France's zigzag course
Sam White
Paris It took the former government 17 years to lose a cantonal election. It has taken the present Socialist-Communist one ten months to do so. Taking account of all the alibis, it still remains a notable increase in the pace of disillusion. Five years ago, when the reverse occurred, the Left were loud in proclaiming that the conservative majority was in fact a minority in the country. Now the boot is on the other foot. The results of the second round of these elections simply amplified those of the first — what looked like a setback became a stinging defeat.
Yet it was the Socialists themselves who had first described these elections as con- stituting a national test and had carefully baited the electoral trap beforehand. They had first of all redrawn the electoral map in drastic fashion so as to favour themselves and then had given greater powers to the heads of departements at the expense of the prefets as outlined in their decentralisation plans. All to no avail: they lost in the new departements as heavily as in the old, in the agricultural centres as well as in the in- dustrial ones. The new powers to be given to the presidents of departmental councils will go not to the Socialists' friends but to their opponents. It is being argued of course that the cantonals are not really im- portant and that they merely served this time as an opportunity for the voters to flick a feather duster in their rulers' faces. This was not, however, the view of the government at the time, which threw its whole weight, and especially that of the Prime Minister, M Mauroy, into the cam- paign.
Furthermore the cantonals hold the key to a whole series of elections — municipal, regional, parliamentary and even those of the Senate whose members are partly elected by the votes of departmental con- cillors. It is therefore not surprising that the result should have brought out once again the rumblings of discord within the govern- ment. There are those who claim — and they of course include the Communists that the results are a punishment for the government for not going far enough. This is a dubious proposition, particulary com- ing from the Communists. After all, if the voters had wished to register a protest against the slow progress of reform then the Communist vote might have been expected to increase rather than decrease.
Then there are those who argue for a more digestible process of change or, as the Minister of Finance did earlier this year, for a 'pause'. M Delors was seemingly alone when he did so three months ago, but now he has been joined by M Michel Rocard, speaking up for the first time since the elec- tions last spring, and surprisingly enough by the leader of the left wing of the party, M Chevenement. There are also those who murmur vaguely about the need for the government to 'change course'. Their argu- ment would be easier to follow if one knew which of the government's zigzag courses they were talking about.
It has in fact been following opposing policies, so that it is difficult to say at any given time which enjoys priority. It is fighting, for example, both against infla- tion and unemployment with conflicting methods and with equally fruitless results. It promises a reduction in social charges on employers and then increases them. It hopes to stimulate job-sharing with a lower working week at lower pay only to find itself contradicted by the President who decrees that wage levels must remain un- changed. It launches a great campaign to encourage foreign investment and especially American investment in France, and then dashes its chances of success with a police raid on the, leading American brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch.
Meanwhile the franc is only being main- tained at its present parity by a continual drain on French reserves and a record bank rate; inflation continues to run at roughly three times the German level. In those cir- cumstances a temporary withdrawal from the European Monetary System offers no solution and devaluation itself has to wait until the attack on the franc eases. So too, incidentally, must a much-needed cabinet reshuffle. This will probably involve the Prime Minister himself (M Mauroy having been found weak and indecisive) and half a dozen ministers such as M Filloud, the Minister of Communications, who is held responsible for the near-ludicrous state of French television, and Madame Cresson, a one-woman disaster area as Minister of Agriculture.
Faced with these grim facts of life it was predictable that the Socialists and their Communist allies should take refuge in con- spiracy theories. It is all the fault of inter- national finance aided and abetted by French capitalists and of course the press. French television too, now more docile the ever, comes in for its share of the blame for not explaining the government case suffi- ciently well and therefore failing in its task as the nation's mentor. M Mauroy set the ball rolling by blandly declaring: 'The fact is that international finance does not like us.' However, M Marchais, the Communist leader, wanted to bring the class war nearer home. He declared that the run on the franc had been instigated by French capitalists who were still getting their money out of the country, although how they were doing this in the face of the present stringent exchange control measures remained something of a mystery. Almost as puzzling was the attack on the press. A quick check of the Paris press shows that in terms of partisanship it Is almost equally divided, with the Left enjoY- ing a slight advantage in numbers of readers. As for the important and more MI" mediately influential provincial press, it is surprising to find that it may be almost 90 per cent pro-government. Meanwhile the Communist trade union federation, COT, has launched a furious attack on its rival trade unions, accusing them of advocating a policy of 'class collaboration'. This is a term of abuse which seems to have gone out of fashion in recent years and it is in- teresting to note its revival now. The Com- munists have been holding a high-level in" quest into their poor performance in recent elections.
Having run out of all other explanations, they have now concluded that it must be Poland. The workers, M Marchais said' failed to understand 'the fundamentally humanist [sic] nature of the Communist ap- proach to recent events in Poland'. I should at this point mention something which is beginning to worry many French liberals: that the inevitable swing against the Socialist government will go too far to the right and will result in a revival of the ex- treme Right in France. This is not unlikelY and is in fact beginning to concern inanY opposition leaders including the former prime minister, M Barre. The recent massive farmers' demonstration in Paris had these overtones — a new kind of PM' jadism boiling up and ready for exploita- tion by extremists of the Right. Certainly some fertile soil is being ploughed for just such a development. It was to be noted that the opposition leaders, commenting on the results of the cantonal elections, fell over themselves to stress that they in no way af", fected the legitimacy of the Mitterrand presidency or that of the present govern- ment.
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