THE FRENCH LEFT-UNEASY RELATIONS
Bloch-Michel, Jean
Everyone in Paris knows that the French Communist party (CP) is no longer a revolutionary party bent on seizing power by force or subversion—perhaps simply because this would be impossible....
...The most obvious one is that it has gained from it a certain vigor and renewed youth...
...Two kinds of questions now arise...
...First, there seems to be beginning some fresh thought in the ranks of the democratic Left...
...The Socialists no longer believe it is possible in France to carry out a leftist policy based on a Center or Right majority...
...Hence, for the Socialists and the radicals of the Left a gain of 1.4 percent and for the Communists a loss of 1.26 percent, both small in quantity but important as signs of the trend...
...For perhaps the first time in 50 years, one feels that there is now taking place a certain amount of genuine political reflection in the Socialist milieu of France...
...This influence takes the form of discus sions about the "self-managing socialism" favored by the CFDT, as opposed to the authoritarian and centralized views of the CGT, the Communist-led unions...
...To these must be added 12 Left radicals with whom they form a group, plus the 3 of the Left-socialist PSU (Parti Socialiste Unisie), which brings the number of non-Communist Left deputies to 104...
...q 290 CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD...
...The first round of voting last spring gave the Socialists 20.3 percent of the vote and the CP 21.25 percent...
...So far, the SP has profited most from the policy of alliance...
...The SP therefore had to show itself as both a supporter of the Left alliance and a rigorous but wary ally of the CP, determined in the first place to conserve its independence and to speak out on its differences...
...Pretty much the same sort of calculations were in the mind of Francois Mitterand, to whom credit is due for the revival of a Socialist party (SP) which had partly disappeared from the political scene...
...The SP is being influenced by the CFDT (the Christian trade union movement) which continues to grow, and by some younger recruits who have come from other leftist groups or from the PSU...
...Its hope to become a governmental party has thereby come to seem credible again...
...But neither is a Left government possible if it is dominated by the CP, feared and unwanted by four-fifths of the electorate...
...His role, he has said, is not to assure himself that the intentions of the CP are indeed those that it affirms, but to ensure that the CP has no choice but to act along such lines...
...Everyone in Paris knows that the French Communist party (CP) is no longer a revolutionary party bent on seizing power by force or subversion—perhaps simply because this would be impossible...
...As for the Socialists and their allies, their hope from now on, after having redressed the balance of forces on the Left, is to unbalance it—to their advantage...
...Only a strong SP, balancing off the CP and consequently guarding the country against the excesses that many people fear if the CP were to approach the centers of power, made at all credible the idea of a Left government...
...of the leftist electorate, which had either gone to the Communists or taken refuge in abstention, had now gone back to the SP...
...Is the policy of electoral alliance an attempt to repeat the experience of the popular democracies, that is, to destroy the SP...
...In Germany the absence of an organized CP makes it possible for Willy Brandt to pursue a CenterLeft policy on his own, but that course is not open to the French SP...
...To a great extent, the future rests on the attitude of the Communists and the analysis they make of the situation...
...Thanks to the astute Mitterand, who knew how to revitalize party cadres while giving the SP a new firmness, this rebalancing of the Left became possible...
...It is likely that the SP will now continue this policy of Left electoral alliance for several reasons...
...It was when they were practicing such a policy that the French Socialists committed their worst errors, with their leaders, Guy Mollet and Robert Lacoste, in charge of the Algerian repression...
...The second question has to do with the "sincerity" of the Communists...
...Or has the CP "changed" and is it henceforth ready to play by the democratic rules...
...It seems to me that the only answer one can give to such a question is that of Mitterand...
...In signing the Common Program for an electoral bloc with the Socialists and other left-wing groups before the election this past spring, the CP had to make a number of important concessions, but it also succeeded in CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD breaking out of its electoral isolation...
...This scandal they do not wish to repeat...
...The non-Communist leftists (SP and Left radicals) gathered in the fruits of the alliance policy, especially since the Communists obtained only 21.25 percent as compared with 22.51 percent in 1967...
...Counting on this new credibility, it tried not only to recoup some of its former supporters who had drifted over to Gaullism, but also to bite off a section of the democratic Left which its newly moderate stance might reassure...
...A Left government excluding the CP, behind which stands a fifth of the electorate, is a political illusion, and any Socialistled government resting on such an illusion would necessarily be condemned to slide toward the Right...
...It is now represented in the National Assembly by 89 deputies...
...A section...
...Having said this, any prophecy about the future of the French Left would be imprudent...
Vol. 20 • July 1973 • No. 3
