WENTY YEARS ago, in Ma 968, barricades stood in the street: of Paris. Ten million workers took part in the largest general strike in history. Hundreds of factories were occupied. "The events' of May 1968 are this month being commemorated on the television and in the colour supplements.
But twenty years later, the elections in France show a very different pattern. The first round of the presidential elections on 24 April registered not simply the virtually certain re-election of Socialist Party president Mitterrand but the largest vote for an extreme right wing candidate, Le Pen, in any country in Western Europe since World War II. These elections give a deep insight into politics. JOHN ROSS looks at the developments twenty years on from May 1968. TO KNOW why no socialist can support Neil Kinnock or his policies simply look at the presidential elections in France. What is most significant is not that Mitterrand is almost certain to win reelection on 8 May. That is primarily a party political gain. It is that there exists. today in France, as a direct product of Socialist Party government, the largest extreme right wing force in any European country since World War II.
That the rise of Le Pen and the National Front is directly correlated with the Socialist Party in government there is no. doubt. In 1974, under a government of the right, Le Pen received 0.7 per cent of the vote. In 1981, the year Mitterrand won the presidency, and the Socialist Party the majority in the legislative elections, Le Pen couldn't even collect the necessary signatories to be nominated. Yet within two years, in the 1983 Municipal elections, Le Pen's National Front defeated the Socialist Party mayor in the industrial town of Dreux. Two years later, in the European elections the National Front won 10.9 per cent of the vote. Two years on again they won 9.6 percent in the legislative elections — and 35 seats in the National Assembly. The 14.4 per cent in the April presidential elections caps that off. The correlation between the rise of the National Front and the experience by the French workin 342885 32,770 Capitalism kills Party in government is clear.
The rise. of the National Front furthermore correlates with a deterioration of the relation of forces on a whole series of other fronts. In particular French union membership has plummeted -less than 20 per cent of the French working class is now unionised. The evident disarray in the bourgeois parties revealed in the three way split between the Gaullist Chirac (19.95 vote), the 'centre candidate Barre (16.53 per cent) and Le Pen — does not compensate either for the worsening of the relation of forces or the sharp right wing shift represented by support for Le Pen.
Undoubtedly France is not in line with developments in a number of other West European countries. For example in West Germany the period Democratic Democratic Party (FDP) government in the 1970s witnessed a radicalization to the left with the rise of the Greens and not the growth of the extreme right. Yet the development in France is ominous — in many ways the most serious negative development in Western Europe since 1968.
Why should the re-election of a Socialist Party president coincide with a rapid growth of the extreme right? What does it tell us about the political situation in France and Europe? deserves lo be celebrated less with euphoria and rhetoric than with a real attempt to understand the forces which it unleashed and the developments which have taken place since. To understand them, however, it is necessary to go back to the events which created May 1968 and the forces which it unleashed in France and Europe.
TO GO back to 1968, the great general strike of May that year in France was a product of the long post-war economic boom. From 1948 to 1968 capitalism underwent the greatest international expansion in its history. Output in twenty years increased by more than during the class in every imperialist country, including Western Europe, were profound. Western Europe's strengthened. Millions farmers moved off the land and into the working class. In a number of countries, particularly Britain, millions of women moved into waged work.
Simultaneously mass unemployment virtually disappeared for two decades Violent economic fluctuations vanished Living standards rose uninterruptedl year after year. Income differentials narrowed. Almost uninterrupted reforms took place. The working class in the advanced imperialist countries became stronger than ever before per cent of the were propped up by the United States passed in 1967.
of Social thern Europe - Britain, France, Nor(SDP)-Free Sweden, pro-American major states in Western Europe.
The United States militarily States then was the US do ences for the working which stood be working class was of peasant Europe.
