presidential elections (1) RESULTS OF THE SECOND ROUND by CHARLES MICHALOUX
Giscard d'Estaing, crushed among the workers, beaten among the people under thirty-five years old, ignored by people under twenty-one and by the 3 million immigrant workers, none of whom could vote, was elected president by a minority of the French population. He will not last the seven years of his term. In fact, he will probably not even last five years. Giscard waged a campaign dominated by time-worn incantations about the "red threat, " an allusion to the possibility of members of the Communist party holding ministerial posts in a Mitterrand government. Through this campaign he managed to get 50.7 percent of the votes cast. (The abstention rate was the lowest ever in a French election, 13 percent.) As against this, François Mitterrand got 49.3 percent of the vote, that is, more than 13 million of the 27 million votes cast. In other words, Giscard owes his election to approximately 300,000 votes out of 27 million! The election gave a distorted reflection of the class relationship of forces (distorted to the detriment of the working class). But the vote achieved by Mitterrand was nonetheless impressive. The Mitterrand Vote: a Class Vote It remains to be estoblished whether the election really amounted to an electoral expression of the struggle waged by the working class os a whole against the bourgeoisie. That is, it remains to be established whether Mitterrand's candidocy was a working-class candidacy or an operation staged by one section of the bourgeoisie against another, like the Perón campaign in Argentina, or even (under completely different circumstances) like the McGovern campaign in the United States. To be sure, Mitterrand campaigned to become the "president of all the French people. " His speeches were full of reassurIng declarations to the capitalists and conciliatory overtures to the Gaullists. Mitterrand considerably watered down the already diluted Common Program of the Union de la Gauche (Union of the Left), the program worked ouf just before the March 1973 legislative elections by the Communist and Socialist parties. But was there anything new in that? Was that any reason for the Trotskyist militants of the Front Communiste Révolutionnaire to reject calling for a vote to Mitterrand on the second round?* To answer this question affirmatively -- as did certain very tiny sectors of the vanguard, both in France and internation-
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FRANCE ally -- would essentially mean that the decision to call or not to call for a vote for a candidate of a reformist party or bloc depends primarily on the program the party or bloc develops during an electoral campaign. But that would be wrong. In certain situations revolutionary communists can call for a vote to a candidate, party, or bloc if that candidate, party, or bloc meets the fundamental criterion of being part of the workers movement. This can be done in spite of and against the reformist progrom of class collaboration developed by the candidate. Mitterrand, the first secretary of the Socialist party, was the common candidate of the Communist party, the Socialist party, the Parti Socialiste Unifie (United Socialist party, a centrist group); and of the big central trade-union federations, the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail -- General Confederation of Labor) and the CFDT (Confedération Française Démocratique du Travail -- French Democratic ConFederation of Labor), as well as of the united teachers union, the FEN (Fédération d'Enseignement Nationale -- National Teachers Federation). In this sense, Mitterrand was the single candidate of all the big workers organizations, with all the reformist tendencies The only fly in the ointment was the left radicals, a bourgeois groupiet composed of flotsom and jetsam from the old Radical party, the dominant political force in the pre-secondworld-war Third Republic. The left radicals' presence in the Union de la Gauche, and therefore in the alliance of forces supporting Mitterrand in both rounds of the election, obviously expresses the desire of the reformist leaders to win a stamp of approval from the moderates in order to "reassure" the petty-bourgeois layers whose votes they were after. But nobody can seriously argue that the presence of the left radicals in the Union de la Gauche and in the alliance supporting the Mitterrand candidacy is sufficient to make the Union de la Gauche a popular front in the precise and traditional sense of the word: a coalition of reformist workers parties with one (or several) significant bourgeois parties, as was the case in France and Spain in 1936 and France and Italy in 1945. In the last legislative elections (March 1973) the left rodicals, who ran candidates on ballot slots reserved for the Socialist party, got only 2 percent of the vole, that is, less than the revolutionary candidates of the Ligue Communiste and the Lutte Ouvrière group. Their presence in the Union de la Gauche results not from a conscious decision by a section of the bourgeoisie to try to divert the ominous rise in workers combativity through a popular-front operation, but rather from a decision by the SP and CP to try to breathe some life into a twenty-five-year-old corpse purely for purposes of electoral propaganda. Likewise, the support Mitterrand got in both rounds from a handful of dissident Gaullists reflected only the comic thrashing abou provoked by the demise of the old regime. With de Gaulle and Pompidou dead, and with Chaban-Delmas still-born, these dissident Gaullists just could not bring themselves to vote for Giscard, the man who had spat in the face of their god, plotted behind the back of his apostle, and driven the last nail into the coffin of one of his saints. But apart from this eleventh-hour support from a few Gaullists and center politicians, there was no section of the bourgeoisie that consciously adopted a policy of support to Mitterrand.
