A look behind British and French election turmoil

The following is a report issued on July 11 by the Coordination of Communist Nuclei in the Spanish State* giving its analysis of the legislative elections in Britain and France that concluded in early July. Translation: John Catalinotto.

The respective victories of the Labor Party in Britain and of the New Popular Front in France must be understood as an immense vote of popular rejection of governments which, in the midst of a gigantic crisis and as direct representatives of the imperialist big bourgeoisie, have carried out the harshest policies against the working class. In this sense, the electoral results are the continuation on a national level of what happened in the recent European elections in which the low rate of participation in voting has reflected a high degree of social unrest.

In both Britain and France, as in the rest of the European Union and certainly in the Spanish State, the degradation of the living conditions of the working class is enormous and has no prospect of improving. Within the framework of the general crisis of capitalism that is progressively intensifying, the restriction and closure of the economy imposed tightly during the pandemic accelerated the collapse of economies that had barely recovered from the crisis of 2008-2009. 

To this must be added strictly political decisions, such as the cancellation of trade with Russia and the raising of interest rates, which have sent prices skyrocketing and have finally ruined thousands of companies. The results [for the working class] have been devastating.

In Britain, millions of workers who have lost their jobs or who earn paltry wages are resorting to food banks and cannot heat their homes in winter. As a result of cutbacks and privatization, the deterioration of public services is immense and especially severe in the National Health System, which until the 1980s was the ideal example of health services in Western Europe. The major strikes that have shaken the country have failed to reverse the situation, although they have demonstrated a high degree of social indignation. 

The Labor Party has in its program only vague promises of “change.” Labor has been supported by important business sectors and by large [usually] conservative media, such as The Sun tabloid, owned by Robert Murdoch. The majority vote that Labor won has served to channel into the electoral arena a powder keg of social exasperation that has no possibility of being resolved.

Social situation dire in France

In France, the social situation is, if possible, even more serious. The data are overwhelming: More than half of France’s population cannot afford to pay for medical and energy expenses or to buy fruit and vegetables; a third are forced to skip one or even two meals a day; almost a quarter of children are living in poverty and social exclusion. 

Massive popular mobilizations and workers’ strikes — against the 2022 fuel hike, against the pension reform, over the murder of a teenager by the police or the recent farmers’ protests, among others — have shaken the country to the point of threatening to overturn the government, using powerful methods of struggle not seen for decades. 

The New Popular Front, which finished in first place, is made up of a patchwork of organizations. It includes the Socialist Party, which is penetrated to the core by Zionism and is directly responsible for Le Pen’s rise [Marine Le Pen is leader of the National Rally (NR), formerly National Front]. 

The NPF program, should it succeed in governing, does contain a set of social measures and improvements in public services. However, with no proposal to reverse privatizations, nor to confront the austerity plan that the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund intend to impose, these measures seem more like an incoherent collection of wishful thinking. 

Moreover, an NPF government would be faced with an EU that plans to strip the individual countries of their authority and that has a radically anti-democratic structure. Voters in France rejected this EU by a majority [55%] in the Referendum on the European Constitution [in 2005]. Nevertheless, the NPF does not even question the EU’s power structure. 

EU, NATO warmongering

Nor is there a single mention of the EU’s escalating warmongering, nor of the subjugation to the U.S. through NATO, nor the disproportionate increase in military spending. These are particularly significant facts in France, a country whose population is traditionally protective of its sovereignty and in a political force [the NPF] that claimed to oppose President Emmanuel Macron, who is determined to take France to war with Russia. 

Undoubtedly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s concrete proposal to repeal the criminal Emigration Law passed in January of this year and his support for the struggle of the Palestinian people, clearly expressed, together with the theme of “No Pasarán” [blocking fascists, meaning blocking Le Pen’s NR] have revived the anti-fascist sentiment of the French people. All this has been decisive for mobilizing a vote that, neither in the European elections nor in the first round [of the French legislative votes], had taken place before. [Mélenchon is the leader of France Insoumise and a main spokesperson for the NPF.]

In short, in both Britain and France, the vote was an instrument to oust the previous governments. In the French case, it was also an expression of a deep anti-fascist popular sentiment, a sort of emergency brake against the threat from the most extreme right wing, but little more. The New Popular Front looks very much like the colorful salad that characterizes the old/new postmodern social democracy and, like it — as Syriza showed in Greece [starting in 2015] — possesses neither the will nor the capacity to solve the problems and may even further weaken the working class.

The big problems will continue to worsen in the midst of great political instability, either with the foreseeable alliance between Macronism and Le Pen or with a government of the New Popular Front without a parliamentary majority.

For the moment, time has been gained in the face of the iron fist with which, either through a new threatened pandemic, climate crisis or more directly by war, the bourgeoisie is preparing to confront its own contradictions and the rise of popular mobilization provoked by the crisis. And the working class, in France, in Britain and in every country, must take advantage of this time, this kind of reprieve, to progress in the construction of a powerful communist class organization, capable of organizing the necessary force to defeat the criminal plans of the imperialist oligarchy.

*Note: Some communist and anti-imperialist organizations in the territory ruled from Madrid use the term “Spanish State” instead of “Spain” as a sign of respect for the right to self-determination of the various peoples living in the different regions.