World War II until the mid-1960s -economic policies. Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain and its European collaborators. Greece dissatorship, to cil military dictat semip semiWithin the working class a major split existed between the north and south of Europe. The working class of norRiot police = SS Holland eas dominated by strongly Denmark, Belgium, pro-Cold Socialist Parties. The Communist Parties in these countries were weak - although they generally had a significant weight in the trade unions. The working class of Southern Europe — France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece — was dominated by pro-Moscow Communist Parties. The post-war division of Western Europe between countries allied with the United States, and states subordinated to the USSR, was reflected in the dominance of pro-American and pro-Soviet currents in the structure of the Labour movement The political influence of either fascists or small revolutionary groups was almost insignificant — although substantial exworking class.
The most significant change within the ruling class in Europe was the crea tion, in 1958, of the EEC. Based on agreement between West Germany and France it progressively expanded from the original six members to take in all the This whole West European political structure was, in turn, unimaginable without its relation to the United States.
saved Western Europe at the end of World War II - without it the Soviet Union would black struggle have crushed Nazi Germany alone and BROVC CHL capitalism would have been destroyed from Moscow to the channel. The United SECUTOU Marshall Aid fet knew that it nd the US army, Western Europe and a combination of the strong working Europe.
class movement and the presence of the Soviet Union in Europe which would have threatened capitalist rule in Western THE The United States, for its part, subsidised Western Europe from the end of simply Way Mansit Aid-but by Us private investment and US international The political reflection of this was the popularity of the US not simply among the capitalist class but among large sections of the working class. President Eisenhower saw demonstrations in his support when he visited Europe, the assassination of Kennedy was experienced as a deep personal tragedy by tens of millions in Western Europe.
The West European working class, however, was itself profoundly changing in a process which might be described as its 'de-aristocratisation. Millions of women entered the paid workforce -overwhelmingly in the worst paid and least skilled jobs. Capitalism in the West European countries drew in millions of immigrant workers — creating for the first time a significant black and im migrant working class. These women and black workers formed the new mass semi-skilled and unskilled section of the Outside Western Europe the process which dominated the political situation was the unfolding of the colonial revolution. During twenty years the greater part of the European colonial empires were dismantled. Attempts to prevent this -notably by the French in Indochina and Algeria — were crushed. Capitalism was overthrown in China, Cuba and North Vietnam. In the United States the colonial revolution directly interacted with the 'de-aristocratisation' of the working class to help inspire, and help force the US government to give in to, the rise of Civil Rights As long as capitalism continued to boom this West European political structure functioned with relative political cohesion. May 1968 was the symbol it could no longer operate. May 1968, the led up to and created it established the present situation in CONSEQUENCES THE background to May 1968, was the Vietnam war. Opposition to the simultaneously was stung by inflation, produced by the flood of dollars out of the US, and placed in a strong bargaining position by the rapid upturn in production, created by exports to the United States. This combination was a recipe for an explosion → which duly occurred. May 1968 and the struggles which followed it - the strike wave of autumn 1969 in Italy, the struggles against the Heath government in Britain, and the rising struggles under the Franco dictatorship in Spain -signified that the post-war order in Western Europe could not survive.
simultaneously, in the consolidation of forces such as Mitterrand in France, the emergence of left wing currents such as the Greens in West Germany and the 'Bennite' left in Britain, and the rise of the extreme right National Front in France?
PAS DE REPLATRAGE LA STRUCTURE EST POURRIE No replastering — the structure is rotte Taking first erroneous analyses, a sec tion of the Marxist left believed that the preceding order in Europe was going ti be replaced by socialist revolution. From 1968-75 which took place culminating in the downfall of the Por tuguese dictatorship in April 1974, wen interpreted as meaning that social revolution had returned to Wester Europe But that perspective was not realisti: Certainly the movements of the workin class after May 1968 were even larg: than those in the inter-war years or afte World War I - reflecting the social e pansion of the working class. Ten millio participated in the general strike of Ma 1968 in France, 12-15 million in the strik wave of autumn 1969 in Italy, two na tional miners strikes and a wave o political strikes took place in Britain i 1968-74, a series of general strikes shool
Socialist Action 1988
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CONSTRUCTION SPECULATION PROFiT.
THE BACKGROUND