strike to the point of overthrowing the Gaullist regime and torpedoed the mass movement in exchange for the government's agreeing to hold immediate elections. At that time the UDR (the main Gaullist formation) won an overwhelming majority. The current elections will produce a very different line-up. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to think, as the PS (Socialist Party) and the PCF do, that these elections will decide the fate of France. It would also be wrong to think, as the Maoists and spontaneists do, that they have no importance whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE ELECTIONS It is impossible to understand the present situation in France without going back to May 1968. This revolutionary crisis was the grandiose inauguration of a social crisis affecting the most diverse realms. Replacing de Gaulle with Pompidou has not strengthened the state power in the way hoped for. The majority is more ridden with divisions and cliques than ever. It was only with great difficulty that it managed to achieve a certain common front for the campaign. Scandals, some of them very sordid, are popping up everywhere. Not even a relative equilibrium has been restored in the educational system. Furthermore, other institutions, including some of the most reactionary, (the churches, the courts, the police...), have been shaken by profound crises. Finally. all sorts of social categories are raising demands and they are doing so primarily in the streets. As for the working class, its combativity has not been damaged by the fact that the May 1968 movement did not achieve what it could have. On the contrary, it has demonstrated very strong militancy, notably by resorting frequently to tough methods (kidnapping managers,..-), in the numerous struggles that have occurred since then. But all these struggles have had a sectoral, partial character and have not shown a tendency to spread The main reason for this has been that as a result of its experience in May 1968 the working class realised that a mobilisation of such scope needs a political perspective in order to succeed.
The leaders of the PCF and the Socialist Party realised rather early that a situation marked both by their failure to offer any political alternative and by considerable working-class multancy involred a real danger of larger and larger strata of the working class turning toward revolutionary solutions to find a way out of the social crisis. The February 1972 demonstrations against the murder of the worker Pierre Overney at the gate of the Renault factory, called and led by the revolutionary far left, were a clear expression of this danger.
Thus both leaderships felt a need for getting together on a solution that could channel the discontent of the masses and their aspirations for a profound change into a reformist framework and in a way that would benefit them. Although for almost two years they exchanged pleasantries as well as freg aently embittered polemics, suddenly, in less than three months, they reached an agreement to put their signatures to a "common programme". So, in the first instance, the Union de la Gauche (Union of the Left, the PCF-PS coalition) and its joint programme are an indirect consequence of May 1968.
A NEW POPULAR FRONT?
The common programme of the Union de le Gauche is a moderate programme of bourgeois reforms. It contains some very limited rationalisations, promises to certain disadvantaged categories of workers, a retirement age of sixty, ete. It does not propose abolishing the Gaullist constitution but only making some amendments. In content, there is no important difference between the Union de la Gauche programme and that of the Popular Front, even though the recent version is more extensive that the one in 1936.
But the Union de la Gauche differs from the Popular Front on two points. 1. While recognising that the common programme does not contain any specifically socialist measures, the leaders of the PS as well as the PCF claim that this programme, which is supposed to be realised within five years, will promote democracy and thus pave the way for socialism in the relatively short run. From PIERRE FRANK This perspective of a gradual, parliamentary, electoralist development of bourgeois democracy culminating in a socialist society is false and deceitful and is setting the stage for the worst kind of disillusionments. 2. In contrast to the Popular Front, the Union de la Gauche does not have the support of any appreciable wing of French capitalism whatsoever, not even among those elements today that have no confidence in Gaullism or Pompidou. To those who raise the objection that Radical office-holders have associated themselves with the Union de la Gauche, it is easy to answer that these figures represent neither a political or a social force. The Union de la Gauche therefore is an alliance of reformist parties solely and not an alliance between the reformists and any bourgeois party. From this standpoint, the Union de la Gauche is not a new Popular Front.
The attitude of the capitalist forces toward the Union de la Gauche is one of quite understandable hostility. The most astute bourgeois are telling Mitterrand: "We know that the Communist party is a reformist party, but its reformism is not our kind but the Kremlin's. Furthermore, under pressure as it is from the revolutionary movements, we don't know whether the PCF is able now to maintain its control over broad mobilisations as it still was in May 1968. Your Union de la Gauche operation is too risky."
THE PERSPECTIVES The trend is now running strongly in favour of the left; the signs of this are increasing. But for those who can remember, it is apparent that we are not seeing a revival of anything like the kind of enthusiasm aroused by the of an alternative leadership that can inspire confidence, the masses will vote for the Union de la Gauche and will do so in enormous numbers.
If the Union de la Gauche gets a majority, we will quickly find ourselves confronted with a major political crisis resulting from a conflict between the president of the republic and the new Assembly, since the constitution provides that the government appointed by the president must receive a vote of confidence from the Assembly. And Pompidou will not appoint a government that can get this. Such a conflict would almost immediately be taken outside the framework of the institutions of the Fifth Republic.
In my opinion, it is much more likely that the elections will result, on the one hand, in a considerable success for the Union de la Gauche (it would not be surprising if it more then doubled its seats in parliament) and, on the other hand, in serious changes within the majority The UDR may lose a substantial amount of ground to its allies. In this case, there will not be an immediate constitutional conflict, since Pompidou will be able to shift the axis of his leadership within the majority. But the parliament will be unwieldy; and, above all, hesitations, uncertainties, and a certain paralysis of the government will ensue. The outlook, then, is for a major success by the left and for a parliament without a working majority. Of course, this Assembly was not set up to play any role in the Fifth Repuglic. But, lacking a clear majority, it can block the functioning of the Bonapartist state machine. We can also, and above all, look forward to seeing a new thrust of the class struggle. Let me just add a few words about the positions taken by the revolutionary movements. The OCI-AJS (followers of Pierre Lambert, formerly with the SLL in the International Committee') originally participated in discussions with the Ligue Communiste (French section of the Fourth International and Lutte Ouvriere on a plan to divide up the elecforal districts. But now they state that they will call for a vote for the candidates of the "recognised workers' organisations" (i.e. the PCF and the PS) and "in no case for the candidates of the Ligue Communiste or Lutte Ouvriere, who are crypto-Stalinist candidates pushed by the bourgeoisie"!
The Ligue Communiste and Lutte Ouvriere will each put up candidates in many constituencies. Thus, the revolutionary road to socialism will be defended in over half the electoral districts, In particular, almost all the working-class districts will be touched directly by the candidates of these two organisations.* In the first round, the Ligue Communiste is calling for voting only for the revolutionary