This is for the next issue of Socialist Resistance

It was apt that news of Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory was greeted by small riots in a number of French towns. These first expressions of popular anger are only the first of the innumerable conflicts that we will see during his presidency. The semi-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen lost almost one million votes in the first round. Most of these went to Sarkozy. His rhetoric against immigrants, in favour of the strong state and French national identity was calibrated to steal Le Pen’s votes. It worked. Neither has Sarkozy hidden his enthusiasm to begin a Thatcherite counter-revolution in French society. His economic programme is that of the MEDEF, the French employers’ organisation. A central theme of his election campaign was his loathing of the thirty five hour week. This was his clarion call to the millions of small business people and the managers of the big companies. He was telling them that he is willing to open up an intense class struggle against French workers and their unions. Just as in Britain he want to introduce secret ballots for strikers and is even looking to introduce no strike deals in some industries.

Sarkozy had powerful support inside and outside France. He was the favoured candidate of the private TV stations. The French industrial elite was behind him. Britain’s New Labour gave him enthusisatic support. The day after the results were announced Blair sent the French Tory a congratulatory video via You Tube. He sees in Sarkozy a fellow travelling neo-liberal. By contrast the support given to Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party by Brown or Blair was negligible. Royal’s defeat was not as devastating as had been widely predicted. Many millions of French voters supported her right wing social democrat platform as a way of protecting themselves from Sarkozy.

In 2002 around the radical left won 13.5 per cent of the vote. This year the left of the left experienced an important drop in its support, since it totaled this time a little less than 9 per cent (4.1 per cent for Besancenot of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionaire, 1.9 per cent for Marie-Georges Buffet of the Communist Party, 1.4 per cent for Arlette Laguiller of Lutte Ouvriere, and 1.3 per cent for Jose Bove). The Greens only got 1.5 per cent. The drop is due to a collapse of the electorates of the CP, LO, and the Greens.

Only Olivier Besancenot maintained his result in percentage terms and improved it in terms of the number of votes (with more than a million and a half) compared to 2002. Daniel Bensaid writes “He certainly lost a good third of his electors of five years ago, who had voted for him for the novelty of it, and bitterly regretted it when they saw Le Pen in the second round. On the other hand he solidly established his vote in the working-class regions and milieux, and according to the first indications, he got results among new young electors which were markedly higher than his national average.”

This is immensely important. Elected on a programme of anti-working class struggle Sarkozy will be obliged to throw down the gauntlet to workers, youth and immigrants in France. It is absolutely certain that we will see a large number of defensive fights as workers try to protect their jobs and their working conditions. The vote for Besancenot shows that there are hundreds of thousands of people who understand that a militant leadership is required.

As Olivier Besancenot said in his statement after the election “we need a new anti-capitalist force, implanted in the workplaces, the public services and the popular districts. It is necessary to make it possible to win against the right and the MEDEF in the struggles and in the ballot boxes.” The success or failure of this struggle will be of vital importance to the French and the European working class.