By Greg Oxley [the second part of a two-part article)
We have said that a victory for the Rassemblement Nationale (RN) is a very real danger. Several polls and elections results are there to confirm this. However, this is not inevitable by any means. It should be remembered that what deprived Emmanuel Macron of a parliamentary majority in 2024 was the electoral breakthrough of the left, which neither Macron nor the polls had foreseen.
Clearly, the creation of the New Popular Front was a major factor in mobilising voters in favour of the left and this is an important political lesson. Sometimes, of course, the political differences or political ambitions and rivalries can make an alliance impossible. The behavior of the leaders of the Socialist Party (and most of the leaders of the Greens) has shown that they are not reliable political allies. We only have to look at their complicity with Macron and the government at the present time.
Nevertheless, the historical experience of practically all elections in France shows that when the different components of the left manage to agree on a common strategy, the left performs better electorally. The same will be true in 2027 and 2028, whether it be for the municipal, presidential, or legislative elections.
We must prevent the RN and its allies on the right from winning the elections. We must struggle might and main and bring the left to power. We believe that an electoral alliance on the left will increase our chances of achieving this.
The overriding importance of the left programme
But beyond strategic or tactical considerations, there is the overriding importance of the program of the left. Every day, the spokespersons of La France Insoumise (LFI), the Communist Party (PCF), Ensemble!, and others, denounce the exploitation, injustice, and discrimination inherent in the capitalist system. The CGT and other trade union organisations do the same. But it’s one thing identify problems. It is quite another to be able to seriously reduce or put an end to them, and this is where the left has failed in the past.
Let us ask the question concretely: what would happen if the left comes to power in 2027? What could a left-wing government do against the enormous economic power of the capitalist class? Is it possible to radically improve the living conditions of the population, while still leaving the power of the capitalists intact?
Despite the differences that exist on certain issues, LFI, the PCF, Ensemble! and the “left of the left” stand in general on fairly similar political platforms. For example, they all want a significant increase in the minimum wage, more protections for workers, improved pensions, better funding for public services, and a huge increase in taxes on capitalists.
These demands are also put forward by the CGT and most of the trade unions. We must support all of these measures, along with many others that we do not need to detail here. They are aimed at reversing austerity policies and bringing about, in one way or another, an overall transfer of wealth and resources to the working people, to the detriment of the capitalist class.
The policy of the left amounts, in short, to an “anti-capitalist” policy of social reform, in the sense that it goes directly against the policy of counter-reform demanded by the capitalists and carried into practice by politicians like Macron and Lecornu.
Powerful reaction from the capitalist class
However, any government that that tries to implement a program of this kind would be confronted, from Day One, with the absolutely implacable hostility of the bosses in general, and especially by the most powerful industrial, commercial, and financial enterprises. Increasing wages, putting heavier taxes on profits, reducing or eliminating subsidies to capitalists and redirecting resources to hospitals and schools, strengthening the rights of employees in companies; all of these amount to a direct attack on capitalist profitability.
This means that when the rate of profit falls, investment will also fall, economic activity as a whole will sharply contract and jobs will be lost. Capital will flow out of the country and workplaces will be downsized, shut down, or moved abroad. This is the reality of how capitalism works. In a system where the only justification for any form of economic activity is the profit it makes, any attempt to implement a policy of major social reform will inevitably and immediately provoke a powerful reaction from the capitalist class.
There is nothing abstractly “theoretical” or speculative about this statement. On the contrary, it rests upon the concrete historical experience of left-wing governments, in France and abroad. The last time a government in France attempted to implement a substantial program of social reform was in 1981, under Francois Mitterand.
Previous ‘left’ governments capitulated to pressure
After just twelve months of capitalist sabotage, the socialist-communist government of the time was forced to announce a “pause” in reforms, before adopting, a few months later, a policy of cuts in state expenditure, a wage freeze and industrial closures. Seeing no alternative, even the ministers and parliamentary group of the PCF went along with this policy for two years, up to July 1984.
In 1997-2002, the ‘socialist’ government of Lionel Jospin privatised massively. It was a ‘communist’ minister, Serge Gayssot, who launched the privatisation of Air France.
Today, as in the past, a left-wing government would face the same problems. The capitalist class would make it very clear, not just in words but in terms of active sabotage – as it was with Mitterrand – that social reforms contrary to capitalist interests will meet with a brutal collapse in investment and a massive increase in unemployment.
A confrontation of this kind would present the government with a stark dilemma. Either it would have to capitulate, adopting right-wing austerity policies to placate big business, or it would have to find a way to break the economic power of the capitalists.
The latter option would necessarily involve a policy of expropriation, of taking control of production and services, of the banking system and all the essential machinery of the economy, transferring it from the private to the public sector, and paving the way for a democratic plan of production and a major redistribution of wealth to meet the needs of society.
Without moving towards a social and economic transformation of this kind, it will not be possible to put an end to the exploitation and injustice imposed on us by the capitalists and their political cronies.
Greg Oxley is editor of the French socialist website, La Riposte, here
Part ONE of this article can be read here.
[Feature photograph of RN leader, Marine Le Pen, is from Wikimedia Commons, here ]
