Vive la Révolution

  Karl Marx would be thrilled if he tuned into French television and radio this week. No fewer than four candidates for the presidency are being given acres of air time to try to persuade France to smash capitalism and bourgeois democracy with its election next month.

Three Trotskyites plus José Bové, the rustic rebel and scourge of McDonald's,  have made it into the final list of 12 candidates for the April 22 first round. These contenders from the gauche de la gauche -- as the indulgent media label them -- are sharing their anti-capitalist space with Marie-George Buffet, leader of the Communist Party, a once-potent force which is now a shadow of its Soviet-era glory.

Under electoral law, television and radio must give the petits candidats equal appearance time with the big ones and full equality in news coverage in the final three weeks. This will ensure that France gets better aquainted with its two main celebrity bolsheviks -- Olivier Besancenot, a cherubic 32-year-old Paris postman, and Arlette Laguiller, 66, a loveable former typist who has been preaching violent revolution in every presidential campaign since 1974. [both pictured above in 2004 when they were still talking]

Despite their imperfections, Russia's 1917 revolution and Fidel's Cuba (yes again) are models for France, says Besancenot. "I am an anti-capitalist," he proudly proclaimed today in a 30-minute session on France Inter's breakfast show.

Like all good Trotskyites -- and much of France -- Besancenot blames the late Josef Stalin for giving communism a bad name. "Stalinism... set back for a whole generation the idea that there is a better alternative to capitalism," said the candidate of the Revolutionary Communist League. In radio and television appearances he has been prophesying a radiant future for France that would have warmed the heart Vladimir Lenin.

Besancenot's party is not to be confused with Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), its Trotskyite adversary, whose candidate is Laguiller. She and Besancenot, a history graduate who delivers mail in western suburb of Neuilly, won a combined 2.8 million votes in the 2002 presidential election.

Laguiller has long been popular although her secretive, sect-like party remains a mystery. France has taken a shine to Besancenot, whose boyish looks and constant smile have made him familiar as the nation's cuddliest communist. Much less known is the third Trotskyite frère ennemi, Gérard Schivardi, 58, the mayor of a small town in the southern Aude département. Schivardi, who is backed by The Party of The Workers, is prepared to wait for the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the meantime, he wants the state to take over the economy and revive services in rural areas.   

The revolutionary left is well represented among the 12 who garnered the necessary 500 endorsements from elected office-holders to run for the succession to Jacques Chirac. Only two petits candidats come from the right --  Philippe de Villiers, an anti-European Catholic nationalist and Fréderic Nihous, candidate for the Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Tradition party. The "right of the right" is of course dominated by Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front, who is one of the big four.    

In other nations, 17 years after the fall of the Berlin wall,  would-be rebels who seek election might be dismissed as loonies or dreamers. But not in France, which reveres its revolutionary past and admires insurrection. According to a widely cited poll, France distrusts capitalism more any nation, including China and Vietnam. Interviewers and commentators treat the 21st century bolsheviks with the same deference accorded to the candidates who do not want to overthrow capitalism and install dictatorship of the proletariat. 

The two-round voting system enables ambitious individuals and small parties to join the race in order to raise their profile with so-called "witness candidacies." Occasionally lesser candidates can break through to the big time, as François Bayrou has just done, after scoring only six percent of the vote in 2002.

Les petits can also sabotage les grands.  In 2002, Lionel Jospin, the Socialist Prime Minister, was sunk when dissatisfied voters deserted to the gauche de la gauche. Almost one quarter of the first-round vote went to the Communist, Greens and anti-capitalist candidates, allowing Le Pen to reach the run-off with Chirac. Jospin was especially upset to be done in by his the Trotskyites because he had been an undercover activist for a Trotsky cell -- complete with a code name -- while serving as a senior Socialist.

The far left felt wind in its sails when it led the rejection of the European Constitution in the 2005 referendum, in which the mainstream parties campaigned for a "yes". But big egos and disputes over ideology scuppered an attempt to present a single anti-capitalist candidate this year. Polls now show that support for the comrades' cause has waned to well under 10 percent this time. This springs from a general retreat from antique ideology and a desire not to repeat the left's error of 2002 and squander first round votes on small candidates.      

Here is last week's Sofres institute poll showing the combined total of the anti-capitalists at 9 percent. .                                                

Comments

[Simon]

I believe De Villiers to be considered as "droite extrême" (while Jean-Marie Le Pen is extrême-droite), but this is still not considered as an actual "candidate of the right", title which is conferred to N. Sarkozy.

As for the country's love of (leftist) insurrection blame Hugo: he wrote and glorified it in "Les Misérables" (which, I believe, is quite popular in Britain).

As for the result, we shall wait and see…

[Freda]

You may well be right Simon, but in the meantime I feel a movie coming on..."The Postman Always Rings Twice" Part Two.

[christopher muir]

The idea of a postman becoming French president is a delicious thought, reminding one of Jerzy Kosinski's hilarious (it mightn't seem so funny today) novel "Being There" which featured Peter Sellers in the film adaptation. Jacques Tati's wonderful movie about delivering letters, "Jour de Fete," also comes to mind. Still, it's surely a healthy sign for French democracy when fringe contenders can put themselves up for this most important election. Better that, I think, than they be excluded.