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At the very most, one can say that this was a portent of what probably would have happened had Mitterrand won the election. There would have been a series of parliamentary maneuvers and blocs before and after the dissolution of the National Assembly and the holding of new legislative elections. In their campaign the militants of the Front CommunisteRévolutionnaire denounced this dynamic of collaboration with a sector of the bourgeoisie -- particularly by demanding that Mitterrand not make any agreements with any significant bourgeois party as a condition for their calling for a secondround vote for him. During the campaign Mitterrand did all he could to reassure the bourgeoisie as to his intentions; he presented himself as the only possible guarantor of social peace. But he did not, for example, accept an offer of support from Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, whom Mitterrand refused to receive. On the morning of May 19 François Mitterrand stood as the candidate of the major reformist workers organizations, millions of whose members saw him as the way to get rid of the sixteen-year-old regime despised by the overwhelming majority of the youth and the working closs. Perhaps Mitterrand found himself in that position despite himself. But that is totally secondary under the circumstances, Revolutionary militants called for a vote for Mitterrand on May 19 in spite of his class collaborationist program, for Mitterrand was the representative of the reformist, Stalinist, Social Democratic, and centrist leaderships that still represent the majority of the organized working class. He had rallied to his candidacy an enormous popular support that was manifested in the huge campaign meetings he held in the major cities in France (150,000 in Paris, 40, 000 in Toulouse, 40, 000 in Grenoble, 50, 000 in Marseille, 25, 000 in Nantes, 25,000 in Nancy). Revolutionary militants said to the workers: "You think that you can change things with Mitterrand, that you can finally get rid of the regime of exploitation and oppression. We do not think so, for we have confidence neither in Mitterrand nor in the leaderships that are supporting his candidacy. They will not defend the interests of the toiling masses, nor will they bring us to socialism. And we said it even before the first round, by running Alain Krivine os a candidate. "But while we marched separately, we are prepared today to strike together to beat Giscard and the reactionaries by voting for Mitterrand. If he loses, we cannot be held responsible; if he wins, he will not be able to take advantage of any defection as an excuse not to put into effect the minimum of what he has promised. "IF Mitterrand wins, conditions will soon become more favorable to fighting for the workers and peoples demands. But the workers, right from this moment, must count only on their own struggles to win their demands and only on their own independent organization to defend their gains and go forward. "In this battle, we warn you that Mitterrand and the reformist leaders that support him will be an obstacle in your path. If this seems unlikely now, you will soon have the experience of being able to judge them by their actions. We are ready to go through this experience with you. Against the bourgeois right-wing and far-right bloc grouped around Giscard, who is the candidate of the employers and bankers, we will vote with the workers for Mitterrand, but without giving him a blank check. " Thus, the vote for Mitterrand in no way implied any support, even critical support, for him. It was simply a vote deter-
mined by the objective effect a Mitterrand victory would have had on the development of the class struggle in France. The Importance of the Electoral Shift to the Left Thirteen million votes! More than 49 percent of the ballots cast! Never has the left achieved such an electoral score. In 1936 the Popular Front candidates got about 48 percent of the vote (one-third of that going to the Radicals). In 1945 the French Social Democracy and the Communist party got about 45 percent. In both coses the political conditions were completely different from those prevailing today. The Socialists and Communists were then part of the antifascist National Union (1936) or of the Resistance (1945) - The reformist parties have never come close to the vote percentage they got this time. Not in 1956 (when they got 42.6%), not in the second round of the 1965 presidential election (45.5% against de Gaulle), not in the March 1967 legislative elections (43.7%),, and not in the March 1973 legislative elections (46.7%6). Taking into account the increase in the number of voters and the very low abstention rate (13% in metropalitan France, not counting the colonies), such a high score incontestably reflects the upsurge of worker combativity and the aftereffects of the May 1968 general strike, the lessons of which have little by little sunk into the consciousness of a whole generation of workers. In effect, both the Union de la Gauche formed before the March 1973 legislative elections and the Mitterrand candidacy represent the reformists' belated response to the big shake-up of May "68. Beyond the electoral promises and litanies, it is the May '68 shock wave that is now hitting French political life. And within the working class