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Trotskyists spur far-right to Victory in France!!! national |
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news report
 Tuesday April 23, 2002 18:03 by GluttonMan - Not-A-Trot
 Political bedfellows of the SWP, SP, ISO ensure the defeat of moderate candidate An excellent article in the Irish Times written by Lara Marlowe details the part played by the Trotskyist parties in enusring the rise to power of fascists by stealing crucial votes from the moderate left. Marlowe also details the results of her investigations into why people voted for Le Pen: because a lot of them wanted to! Excerpt: Even yesterday, after the damage was done, Mr Jospin's speech was printed by most newspapers, while Mr Le Pen's was not. The National Front leader's conviction that he would beat Mr Jospin in the first round was treated as a delusion of grandeur. If they ignored him, thought "the high-minded left" (Mr Chevènement's term), he would go away. On April 15th, in Montlucon, central France, I sat down at a café table with three young people. They weren't keen on politics, but when pressed, Angélique, a heavily pregnant 18-year-old, said she wanted to vote for Mr Le Pen. "He makes me laugh," she said. "I like the way he campaigns."
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 7 6 5 4 3 2 11. It is absolutely hilarious to hear the pro-capitalist 'left' condemn Trots for stealing 'their' votes, which belong to them by divine right. My arse! I suppose we'll hear that from not-so-Ho-Chi Quinn cum election time.
But perhaps there is some under-the-counter deal we didn't know about, of the type 'sell as many shite papers as you like but remember, vote labour and build a socialist alternative!'
2. The PS/Labour Party/DS/Tory Blair Party/ SPD are all fucked. Why? Because they represent a form of 'guaranteeism', known here as social partnership, which can no longer survive in a world where states race to the bottom in terms of social security and services so as to compete with one another. Don't throw the drowning bureaucrats a rescue line. Open up a new front.
3. Immigrants, queers, left radicals etc have been living with the reality of an FN with 15% support for a decade. The middle class now gives a shit, because they find it uncouth and embarassing. No-one of these tosspots even attempts to counter LePen's arguments around insecurity and crime blaming immigrants for social ills, in fact they adopt his vocabulary; for the scholarly this has a name: the 'lepenisation of politics'. And its happening here too: John O'Donoghue. Say no more. While liberals wring their hands, those who are serious about fighting this mus make insurgent left radical positions more attractive and practical. In homage to the above poster, a wee squint at republican history might prove fruitful. But the liberals don't like those yucky working class kinda things.
4. Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather forced upon them from without . . . they do not exist because they
have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistence of the populace.
-- Rudolf Rocker
Jospin and his lackeys have no one to blame but themselves.
It is unlikely that the French left -and especially the trots -will unite to provide an alternative to either the 'Socialist' party of the National Front.
Not as long as their are people with the 'Monopolise resistence' mindset.
yeah yeah, blame it on the organised 'revolutionary' left. its all our fault. if the trots didn't run then jospin would have won. what a fabulous anyalsis of what little democratic feeedom we have in the western world.
So basically what you are saying is that in such occassion as a rising european right, we on the far left (GL, LCR, LO etc in France) should not run our own candidates in elections. you know what this liberal shite sounds like, Popular Frontism. We have history to teach us things, has no-one learnt the lesson of the '30s? the PF strategy led to the victory of the nazis and their collaborators, notably in this case, in France. It was not pure military strenght that led germany to take france so easily, but the compliance of the most reactionary elemnts in french society, and the completet failure of the PF government to carry out even limited reforms. The same lesson can be applied to France today - no matter if Jospin and Chirac (both crooks in my view) had come thru and Le Pen been left out. They represent two sides of the same coin, and that is the coin (free marketism) that has led to the rise in the vote for Le Pen. This is a European trend, from dublin to moscow. why? well perhaps the fact that there are pro-market neo-liberal parties steering most european countries - in austria, italy, france, germany, holland, belguim, ireland, britain, russia, etc. and accordingly, we've seen a rise in ultra right-wing politics in these countries (ireland included - step forward Mr. O'Flynn). the market system has created the conditions for the rights rise, and now you want us to shut up and not point out these simple facts using the platform of the election - no, you say, rally behind Jospin, and put off the right until the next election (when their forces will be greater) or until they start some sort of rebellion a la Franco. The real Left in this election were taking a stand of sorts, it is their democratic right (believe it or not) and to indulge in the politics of neo-popular frontism is folly, pure and simple. the ones really helping the french, and european right in general, are those parties of the free market, who thru their lack of social care, especially in relation to the issues of employment and refugees, create the conditions in which right politics represent some sort of 'alternative' to the sytem. i thought that would be obvious to any 'anti-capitalist'. The demonstrations by ordinary people in the wake of Le Pen's 'victory' (sic) represent the real opposition to the right, NOT the parties of the establishment parties.
slán
C Dearg
Sorry, it was actually the LCR who suggested a joint candidate and turned down by LO.
The idea that the far left is in someway responsible for the first round victory of Le Pen, kinda reminds of the attacks on Ralph Nader and his campaign for US president, where he was accused of taking votes from Al Gore and letting in the Toxic Texan. The LO/LCR shouldn’t apologize for running their campaigns but there should have been a joint candidate, as was proposed by LO but rejected by LCR as far as I know.
The fact that Le Pen has gotten through to the second round has undoubtedly shocked workers and young people throughout France and has led to spontaneous protests against the far right leader.It would be wrong to presume that LO and LCR standing in this election led to Le Pen recieving the vote that he got. Capitalism creates the conditions for people and parties like Le Pen and the FN to make a breakthrough. Fuinseog is correct in saying that there was very little difference between Jospin and Chirac. Both candidates are supporters of the free market and neo liberal policies. In the case of the former his government has carried more privatisation than the previous Juppe/Gaullist administration. The fact that the Socialist Party and the Communist Party no longer provide an alternative to the Gaullists has led some more backward sections of the working class to support Le Pen. The fault for Le Pens victory lies with these people. The vote that the LO and LCR is certainly encouraging as are the massive demonstrations mainly intiated by school students which have been attended by workers and young people alike. This is the way to take on the FN. However this needs to be linked in with the building of a new party of the working class that will provide a real socialist alternative. The LO and the LCR should now take the intiative in launching such a party by appealing to anti capitalist youth, rank and file trade unionists and members of the communist party to help build such a party. Such a party would allow different groups to organise openly within it while aggreeing on a common socialist programme. In the light of Le Pen's vote this task is more urgent than ever.
Second place with no earthly hope of winning the next round is not a victory.
I've no time for SWP etc. but this analysis is just nonsense. The electoral system is based on non-transferable votes and the only person who has lost out at this stage is Jospin. Most people find it hard to distinguish him from Chirac anyway.