A French third way should look like
Roman, Joel
WITH MOST European countries run by parties that identify themselves as social democratic or socialist, the French left faces a dual challenge: establishing sufficient cooperation with its...
...draft legislation has been presented that allows for rights for homosexual couples...
...Vague references to greater democracy or social justice will not suffice...
...reforms have been advanced in the field of social security...
...Here the French left is stymied by three handicaps...
...partly Jacobin, combining political centralization with hostility to European unity and immigration...
...THIS SORT of politics accords with another branch of France's left-wing tradition, and brings us to the third handicap: the way in which some on the left have appropriated French republicanism and given it new life by seeking to reestablish the cult of the State and to mobilize a highly nationalistic public-spiritedness...
...JOEL ROMAN is editor of Esprit and works in close collaboration with the CFDT...
...Almost two years have passed since the Socialist Party's victory in the National Assembly elections, and Lionel Jospin's government may be proud of a number of accomplishments: several inegalitarian initiatives of the previous government have been foiled...
...However, polls show a new confidence among the French, indicating a readiness to move on and to consider new social possibilities...
...European development has been pushed toward more consideration of social issues...
...Above all there is a renewed confidence in what can be done in the political arena...
...The choice by French Greens of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the May '68 movement and later a pillar of the "realist" branch of the German Greens, to head their own list, will catalyze a wide-ranging discussion...
...For instance, Roland Dumas, Mitterrand's ex-foreign secretary and current president of France's Constitutional Council, has been accused of influence peddling...
...True, some of them believe, like the old "leopard" of Lampedusa's novel, "Everything will have to change if we want things to remain as they are...
...Whether it is a matter of welfare or retirement benefits, reform or the reduction of the working week, the CFDT has been shrewd as a negotiator and has fashioned a coherent perspective based on resistance to corporatism and advocacy of mutualism...
...The danger today is that the left will now join a critique of Mitterrand to a revival of old, indeed passé, revolutionary beliefs...
...promises that political life would be increasingly democratized have dissipated, and there is increased inequality instead...
...Still, many, even in their ranks, are becoming convinced that they dare not put their heads in the sand...
...But it is up to the French left to give the lie to these words...
...As prime minister, Jospin's behavior contrasts markedly with Mitterrand's, but the left is far from conducting a full self-examination...
...True, French unions are still relatively weak (and carry little weight within the Socialist Party...
...86 n DISSENT / Spring 1999...
...Yet they may be able to open up new areas of action and participation appropriate to new times...
...For instance, the successful negotiations for a thirty-five-hour working week may have created less employment than expected, but it made it necessary to redefine both social relationships and workplace organization in ways more favorable to employees, in small as well as large enterprises...
...Too often, those policies seemed as if they were masquerades, that they concealed dubious practices and cynical political conduct...
...The third ground for hope is the general maturation of French society...
...It is vocal in public debates, but contents itself with denunciations of capitalism and globalization while presenting few if any programmatic ideas...
...Under pressure from the CFDT, now the country's foremost union, French labor is taking an increasingly salutary role in social policy...
...First, there is the legacy of Francois Mitterrand...
...reform has begun in the judicial system...
...The roots, here, are DISSENT / Spring 1999 n 85 THE THIRD WAY...
...This will require a true intellectual revolution in the French left, and its heritage will have to be subjected to critical scrutiny and redefinition...
...This has had a positive effect on other unions, including the UNSA (a group of autonomous unions, mostly of public servants) and even the CGT, long a communist bastion, which recently took a new turn away from its past politics, which were chiefly those of protest...
...A novel situation is emerging, notably within the launching of the Euro...
...A balance is lacking...
...So a dogmatic and didactic left, which is pessimistic and hostile to any sort of modern self-reform, persists...
...Europe" is becoming more tangible, and European elections later this spring will accelerate debates about what the left means today...
...acceptance of markets became veneration of wealth and success...
...This left is represented within the current government by Interior Minister JeanPierre Chevenement and really offers nothing to efforts to find a new direction for the left...
...Of course, there is resistance within sectors fearful that they have something to lose—ranging from teachers and doctors to producers of pork or public transport workers...
...The consequences include lots of hesitations, and—paradoxically—too many concessions to the free-trade dogmas...
...In the name of pragmatism, Mitterrand's politics actually undermined pragmatism...
...The left's second handicap is also a product of the Mitterrand years...
...For a long time it seemed frozen, stuck in its own style of inflexible corporatism and chary of change...
...His administration's old guard still burdens the present...
...But beyond such individual behavior, it is the opportunism of the Mitterrand years that discredited his policies...
...Translated from the French by Suzanne Lapstun...
...In practice, the left has changed to some extent but lacks a theoretical basis...
...the number of hours in the working week has been reduced...
...Among Trotskyist groups, in the French Communist Party (PCF), and within the Socialist Party itself, archaic rhetoric has resurfaced that feeds upon contemporary social problems...
...However, these are all isolated achievements, and don't compose a coherent project or model...
...This triple handicap prevents the French left from evolving fully into a modern and reformist— revitalized—left...
...Respect for fact became resigned realism...
...These must come with concrete proposals to design the contemporary social landscape...
...WITH MOST European countries run by parties that identify themselves as social democratic or socialist, the French left faces a dual challenge: establishing sufficient cooperation with its neighbors in order to shape general European policies, and producing a blueprint for reform, a third way, as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder might call it...
...Scandals are part of the story...
...A second positive factor—one with great importance for the entire European left but especially for social democrats speaking of a third way—is European integration and the increasing political convergence among Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy...
...Jospin has called on fellow socialists to take stock of the late president's legacy...
...Nevertheless, some recent developments may be cause for encouragement...
Vol. 46 • April 1999 • No. 2
