A Hard-Hitting Anti-Corporate Campaign

Revolutionary Socialists Win Seats in European Parliament

This report is based on information from International Viewpoint, monthly publication of the Fourth International, and from the newspaper Socialist Action, published in San Francisco by sympathizers of the Fourth International.

Despite an overall swing to the right, revolutionary socialists were elected to the European parliament. This electoral expression of opposition to corporate domination was most strongly evident in France.

In France, the joint slate of Lutte Ouvrière (LO) and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR; the French section of the Fourth International) won 5.2% (almost one million votes). That means three seats for the LO and two for the LCR. (For more on the joint slate, see Labor Standard, No. 2, March-April 1999.)

Although the LCR may be the larger of the two organizations, LO has a longer tradition of electoral participation. So LO spokeswoman Arlette Laguiller headed the joint list, followed by Alain Krivine of the LCR. (Laguiller won 5 percent of the vote in French presidential elections in 1995.)

The LCR has a significant role in the trade union left, and in France’s many dynamic social movements, such as AC! (against unemployment), DAL (against homelessness), Ras l’Front (anti-fascist), and the movement in support of the sans-papiers (undocumented immigrants).

In an interview in the LCR newspaper Rouge, Alain Krivine summed up the results of the election campaign: “This is the first time that we have waged a campaign on such a scale and with such a response. This experience taught us a lot, notably how to talk to millions of people via TV and to tens of thousands of people at rallies. The campaign’s credibility was a tool for our activists in talking to their fellow workers.

“The whole Ligue mobilized, not only to organize joint rallies with Arlette, but also in canvassing. During these few months many people met the Ligue for the first time, and a lot of new branches were formed in the provinces. The general impression created was that the Ligue can now be an actor in large-scale politics.”

Almost a million people voted for a program that focused on the fight against unemployment (which has hovered around 10 percent in most of Europe for the past decade). The LO-LCR slate called for a reduction in the workweek toward 30 hours a week, with no cut in pay, in order to spread the available work to those seeking jobs. This would mean immediate relief for the jobless regardless of the effect on corporate profits. The LO-LCR program also defended the rights of undocumented immigrant workers, demanding equal rights for all, and focused on environmental protection.

The success of this election campaign reflects the upsurge of working class struggles in France in recent years, beginning with major strikes by rail workers and other public sector workers in November-December 1995, which received majority public support. The strikers were perceived as defending the social security, welfare, and benefit system that workers won at the end of World War II. The French government was trying to cut back or abolish these social programs to make France more “competitive” within the European Union.

According to Krivine, “the challenge, ever since the big public sector strike in 1995, has been to find a political expression for the radicalization in the social movement left.”

The vote for the LO-LCR slate came close to that of the French Communist Party (7 percent). In important working class centers, such as the industrial suburbs of Paris, the so-called Red Belt, the vote approached 10 percent. This suggests that many former Communist voters switched to the LO-LCR in frustration at CP participation in the Socialist Party government of Lionel Jospin.

An editorial in the LCR weekly newspaper Rouge said that “despite massive abstention by working people, this score confirms the growing support for the far left since 1995. The media are mostly talking about the high score for the far right and the Greens. But it is also clear that the far left has affirmed itself as a significant, stable political force.”

According to Rouge, those who voted for the LO-LCR list voted against the bosses, the right, and the far right, and punished the left coalition government for its policies. “Socialist Party Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and his Communist and Green partners received a clear warning. People will no longer tolerate the policies of a government which is privatizing, questioning retirement pension rights, encouraging the explosion of part-time work and job insecurity, and doing nothing about unemployment.”

The time has come to choose “between adapting to the capitalist logic of Maastricht Europe, or real left policies. Like an emergency plan to combat unemployment and misery. To break with the logic of profit, and satisfy people’s social needs.” (A treaty signed in Maastricht, Holland, is the basis for the current, corporate-dominated European Union.)

The new LO-LCR deputies will try to unite the left — including those who voted for the governing parties — around demands for an immediate change in government policies. These demands include: “Outlaw redundancy measures [layoffs] and ‘downsizing’ in companies like Elf and Alsthom, which are making huge profits while cutting jobs. Impose a reduction of the workweek in a way that creates new jobs, with no cut in pay and without worsening working conditions. Defend retirement pensions against government attacks. Give papers to all undocumented immigrants.”

The LCR statement also said: “We continue our struggle for another Europe. A Europe which is above all for the workers and the peoples, not for the multinationals and the banks. This continent has the resources to overcome the current crisis. We should harmonize the social gains, like the minimum wage, at the highest level that exists inside Europe. We should enforce a coordinated reduction of the workweek to 35 and then to 30 hours per week, with no cut in pay. We should eat into the profits of the capitalists and should tax speculative capital. We should reduce the total control which the employers and the multinationals have over the economy.

“Other left parties have a radical discourse at election time, and quite another discourse once they are elected. Not us. Our two parties, and our five deputies in the European parliament, will remain faithful to the interests of those who gave us their confidence.”

For more information (in French only) see www.lcr-rouge.org/index. html