Reshuffling the Forces
From BERTRAND DE JOUVENEL
PARIS
THE French local elections held on March
I 8 and 15 have attracted a good deal of attention here, though the turn-out was low, because they can be taken to mark the reinstate- ment of the Communists as partners acceptable to other political groups.
With the absence of the two-party system in France is bound up our fundamental device of two successive ballots: election requires an absolute majority in the first round, and is afforded by a mere plurality on the second. This allows the French elector to cast his first vote for the candidate he likes best, and to use his second vote against the candidate he most dislikes. Candidate A being found to lead in the first poll, the parties concerned to prevent his victory withdraw all their candidates but one, B, to let him win by collecting the votes of the withdrawn candidates. This game of transfers is subtle, and We have seen, in the same election, a Socialist getting the better of a Communist thanks to the withdrawal of an MRP and a Gaullist, and a non-Gaullist moderate getting the better of a Gaullist thanks to the withdrawal of a Socialist and a Communist. For a variety of reasons the second round may be a three-cornered fight : it,is necessarily such if there is one party, with con- siderable voting strength, which says 'a plague °, n both your houses' and it is apt to say it, if it Knows that whatever the placing of its man on the first ballot, he can look to no transfers of votes in his favour. That the. Communist Party' has again been a participant.in this game and a beneficiary thereof has made a great difference in electoral results. But it is the psychological significance of the event which is of importance. Even before the Libcration the ground was so laid that 'Gallia in panes tree should come true again in terms of three parties—MRP, Socialist and Communist. The Communists thus started out as one of the three major partners in government, a position they maintained up to their removal in 1947 from the government headed by the Socialist Ramadier. Soon after- wards came the Prague putsch which made them sitsPect, or enhanced previous suspicions. As the cold war 'developed between East and West, with France in the Western camp, and as more and more information came in regarding Stalinist °ppression, the French Communists found them- selves in a doubly uncomfortable position: the avowed friends of a Power now regarded as un- friendly the advocates of a regime which aroused moral indignation. Under such adverse conditions, they might well have lost their following to the Socialists, which would pre- s_un,lahlY have invigorated the Fourth Republic, an they might have dwindled into one of the
th rejected and obdurate groups with which French political scene is strewn. it was not so. Though quarantined, they
upon their strength: they kept their hold L., oil: much the most important federation of labour the Popular unions (CGT) and upon fully one-fourth 1951 Popular vote; thus, for instance, in the and 1956 elections. Excluded, they were not weakened. Since then, great changes have occurred. First :Id foremost, they have• ceased to find them- at cross-purposes with national foreign P2'.111"; not only have they benefited from the 'C.!1. al.' softening of the East-West antagonism, but also and far more, from the attitude taken
by General de Gaulle towards the US: when their old slogan of `independence from America' is featured in the Gaullist press, how could they still be taxed with an `anti-national' policy? As a second point, the onus of reprobation laid upon them by association with Stalinism, has been lifted by the Khrushchevian `thaw.' These two changes would have improved the reputation of the Communist Party without any change in its complexion. But further, it is widely felt that it is undergoing internal transformation.
Hungary did cause an emotion in its ranks: so did the revelations of Khrushchev. A new generation has arisen, too well informed of social and economic facts not to be impatient of simplistic doctrinaire presentations. On top of this has occurred the quarrel between Peking and Moscow. On the previous occasion, Bel- grade versus Moscow, Belgrade was temporarily rejected from the fold. Not so this time; the two contenders both remain within the fold and their controversy therefore is worked out in every corner thereof. But, being called upon to take sides, the Communists are thereby afforded the opportunity for discussion and the expres- sion of independent views. The outbreak of dis- cussion within the Communist Party rids it of this starched monolithism which made it seem so strange, and repulsive, to liberal-minded people. As a Socialist put it: `Now that Com- munists discuss between themselves, we can dis- cuss with them.'
All this goes to explain that the Communists have ceased to be quarantined: and this is apt to benefit them, but also possibly to• benefit the Gaullist party. On paper it is quite true that `the Four of the Fourth Republic' (Independents, MRP, Radicals and Socialists), if allied with the Communists, would utterly sweep away the UNR: but would the right wing of `the Four' accept this strategy? On the part of the leaders it is hardly conceivable, on the part of the voters, inconceivable. Indeed, the more the left wing of `the Four' associates with the Com- munists, the greater is, then the tendency of its right-wing voters to turn towards the UNR.
But there is no legislative election in the offing: the great event to come is the Presidential election, which, as decided in the 1962 referen- dum, will be by adult suffrage. Because of the feature noted above it would be absurd for the Socialist, Gaston -Defferre, to base his cam- paign upon a coalition of parties: it has to be a personal campaign, he must seek votes far to his right, and decline to ask for the Communist votes, which are sure to be obtained anyhow, some on the first ballot, all on the second, if it occurs. Some political forecasters feel that if a strong structure of local committees for Deffe.rre is built up, without including personalities with too well marked political hues, this structure might provide the embryo of a large party, re- sembling the British Labour Party. Such experts believe that the American parties, each of which is a paradoxical federation of local diversities, can be held together only because the Presi- dential election, supremely important, calls for such formations. The French electorate having now been set the same problem, the same organic feature must result, notwithstanding ideological diversity. It is, in their view, a telling fact that already M. Defferre's speeches are quite visibly aimed at the median voter.
The experts think that M. Defferre would win the election if General de Gaulle did not stand. Defferre has already announced that, if elected, his first action would be to dissolve Parliament: an election held in the immediate wake of his victory would allow him to get a majority of deputies accepting him as their leader. 'Thus, though in the inverse order, a situation similar to that of the British Prime Minister would be obtained. The most sanguine hope that the emerging discipline would melt down that specific to the Communist Party, or that a break might occur therein similar to that which occurred in the Socialist Party when it divided between Socialists and Communists. All this is mere speculation, and evolution towards the Italian model is a possibility also to be borne in mind. What is certain is that while the last elec- tions testify to a great stability of first preferences on the part of French voters, new circumstances and new institutions afford occasions for the reorganisation of political forces. .
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