French Socialists in Search of a Program
JACOBS, NORMAN
NOWHERE TOGO FrenchSocialists inSearchof ^P|*Qg|*gjflQ^ BY NORMAN JACOBS Paris Where to (;o from here is the question French Socialist party (PS) members are asking themselves in the wake of the...
...Norman ,1m oks, lom: awmiateil with 1 Ml Nl u I l Mil k. now lives in l\m...
...Given the pervasiveness of these sentiments, victory by any revived Union of the Left would seem to demand that the Socialists constitute its guiding force...
...rhcy constitute the smallest segment of the majority, but because of their relationship to Mitterrand they dominate important appointive posts in the national secretariat...
...One points in the more or less orthodox socialist or Marxist direction: It would jettison capitalism for a centrally planned economy...
...In practical terms, this means the PS has only two program options...
...It is uncompromisingly opposed to any social-democratic orientation and advocates a complete break with capitalism...
...Of the two paths available, then, one is unthinkable, the other uncertain and dangerous—a situation that leaves the Socialists a party still in search of a program...
...Mitterrand brought a number of followers with him when he joined the Socialist party in 1971...
...But the divisions do not stop there...
...As might be expected, he has been the target of strong criticism from ceres leaders...
...In short, for the Socialists to enter the government in the foreseeable future they will need allies on the Left or on the Right, and they will have to share power with those allies...
...NOWHERE TOGO FrenchSocialists inSearchof ^P|*Qg|*gjflQ^ BY NORMAN JACOBS Paris Where to (;o from here is the question French Socialist party (PS) members are asking themselves in the wake of the Union of the Left's defeat in last March's legislative elections...
...Even if it had received the 28-30 per cent forecast by the most optimistic opinion polls it could not have prevailed...
...Within the majority, Michel Rocard holds perhaps the most innovative views...
...Present-day PS leaders are haunted by memories of what befell the "third-force" governmental experiments in which the SFIO participated during the Fourth Republic: Efforts at reform yielded to the imperatives of cold-war politics...
...Rocard argues, in addition, that if socialism is to succeed in France, it must be instituted gradually...
...It is generally agreed that Mauroy, whom many observers consider party chief Mitterrand's most likely successor, has the largest following—a result of his role in the large Socialist federations of Northern France inherited by the PS from the old Section Francaise de I'Ouvriere Internationale (SFIO...
...And regardless of their other disagreements, the leaders of the four wings of the PS are united behind Mitterrand in opposing the turn to the Right that a social-democratic variant of socialism implies...
...The subsequent decline in party fortunes, with its steady erosion of working-class support, nearly proved fatal...
...In foreign policy, the minority is no friend of Soviet totalitarianism, yet neither does it evince any affection for the U.S.—the nation it regards as the bulwark of world imperialism...
...it is, accordingly, the most vigorous champion within PS circles of a reformed and reinvigorated Union of the Left...
...Significant recovery got under way only after Francois Mitterrand assumed leadership in 1971 of what had been re-baptized the Socialist party...
...Rocard, widely regarded as another potential successor to Mitterrand, is credited with controlling around 25 per cent of the party's 160,000 card-carrying members...
...and worse, in 1956 a government headed by the SFIO's leader, Guy Mollet, found itself conducting a colonial war in Algeria that it had assumed office promising to end...
...The search for an answer has not been a calm one...
...The first option would require the Socialists to renew their alliance with the Communists...
...As for Pierre Mauroy, although his SFIO heritage is a social-democratic one, he is more the pragmatic politician than the Marxist ideologue...
...and more than any other party personality, he has shown an appreciation of the role of the free market in the workings of the modern economy...
...Yet whatever the subtle and not so subtle differences separating the leaders of the four factions, the choices open to them are severely limited...
...the PS does not intend to play second fiddle to the Communists in waging the class struggle in France...
...Mitterrand steered the party on a due left course and, in 1972, into a formal relationship with the Communists...
...the so-called majority consists of an uneasy coalition of three groups led, respectively, by Pierre Mauroy, Michel Ro-card and Francois Mitterrand...
...Major segments—probably a majority—of the French electorate reject socialization of the economy and are still deeply distrustful of Communist democratic avowals...
...Whether such an alliance could ever command the support of a sufficient number of Frenchmen to gain control of the government remains uncertain, despite the fact that the Left's defeat last March has been attributed to its disunity...
...A PS-UDF coalition would have an excellent chance of winning an election, for opinion polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of the French people favor social-democratic reform that would not produce a sharp rent in the fabric of existing institutions...
...ceres believes the party can come to power only by cooperating with the Communists...
...The strength of the Mitterrandists is more difficult to estimate...
...Tempting as the electoral prospects of such a coalition are, however, the chances of its ever being formed are most remote...
...At the party congress held last year in Nantes, he noted that every socialist experiment that has eradicated the play of free market forces has evolved into a bureaucratic economy...
...The PS is officially divided into ; majority and a minority, with proportional representation determining the makeup of all its elective bodies...
...The designated minority, Centre d'Etudes, de Recherches et d'Education Socialistes (ceres), is led by Jean-Paul Chevenement...
...His ultimate approach to debates over the party program, therefore, is as much influenced by considerations involving the struggle for leadership when Mitterrand steps down as by ideological convictions...
...On the other hand, if the Socialists pursue the social-democratic option, they must then seek partners on the Right...
...But even assuming this condition were fulfilled, the events prior and subsequent to the March elections raise doubts about the Communists ever being loyal to a formation that would be clearly dominated by the PS...
...Known for his advocacy of "au-togestion" (worker participation in the management of industry), he contends that this is the only road to a truly democratic socialism—a political philosophy he contrasts to the centralizing, static and protectionist traditions of the French Left...
...Mitterrand's views are less easily identifiable, but the party chief is unquestionably closer to ceres than to Rocard...
...is the only weapon at our disposal to create a more equitable system in France and to get rid, once and for all, of the wicked existing economic and political system...
...Precise figures on the individual numerical strength of the three are hard to come by...
...In the current debates on the party's future direction, ceres occupies the far Left of the ideological spectrum...
...The vote the PS garnered in last March's elections (some 23 per cent of the total)—while confirming its status as France's most popular party—wa^ far from what it needed to achieve power...
...The breakup of that arrangement and the consequent bitterness between the Socialist and Communists notwithstanding, Mitterrand's rejection of a third-force, social-democratic option is unwavering...
...The other points in a social-democratic direction: It would retain the free market along with a large, if not dominant, private sector and seek to achieve social justice through redis-tributive legislation and worker participation in running industry...
...From votes cast on issues the majority and minority have divided over in the past, it can be estimated with relative accuracy that ceres accounts for roughly a quarter of the PS membership...
...And the task has been complicated by the jockeying for power among the party's fact ions as well as by the difficulties of conciliating their ideological differences...
...Nothing, indeed, could be more categorical than Mitterrand's recent reply to a renewed barrage of Communist charges that the PS is moving Rightward: "I believe with every fiber of my being that the Union of the Left...
...In the context of contemporary French politics, this means joining electoral forces with the Center-Left and Center parties assembled under the rubric of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), the supporters of President Giscard d'Estaing...
...This helps explain why some Mitterrandists, seeking to strengthen their position, have urged that ceres be admitted into the majority and represented in the national secretariat, from which it is now excluded...
Vol. 61 • September 1978 • No. 19
