leader of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) and the most prominent spokesperson of the far left in Socialist Action spoke to him about the France which have put the Mitterrand government under siege.
The current crisis of the Party-Communist Party government in France is obviously related to the imposition of austerity Mitterrand. Why did choice to have these measures?
The government made the only choice possible for a government in a period of crisis which refuses to break from capitalism. When the Socialist Party Communist power, they tried Telale economy by giving concessions to the working class wage increases and so forth. They thought that would solve unemplovment This policy went along with whole senes of economic girts to ln‹ bosses, in the hope that bosses would Course this policy rapidly defeated; since the refused to play ball. Neither investment nor sufficient wage increases to boost the economy took place.
So now you have a big deficit and austerity is the only choice - unless you attack the power and wealth of the bosses which Mitterrand is not prepared to do. the austerity measures is bound to be a further lowering of production and increased unemployment.
What strategy are the bosses and the right wing parties following!
Despite the pro-capitalist policies of Mitterrand, they have no confidence In a government of the two workers parties. Now, after the defeat of the right wing parties in May 1981, they have found a second wind in a situation in which the working class is demobilised.
I ne ot course are reparing a fascist coup or anythin - they are preparing to take political revenge on the left at the next elections.
For the last six months the right wing parties have been running a big counter-offensive The social force which they are using is the middle class. Part of the middle class voted with the left in 1981 in the hope that there would Now, they have seen reformist government has no solution to their problems, and have moved back to the right - a section of them have even gone over to the extreme right.
The two big right wing parties -the Giscardians and Gaullists — are regular street tions of the middle class to create a situation of insecurity.
SnOW that with the left everything is chaos and crisis.
What was the role of the students in the recent disorders?
You have to distinguish the role of the students irom business people, merchants and so on who also demonstrated government. Of course the businesss people were moonsca lor reactional.
demands against price controls, taxes on their businesses and so on.
But the mass of students were opposed to what is a pro-capitalist reform of the university, which for example brings businessmen onto the board of governors to make universities more integrated with the munity.
The problem is that the right wing in Socialist he make the came to the this was bosses budget The result of Hilass not the left.
be big that this took the mobilisations aemonsula reform 1 ney want lu in power, Dollin among the students with the government. small So demoralisation, against the power unless it is fought.
the effects of austerity.
'business comFrench working initiative to lead the against the because the majority of students who are on the left were not prepared to fight a 'left wing' government.
We also opposed the reform, but we were not powerful enough to make a strong counter mobilisation to fight from a left wing viewwords, the situation ime working class is parallels that in If you mobilise against the pro CGT. capitalist policies of the government, you are accused of helping the right. And most of the workers, just like the students, don't want the right wing back. however disappointed they are the result is a demobilisation WElC will prepare a return of the right wing to What are the prospects of a working class fightback against austerity?
Already there are some strikes against press.
But after the long French holidays, when austerity starts to bite hard we are sure there will be a big series of struggles. The maybe in in France political disarray but the level of combativity is still very high. There is a big debate breaking out inside the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, but especially inside the trade unions about the political course of the government.
The most important developments are the emergence of left wing, struggle , currents inside the two main union federations, the CFDT and the involved in working with SP and CP militants in In fact the student demonstrations were very small, because of the refusal Lit students different impression.
gerating the situation. First of course and their are ine righ! willg Dallies Every day they had about the heroic students on the barricades and the terrible role of the police. What they wanted was to ex plain that if have the power, you only get trouble, riots and so on.
Perhaps I am a little cynical, but l think the government some interests situation, to over-stress the danger of the right and the fascists. the working class disorders organised by the right anc the fascists. government.' pact. because it's certain that working class doesn't want a return of the right wing.
The LCR was the only force to organise street The SP and SP refused to mobilise the right wing with us. but we were able to bring out thousands of people to deny the ultra-right the monopoly of the streets.
What has been the role of the Communist Party and CT leadership? Surely they can't be the prisoner of right wing austerity measures forever without risking the loss of their base in the factories? stories Publicly measures left in everyone knows they are. say to the working class that you have there's government.
by staying swallowing Surely the ing any trade unions, Everything SP. workers even process itself has Ouvriere dramatising the , They say to many fields.
look at these You have to defend your has some im- of thousands.
the the CP discussion and fascists.
an minority, think they say the government austerity, Then they Thev explain it D toral showing of the CP in 1981. Thes say 'OK, you voted for the SP and not for us, so you have to pay the price for The one alternative they offer the working class is to join the CP They don't organise national strug gles against austerity, but of course their militants organise local factory struggles, while avoiding all attempts to generalise those struggles and give them a national focus.
So they attempt to appear as the 'left' of the government majority, but thentical crisis in the CP. A lot of ct doubt members in the rank and file are ask ing for the CP ministers to leave the If the pressure gets too much, if they calculate that they have more to gain by leaving the government than in it, then they will leave for sure. But at the moment they are everything - austerity nuclear policy, everything — in order to be able to stay.
of left wing tendencies inside the Socialist and change the balance of polical forcesp Parties would Political life inside the workers parties in France is minimal. Because of the structural and political blocks to havdemocratic internal debates, all the disagreements tend to emerge inside the trade unions. bureaucratised, has such a heavy so example, ternal regime, that those people who disagree with the line just don't go to meetings. But we meet them inside the trade unions. That's why opposition tendencies to austerity exist inside the but not in an organised wayin the Sand CP.
it's very difficult, because of the structure of the party, an oppositional tendency from the bottom. It would only be a real possibility if one of the SP leaders built it from the top down.
points to the necessity of a credible alternative to the reformist parties, the CP and the bul as you yousen say most if they agree with you say 'OK, but you're too small, we'll stay with our own parties' How can you overcome this problem?
The first thing is our proven capacity to lead struggles. In the towns where our comrades have been recognised as the leaders of strikes, then when you speak about the LCR, people in the factories identify with us. this is not a national phenomenon, but a very real one in some localities Secondly, we are undergoing joint action possibly leading to fusion with anothe big Trotskyist organisation called Lutte Both organisations have declared themselves in favour of this fusion, and today we work together ir Each month we have a with them. If this fusion comes off this organisation with a following of tens The third thing, and most impor tant is how to attract the militants ir and SP This is part of a we are having, but thi main thing is not to impose on the people close to us that we are Tro:
skyists, our line on everything.
If in the future situation we have the possibility of building a party or anti-capitalis:
basis with a significant layer from the could concle ten thatsysts ben CP and even the PSU, then w small minonity that the future centre tendencies will occur in the CP the SP, and especially in the irac You will not have thousand:
workers coming directly mass parties to the LCR. For us is.
question of finding the righ:
tures to intervene in the radicalisa:
Socialist Action 10 June 1983
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manipulated by the right. But if you read the newspapers you get a totally