who are openly liberal and an old style sectarian anti-Trotskyist current. Between these two small wings, the majority of the party, especially its base, is totally confused.
"I don't think at this stage we can say the party will split. I think the PCF will remain confused and lose members in the process; a lot of people have already left. This remains true even if along the way it has some electoral success, which is a product of the political radicalisation that has taken place and the fact that there is not yet any credible left alternative to the PCF."
Greens
Unlike a number of other countries where green political parties shifted to the right in the 1990s, the Greens in France moved to the left. Explaining their evolution, Krivine said, "When you receive millions of votes, as they did a few years ago, you are forced to come up with policies. You can call yourself green, but you are either to the left or the right. Faced with this, the majority moved to the left, although there was a sizeable minority who walked out, including a high-profile leader.
"They have declared themselves to be on the left and part of the progressive camp. However, it presents them with a new problem: what kind of 'left' are you, social-democratic and close to the PS or anticapitalist? This is the new division within them.
"They are not prepared to commit themselves to a far left or anticapitalist alternative. They say that it's not possible today, so their main goal seems to be to just get one or two people elected to parliament. To that end, they find themselves doing deals with the PS without any clear policy objectives. We have good contacts with some of them, and a member of their National Secretariat attended our conference, which would never have happened a few years ago."
Under the pressure of events, PS leaders have been distancing themselves from their party's period in government during the 1980s. They have even gone so far as to declare in favour of a 35-hour working week without loss of pay (later to be reduced to 32 hours).
Commenting on this apparent left tack, Krivine said: "Even if you can't have much confidence in this declaration made while in opposition, there is a strong feeling that they will be returned to government in a year's time. The fact that they are forced to move so far to the left, even if only in words, is very significant. So we welcome it, and we will try to get them to hold to their promises.
"We have to use their promises. It would be stupid to be sectarian and say, 'You've only ever betrayed and you will continue to do so'. We can say to workers, 'Don't have illusions; they may betray you, but try to hold them to their promises'. We will propose united fronts to them based on meeting people's demands."
Krivine explained that, with disillusionment in the PS, and the PCF continuing to experience crisis and decline, the LCR has come to play a much more central role in the French left. This has come particularly with the escalation of strikes and the social movements. "Although we run candidates in elections, we are much better able to get our ideas out to people in periods of mass movement mobilisation.
"Also, we have been able to play a leading role in a number of the struggles, so the media now have to keep mentioning the LCR. Normally we would be lucky to get 10 lines in one newspaper mentioning our conference, but this time all the major national newspapers are covering it. We are now able to play a more important role in French public life. The fact that all the left and environmental groups in France sent observers to the conference shows this also."
Like revolutionary socialists in other parts of the world, the LCR faces the contradiction that while anger at capitalism's attacks is on the rise, yet people's experience of social democracy and Stalinism means that they do not identify with the left in the way people did in the past. How in this context to reach out to people and convince them that it is possible to resist capitalism and build a different kind of society? Krivine commented on the intense discussion that took place around this question:
"I think we have to open the door, because some people have misconceptions about the LCR; they think that it's very secretive and hard to join. For many years we had to be more defensive: we were under attack not just from the right but from the left, especially the PCF. But now the situation has changed. We are not isolated, and if we are it is our own fault.
"It's a new period where an anticapitalist perspective has a widespread resonance, so our task isn't just to regroup people from the same tradition as us.
"Tradition and history are important, but the new revolutionary organisation needs to be built not on the past but on the tasks of the future. For that, I think it's possible and necessary to regroup people who come from different traditions within the anticapitalist framework and to reach out to those who have no history with the left but are being mobilised by today's struggles."