From LA RIPOSTE, a French socialist website supported by many PCF members.
The next election for the President of France takes place in the spring of 2027. The first round is on 18 April, and the top two candidates will contest the run off on 2 May. We re-publish this analysis of what the election will mean for the left and the workers’ movement, with a particular focus on the policies and programme of the French Communist Party (PCF). This party is much diminished electorally, often getting less than 5% of the vote, but it still has the strongest links with the organised labour movement, especially the main trade union federation – the CGT.
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For several years, nationalist, protectionist, and xenophobic parties have been gaining ground across Europe, reacting to the social and economic effects of capitalist “globalisation” and the lack of prospects for change other than through their ideas of so-called “national priority.” [ie giving priority to “real” French people – Ed]. In France, almost all polls regarding the 2027 presidential election indicate that the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) is poised to win.
While the most powerful capitalists have grown vastly wealthy and increased their influence over the economy, society, and public authorities, workers, young people, and retirees have seen their living conditions and prospects deteriorate. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, wealth and power have never been so concentrated in the hands of a small minority.
Rising prices – particularly for basic necessities – and the degradation of public services are condemning a growing segment of the population to precarious living conditions. In 2024, according to French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), 9.8 million people in metropolitan France were living below the monetary poverty line – nearly one in six inhabitants.
The paradox is that the social damage caused by capitalism primarily benefits a party that defends this system even more ruthlessly than other right-wing parties. Behind rhetoric claiming to protect “the people” against “the elites,” a Rassemblement National (RN) government would exclusively serve the interests of the capitalist class. To impose its policies, it would seek – even more than its predecessors – to “divide and rule.”
The rise of nationalism and xenophobia in France has been fuelled by the experience of left-wing governments over recent decades. In 1981, under François Mitterrand, the Socialist Party-Communist Party (PS-PCF) government implemented major social reforms to improve workers’ living conditions and rights. It nationalized the banks and several major industrial groups.
However, capitalists retained control over the bulk of the economy, enabling them to launch a powerful counter-offensive that forced the government to back down. By 1982, the reforms had been suspended and ultimately abandoned, replaced by a policy of austerity and industrial dismantling. Wages were frozen, and hundreds of thousands of jobs were eliminated. After having supported this shift for two years, Communist Party ministers and MPs did not leave the government until July 1984.
Content to manage capitalism?
Subsequent left-wing governments were content merely to manage capitalism. Between 1997 and 2002, the Socialist-Communist coalition carried out numerous privatisations. Governments under the presidency of the Socialist Party’s François Hollande pursued the same conservative course. It is hardly surprising, then, that millions of voters no longer perceive any major difference between the “Left” and the Right, and that many have turned to the RN.
Drawing lessons from this experience is of paramount importance in the current struggle against the RN. Admittedly, capitalism entails exploitation and social regression. It damages the environment. It sows international instability and war. Few workers would dispute this assessment. But is another system truly possible? For if there is not, one must be “realistic” and submit to the imperatives of the current system – to the law of profit, militarism, and nationalism.
How can we convince millions of voters – currently tempted by abstention or voting for the RN – that the contemporary Left genuinely champions a policy of social, economic, and political change capable of radically improving their living conditions? These issues lie at the heart of the fight against nationalism, authoritarianism, and racism – a struggle that must continue and even intensify should the RN win the presidential election. Whatever the election result, it will mark merely one stage in a long-term battle.
It is with this in mind that we wish to discuss the PCF’s decision to field a candidate in the presidential election. This decision has drawn criticism, with accusations that the PCF is sowing division on the Left and risking the chance of having a left-wing candidate in the second-stage runoff. Indeed, this is a real risk. It would have been preferable to unite the entire Left behind a single candidate based on a platform of social reforms.
[photo – wiki commons]
Reaching a satisfactory policy agreement with the PS was impossible, given the stance of its leadership, which essentially amounts to “Macronism without Macron.” However, La France Insoumise (LFI – led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon) and the PCF could have reached a policy agreement, as they have done in the past. Their respective platforms are very close. However, this time, the leaders of both parties chose to attack each other to “score points” rather than seeking agreement on a common platform. Fabien Roussel will therefore be the presidential candidate for the PCF.
During the internal vote that ratified his candidacy, two factors – beyond the fact that he was the sole contender – carried particular weight. First, for many Communists, failing to field a candidate posed the risk – or even the certainty – that the PCF would be sidelined in media coverage during the campaign.
“Class struggle”
Second, the leadership’s commitment to placing “class struggle” and the PCF’s revolutionary goals at the heart of the campaign – thereby clearly distinguishing itself from other left-wing candidates – opens up the possibility of broadening the party’s social base on a more explicitly Communist foundation.
The PCF could have championed a genuinely socialist policy – or a Communist one (essentially the same thing) – within an alliance based on a common platform, negotiated in good faith with LFI and other left-wing forces. It could have asserted its distinct identity within that alliance during the campaign. In reality, however, no negotiations took place, and no such alliance exists.
