MITTERRAND арpears to have achieved the goal he set his party in the French elections. The socialists are set to be the largest single party while the right wing UDF and RPR parties will have a narrow majority, insufficient to orm a strong government without backing either the socialists or - ominously a the fascists.
•The fascist National Front has won 37 seats and the Communist vote has collapsed to under 10 per cent.
Mitterrand has achieved his aims by trampling on French workers, 114.' ing the fascists a real force, nd conceding most of the French thatcherites' policies in advance. In return, he will hold the balance of power until the presidentia elections of 1988 More strategically Mitterand has succeeded the goal he has set himself since the ear v 1970s - to transform the relation of forces between the Socialist and Communist Parties on the French left. The aim of this is to create the conditions where the Socialists can goverl, acrossary, In lanacuu will the parties of the French right.
For over twenty years, from 1945 to 1968, the French Communist Party (PCF) wak totally dominant force of movement It controlled the largest trade union federation, the CGT, and had mass electoral support above all in the 'red belt' of the Paris suburbs. PCF used that position to give back handed support to right wing government after. right govern ment — and above all the regime of General de Gaulle. The PCF's was to forge "French naUnited States.
But despite the Communist Party having successfully bolstered French capitalism, the French ruling class naturally showed 1U revitalisation of French economy and dustry during the and 1960s opened up the way for French capitalism to create a new reformist Socialist Party to rival the Communists. This is what Mitterrand has now built.
ine poncies walch tne Socialist has sued in government since 1981 — with an increase in unemployment million and a base created for the virulent racists of the National Front - have opened up • ine way Ior a further shift to the right. The new government if the right is pledged to tax cuts for the rich, dismantling SECUOIS • UL the welde state, on unions, and mass privatisDespite verbar ODthe position, gestures that will doubtless be made, there is no indication that Mitterrand, who will seek to seriously block The Equally significant are the shifts in the military field. In a long article Le Monde last month Mr Jaques Chirac, leader to the gallist RPR possible prime aim his own pretation of the defence pioneered by Mitterand. the in1950s purMitterrand It means, bluntly, acceptance of NATO's basic strategy of deploying tactical nuclear weapons in a European theatre against superior conventional forces. The difference that Mr Chirac wants the the weapons to be French.
'It towards
political construction of some Europe, notably defence, towards the construction of an economic Europe, that our efforts should be directed ... This quest, in the company of our partners, for defence personality, could only reinforce the effec tiveness and cohesion of the Alliance.? and a Military minister, interHe then goes integration' outline a policy which, so far, France has rejected: the deployment of neutron tactical weapons, decoupled from strategic systems, to be used to destroy troop concentrations battlefield This is NATO's "flexible response' strategy, but Chirac's aim is a European variant of this policy.
The real direction of defence' greatly clarified by statement of objectives. Far defence alternative, means defence Despite the electoral success of the Socialists in at least, socialism has opened two doors it will find hard to close: the door to EuroThatcherism and the door to Euro-Reaganism to mention the mass racist Europe.
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