[Actu75]

Right or wrong, most voters don't give a d..., about the trotskists references of Laguiller or Besancenot. Who both carefully conceal, in public campaign, any reference to violent reversal of democratic institutions."Social stupid" more than "revolution stupid" is the key word to gain the vote of french votes in the left and beyond. And that benefits to the red labelled candidates. Laguiller is seen as a part of the patrimoine politique national. And to the credit of Besancenot,it should be added that he is a very smart and efficient contradictor (beyond the traditional trotskist rethoric), quite at ease in tv debates where his "boyish look" is also helpful.

[Richard Black, Paris]

I think these people are great to have around. Debates are much the richer for them. Far more interesting(and often entertaining) to listen to them than the self important pomposity of so many mainstream politicians (Fabius, DSK, Jospin et al). They don't have a chance of being elected for very much but appear to genuinely believe what they say and keep plugging away; refreshing when most politicians will say anything to get elected to anything.

And at least those on the radical left all seem pleasant and harmless, and have a sense of humour; those on the radical right (De Villiers, who seems totally bonkers to me) and Le Pen appear psychotically nasty.

[Subin]

I'm from India and I really appreciate the fact that small time candidates can actually make an impact on the big stage without having to affiliate themselves with any big party.
An interesting thing is that both Sarkozy and Royal keep mentioning admiration for Tony Blair and how he managed the economy but the real credit goes to the chancellor Brown who had a great deal of independence to make decisions. UK kept on taking decisions related to opening the economy unlike rest of EU. That was the success factor and funny no candidate seem to mention that...

[Terry]

Are the communists platform really any different from Sego's?

[Dominique]

Subin,

The EU is the most open economy in the world. No border, no tax for imports unlike the US or Japan.

[rocket]

France Communist Never!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17735487/

[Frank Schnittger]

The variety of the flora and fauna on offer in the first round of the French Presidential election is to be welcomed. It provides for a more varied and colourful debate when compared to the essentially two party systems in other major democracies. Not only does it increase the turn out at the election itself, it increases the sense of popular involvement and participation in the political process as a whole.

The fact that some of the candidates are complete head bangers is neither here nor there. People are entitled to their beliefs and to put themselves before the electorate.

The only flaw in the system is that the first two candidates to emerge into the second round are not necessarily the two most popular choices for President because second preferences are not taken into account. Thus Sarko and Sego are likely to be the candidates in the second round even though Bayrou would beat either if only he could get past the first round.

A fairer system would be a "single transferable vote" system whereby the voter marks each candidate on the ballot paper in order of preference, 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. After all the first preferences are counted the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and his votes are re-distributed to the other candidates in accordance with the second preferences of his ballot papers.

After each count the bottom candidate is eliminated until only one candidate remains and he is often not the candidate with the highest initial first preference vote, but with the most second and subsequent preference votes of other eliminated candidates.

The advantage of the system is that the voter only has to vote once, and all his preferences are taken into account. Thus a leftwing voter might give their first four preferences to extreme left wing candidates (to show moral support) knowing that when they are eliminated his vote will still end up with Sego even though she was only marked as his fifth preference.

If this voter doesn't want Sarko to win he can give Bayrou his 6th. preference, and Bayrou will get the vote if Sego is eliminated. In other words you can vote with both your heart and your head at the same time and end up with your vote counting in the final decisive count between the last two remaining candidates.

The system works very well in Ireland and helps to prevent politics getting too polarised between left and right as all candidates are also trying to get second and third as well as first preference votes. Divisive or polarising candidates do less well unless they can get a large number of first preference votes.

Perhaps the answer to the polarisation of French politics is not the absence of a large centrist party, but an electoral system which encourages polarisation rather than compromise.

[Dominique]

Franck : do you know an electoral system that does not polarise? where is that?

Rocket : obviously, the Hermes chief does not know what the word communist means. I am surprised you obviously don' t either. The millions who suffered communism in the USSR, not to name north Korea or China will appreciate the biased views from business leaders.

For 200 years, the republican values have always been described as some kind of "communism" by those who just can't stand giving up a little money. But guess what, there is one difference : that is called democracy, meaning we actually want our society to be based on solidarity rather than on business.

Why don't business leaders blame religion for the same reasons? because they can escape it! Business has no morale.

[John Gregory Flinn]

I really find it incomprehensible that France gives any media time to candidates like Olivier “Chubby-cheeks”. To label them as simply bonkers or head-bangers is to totally underestimate the sort of politics they, and he in particular stand for.
He is a self-proclaimed Trotskyist, and it's well known that Stalin's ice-axe 'hit' on Leon Trotsky in Mexico is the real source of the hatred ; now Trotsky was a particularly dangerous communist, who practised terrorism as a means to intimidate and control the people even during the early years of Soviet totalitarianism. Another of his policies was to export revolution to the rest of Europe, which even Stalin considered unrealistic (at the time).

So, such ideas are hardly the credentials for democracy, but ones that are evident, for example, in the Islamist lexicon today.
He also supports the 'drapeau rouge' to best represent his position (and others?) on the left.
Whilst it may be true to describe all the presidential candidates as subscribing to the French republican ideals, Olivier Besancenot might be an exception.

However, having said all that, the left may vote for him - and the others because, tactically, this could deny Me Royal a second round!