the current debate and discussion clearly revalves around the question of what road to socialism, "reformist" or "revolutionary." This workers upsurge, now in full swing, cannot be halted (and still less broken) by an electoral setback of a few hundred thousand votes out of 27 million. If would be naive to expect the masses of the working class to draw antielectoralist conclusions: that elections don't pay off, that only struggle pays off. But certainly the workers have tested and measured their strength, and they felt victory within their gresp. There will be a few weeks of disappointment; but it will not It's a contradictory thing. The unprecedented left vote will provide the struggles of the workers and youth a political perspective --even if a reformist one -- that was locking during the 1968 offensive; but at the same time, the results (which came close to the big 50 percent barrier, close enough to have fallen shart only because of electoral fraud) will contribute to maintaining electoralist illusions. Officially, no elections are scheduled before the 1978 legislative elections and the presidential elections of 1979 (if Giscard serves a Five-year term) or 1981 (if he serves a seven-year term). This obviously makes the situation somewhat difficult for the Union de la Gauche, the CP and the SP. In view of the present level of workers combativity, they will be hard put to tell the workers to "wait until next time" and to urge them to be patient. Mitterrand himself feels this and knows it. On the night of May 19 Giscard saluted his "unfortunate opponent. " Mitterrand answered by saying that "once again the formidable power of money has rushed into the breach to bar the door to the forces of lobor and youth." And when he again took up his functions as first secretary of the Socialist party, Mitterrand even declared that there should be "no truce, no letdown" and that "the fight goes on. " The Mitterrand campaign did achieve one of its objectives: the reintegration of the CP into national political life after of period of ghettoization. The idea has been put across, even to the most perspicacious section of the bourgeoisie, that there might have to be some Communist ministers in the government someday. Mitterrand and the reformist leaders know very well that in a tense, even explosive economic and social situation with a regime that will not easily find its equilibrium, they can appear as the saviors of established society. Because of the good-conduct pledges offered by the CP and the guarantees supplied by Mitterrand and the SP, a part of the bourgeoisie is much more inclined now than at the beginning of the election campaign to consider this possibility in the event of a serious crisis. This confirms that the Union de la Gauche could become the bourgeoisie's last resort in case of crisis -- the Union de la Gauche as such, including the CP and without the addition of any new bourgeois component or any shift in alliances. The Fall of Gaullism: an Irreversible Turn In the newspapers the day after the second round, the bourgeoisie freated its triumph rather modestly. Was this just caution? A temporary tactic designed to take the edge off the clash between the two political and social blocs that was reflected in the cities and countryside during the election? The real reason is at once more simple and more profound. The analysis of the elections should be viewed in the context of the differences between parliamentary and presidential regimes. Under parliamentary democracy, the government is led by members of parliament and is responsible to them. But if conflicts arise, the government can dissolve parliament and call general elections in order to find a new balance between the various bourgeois interests that are reflected in clashes between cliques, groupings, and parties. The president (or the king) is just a figurehead and plays only a behind-the-scenes political role; he does not hold real governmental power. This is the case, for example, in Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Belgium. Under a presidential system -- the United States being the classic example -- the whole executive power is concentrated in the hands of the chief of state. The president, elected by universal suffrage, names ministers who are responsible only to him. But he does not have the power to dissolve parliament, which makes the laws. This is why a stable presidential regime -- which does not exist right now in the United States — presupposes the existence of a large bourgeois parliamentary party capable of sustaining in parliament the policy established by the president. In France, Gaullism set up a halfbreed and exceptional regime, especially after the 1962 referendum that established election of the president of the republic through universal suffrage. Parliomentary democracy had been paralyzed by the fragmentation of bourgeois interests, by the clashes of pressure groups that were all the more numerous because the French rural and commercial petty-bourgeoisie has solid and deep roots in the archaic social composition of French capitalist society. The 1958 constitution, as amended by the 1962 changes, authorizes the president to dissolve the National Assembly, to legislate by decree and pronouncement, and to alter the constitution through referenda, without consulting the members of parliament.