The PCF’s political stance has recently undergone a potentially significant shift. Since the 1990s, the leadership had made a concerted effort to eliminate any reference to socialism from its publications and public discourse. Under Robert Hue’s leadership, the party openly embraced the market economy – in other words, capitalism – while aiming to give it a “social dimension.” Privatization was no longer considered taboo. This shift was not merely theoretical: the PCF leadership and its ministers in the Jospin government (1997–2002) endorsed numerous privatisations.
Subsequently—and until recently—the idea of a “social capitalism” was sidelined. However, the need for a break with capitalism and a transition to a socialist society was not clearly asserted—though this is finally beginning to change.
The policy document adopted at the PCF’s 40th Congress in September 2026 falls short of the challenges of our time. The section concerning international policy is particularly weak and muddled. However, there is progress regarding the party’s direction for France. It states that the PCF’s collective goal is to move beyond capitalism and that there is an urgent need to “open up a revolutionary perspective with the people: socialism.” The text defines the PCF as the party of the emancipation of labour, a class-based party standing against capital, and a party dedicated to the struggle against exploitation and oppression. It calls for “taxing large fortunes, abolishing tax exemptions for major corporations, taxing profits, and implementing measures against capital flight.”
Challenge capitalist ownership
While these measures are positive in themselves, they do not challenge capitalist ownership. Yet, it is on this very point that a significant shift in party policy has occurred. The text declares that such measures will not suffice as long as “financial markets dictate investment decisions and steer the economy toward immediate profitability.”
Consequently, the PCF aims to “reclaim political power over the state apparatus and the economy” and initiate a transformation toward socialism – a process “based on the social ownership of the means of production, democratic public control over credit and money creation,” and “moving beyond market competition and the subordination of wage labor.” This requires the “massive socialization of property” and democratic economic planning.
Despite some vague or ambiguous phrasing, this part of the text marks a significant step forward: it presents the transition to socialism as an urgent necessity and correctly defines the economic and social foundations of a socialist society. Nevertheless, certain ambiguities remain. For instance, the problem does not lie primarily in the pursuit of “immediate” profitability; many investments – particularly in industry – only become profitable in the long term. What we dispute is the subordination of all economic activity to capitalist profitability, regardless of the timeframe for returns.
Similarly, when the text proposes “regaining political power over the state apparatus and the economy,” the verb “regain” raises a question: did this power ever exist? The phrasing suggests it did. Does this imply a return to the state interventionism of the post-war era? There is a fundamental distinction between the state’s financial and political intervention in a capitalist economy and the abolition of capitalist ownership of the principal means of production, distribution, and trade through their nationalisation or socialisation.
Obviously, there is no need to socialize every single enterprise. However, major corporations – particularly those listed on the stock exchange or affiliated with the MEDEF [the main organisation for big business in France, like the CBI in Britain – Ed] – must become public property, be placed under democratic control, and be integrated into a plan for the entire economy. If the economic principles of socialism outlined in the congress document are to have any concrete significance, this is precisely what they entail.
These ambiguities would be less concerning if they remained confined to written texts. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It is one thing to speak of “revolution” and “socialism” when addressing PCF activists internally, but quite another to champion these ideas publicly.
Populist and reactionary rhetoric
Yet, serious doubts remain regarding the willingness of the party leadership to carry this revolutionary and socialist agenda into the presidential campaign. Fabien Roussel has not done so thus far. On the contrary, he has frequently used populist, or even reactionary, rhetoric. What message are we sending to workers when he, as Communist Party leader, receives thunderous applause at the MEDEF’s 2024 summer gathering for asserting that communists and the business community share “a common ambition, a shared project: that of placing work back at the heart of society”?
[photo – NakaraZn – wiki commons]
Such statements – like those regarding the deportation of migrant workers whose asylum applications were rejected by OFPRA [the French government refugee agency – Ed], or references to a “France of welfare recipients” – can only discredit the PCF and cast doubt on the true direction its leaders intend to take.
If the presidential campaign repeats such lapses, it will not strengthen the PCF but rather weaken it further. The PCF can run a highly successful campaign, provided its activists remain vigilant and prevent any “populist” drift on the part of its candidate or other party representatives. The presidential election offers an opportunity to show workers and young people that the PCF now champions a genuine project for social transformation – one that breaks with austerity, exploitation, and all forms of oppression, and moves beyond the reactionary dead end of nationalism.
Of course, this is not merely a matter of proclaiming the need for socialism. The PCF has long advocated a wide range of demands and proposals addressing every aspect of the country’s social and economic life. Now, however, the implementation and consolidation of these reforms must be linked to the imperative of breaking the economic power of the capitalists, thereby stripping them of the ability to sabotage such measures as they did during the Mitterrand era.
By vigorously championing a program of radical social reforms that paves the way for a socialist transformation, the PCF could strengthen its roots in society and expand its ranks of activists. Above all, it would help consolidate the most militant forces within and around the labor movement – a vital asset for the future.
The struggle against nationalism and racism will continue long after the presidential election. We hope to see the RN defeated. Yet should it prevail, we will continue to fight its harmful policies with all our might.
[This is a translation of an article that first appeared in ‘La Riposte’ on 9 September. It has been slightly edited to assist UK readers. Featured image is the logo of the Parti Communiste Francais – wiki commons]
