This year’s French presidential elections look to be even more interesting than usual. In the blue corner we have the Thatcherite Nicolas Sarkozy slugging it out with Blairite Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party. In the red corner we have PCF general secretary, Marie-George Buffet, Jose Bove, Arlette Laguiller and the LCR’s Olivier Besancenot. Alex Callinicos, writing in Socialist Worker this week advises “The LCR could make this situation less farcical by withdrawing Besancenot and campaigning for Bove.” The cynical part of me thinks that Bove could be used as a Galloway or Sheridan style “leader” with an amorphous non party backing him and to which he need not be accountable. Besancenot is always presented as a party candiadate answerable to a democratic party. That is preferable.
The Callinicos view is also shared by some members of the LCR. We know this because the LCR’s newspaper Rouge lets them publish articles saying so. Here’s a quote: “La LCR aurait dû, et peut encore le faire, répondre positivement aux propositions de la réunion des collectifs antilibéraux et engager une discussion pour vérifier que les conditions politiques et organisationnelles sont réunies pour qu’Olivier Besancenot puisse intégrer une candidature collégiale, avec le nom de José Bové sur le bulletin de vote.” In some parallell universe there may exist a SWP in which members are allowed to print articles in Socialist Worker publicly disagreeing with the organisation’s line. In this universe it’s as likely as me watching a football match without a gun to my head. There is an astonishing contrast between the LCR’s internal life and that of almost anything else the SWP gets involved in but let’s not explore that just now.
Bove may be fighting the election campaign from a prison cell. As this report in Liberation says he’s been sentenced to four months in prison for destroying a field of genetically modified crops. He’s waiting on a final appeal but it doesn’t look promising. Already he has appointed a spokesperson to do press appearances on his behalf.
Buffet has been presenting herself as the anti neo-liberal unity candidate. This has partly been achieved by the PCF packing meetings to get her endorsed by local committees organising for a unitary candidate. Despite this she only got 55% of the vote. So popular was she that six members resigned from the PCF National Executive Committee. Not the traditional ringing endorsement. All the intrigues associated with this process led Bove to withdraw himself as a candidate and he threw his hat into the ring in late January. Bove’s supporters then asked both Buffet and Besancenot to withdraw their candidatures.
The big dividing line in this election among the left is the attitude to the Socialist Party. Its left has collapsed and Royal’s campaign has very little programmatic content. Yet even at this distance it’s obvious that both she and Sarkozy want to push through a neo-liberal agenda. The PCF is unwilling to make this an issue in the election campaign and Buffet has said that she is willing to serve in a Socialist Party government. This makes her something less than the militant anti neo-liberal she claims to be.
I’ve come to the view that the LCR is right to stand Besancenot. The PCF will go into a Royal administration and will be politically responsible for its agenda. Bove’s campaign looks less than serious. It was pressure from committees of his supporters which finally persuaded him to stand even though the LCR has repeatedly made the offer of a joint candidacy. If he had wanted to have a real fight around the presidential campaign he would have been using the last few months to build it. He hasn’t. The wave of anti-globalisation struggles which Bove represents has broken and left relatively little behind it. Certainly it has contributed little to the creation of a united, anti-neo-liberal left. This has something to do with the fact that Bove has been the figurehead for those who refuse to identify with the exisiting parties.
There are many plus factors in the facteur’s favour. He is a very strong candidate. Besancenot is a household name in France in a way that no one on the British far left has ever been. He is on TV, as far as I can judge, at least once a week talking about politics and class struggle. He was once asked to prance around in a red leotard, pretend to be a cat and bully an alcoholic but refused. He is enormously popular among young voters, gaining, if memory serves (and it seldom does) about 30% of the under 25 vote last time around. When the elections are over the only thing that is certain is that there will be a big wave of defensive struggles in France. They have already started. There was a teachers’ strike today. The candidates who are seen to be representing the workers when they come into struggle are the ones who will be best placed to re-shape the French left. That’s why Besancenot should remain a candidate.
Liam redux 
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