FRANCE That was the Gaullist form of the "strong state, " with its cansequent features of abuses of power, arbitrariness, and "personal power." But this form of strong state could only be transitory. The Gaullist regime was born of the defeat of the workers in 1958. It sought to base itself on the temporary apathy of the working class and to develop a particular ideological bas is: "participation." Gaullism wanted to bribe the workers with the companies' profits, that is, to give them an incentive to increase productivity by appealing to them over the heads of their organizations, both parties and trade unions. For that it was necessary to appeal to "France" directly instead of through intermediaries. The usual method was to hold referenda and plebescites, which came one after another, the last one in 1969. It was also necessary to destroy the existing parties, replacing them with broad associations supposedly above classes and parties: first the UNR (Union Nationale de la République -National Union of the Republic), then the UD-V (Union Démocratique de la Cinquième République -- Democratic Union of the Fifth Republic), then the UDR (Union pour la Defense de la République -- Union for the Defense of the Republic). These formations were supposed to be instruments with which to gather together the votes of on atomized electorate. Bur this mode of operation did not work for long. The 1963 miners strike marked the beginning of the workers resisfance. The May '68 general strike was the final blow that was to bring down the Bonaparte one year later. Once the man of providence had disappeared and the clectoral wark of his grand assembly had been reduced to purely human activity, the epigones of Gaullism could but stumble along awaiting the system's final demise. After the euphoric expansionism of the 1960, had faded away, the "new society" and the "contracts for progress" promised by Chaban-Delmas in his campaign were no moro than pale reflections of the old Gaullist dreams of "participation. The UDR, which in any case had never been able to become "the great association transcending left and right, " was even less able to play that role. Falling back in defeat, it fell to the rank of just one bourgeois party among others -- and one less homoganeous than the others to boot. Chaban's defeat, his 15 percent of the vote, represented the definitive defeat of Gaullism. But it was only the culmination of a long process that began right after the coup of May 13, 1958. The death blow was struck in May 1968; the rest was inevitable and irreversible. Giscard's Regime: on a Razor's Edge After some hesitation, the bourgeoisic soon understood that Giscard could handle things better than Chaban. In his campaign Giscard hardly bothered with the great Gaullist orojects for participation or contracts for progress. He did not propose a policy based on class collaboration, since he foresaw the inevitable confrontations that will probably take place in September, after summer vacations. Chaban warned about this: "We see France threatened with being divided into two hostile camps that will lead the contry to an imposse, with social conflicts breaking out in the factories and in the streets. " But Giscard knew that this was the situation he would face after this campaign in ony case. He preferred to concentrate on gathering up the forces that would enable him to deal with that situation. He preferred to group together under the protective wing of the big bourgeoisie (of which he is one of the best representatives) all the smatterings of frightened and conservative men and women through the vehicle of a clever electoral patchwork.
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At least in the early days of his government, Giscard will probably try to hold back the flow of workers demands by discharging some ballast. He might attempt to justify his social pretensions by decreeing a few measures -- maybe even "spectacular" ones -- that he will make up for later by inflation. Inflation will continue at its present ominous rate and will soon push to the fore the important problem of unemployment. It is understandable that the electoral victors are not strutting about. They are extremely worried. While clouds are gathering dangerously above a field of social struggles, the institutional sky above is not exactly clear either. Giscard stands at the head of a transitory and incongruous coalition. He has to dispose of the contradictions of a regime conceived by and for de Gaulle. He has to try to institute a presidential regime thot can eliminate the threat of insoluble conflict between the executive that he embodies and an assembly that threatens once again to fall into fragmentation and shifting alliances. But to institute such a regime he would need a solid conservative party that could absorb all the Gaullist and moderate remnants. And all he has is a fragile electoral coalition in which his party (the Independent Republicans) constitutes only a small minority and which includes moderates whose docility is up for sale, and a UDR -- or at least part of it -worried about preserving its now-dead orthodoxy. Although in the immediate future he has an interest in not prolonging the period of instability and the electoral period, which resulted in the postponement of a series of measures that he regards as urgent, Giscard will nevertheless have to try to develop a more solid parliamentary base. The price he will have to pay for making that attempt will be new legislative elections, thus giving the Union de la Gauche the opportunity to wage new battles. Giscard may try to pull this off, but it won't be easy. The electoral base for a big Christian Democratic bourgeois party with a coloration of social humanism aimed at scooping up popular votes just does not exist the way it used to. And the existence of a powerful organized workers movement does not allow for the easy formation of a big profitable bourgeois liberal party with an electoral base among the workers and popular sectors (like the Democratic party in the United States). The big change through a new majority that Giscard promised his bourgeois backers thus appears to be in great jeopardy. The new era about which Giscard spoke on the very night of his narrow electoral victory hardly promises to be an era of great projects and vigorous policies for the bourgeoisie. If looks much more like an era of the conservative regime in decay. The whole Giscard regime will be similar in nature to the government that has already been named by Giscard's prime minister, Jacques Chirac, a man who comes out of the UDR but is regarded os a turncoat by his own cronies. It will be a transitional government compelled to serve as a bridge between an old majority undermined on all sides by its own internal rivalries and a new majority that great social struggles may prevent from ever seeing the light of day. * The presidential election took place in two rounds. There were a dozen candidates in the first round. Since no candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, the two candidates who scored the highest in the first round, Giscard d'Estaing and Francois Mitterrand, faced each other in the second-round runoff.
the presidential election
(2) THE