Mitterrand moves to the left
Sam White
Paris Of the many dilemmas which continue to plague the French socialist leader M. Mitterrand, there is a fundamental one which he resolved at the recent party congress at Metz. This is the question of whether to abandon the policy of alliance with the communists or to pursue it. He decided to pursue it and the torrent of abuse this earned him from the communist party press seemed to prove that he was amply right in doing so. Not that he had much choice. He was the advocate of union with the communists and he was one of the co-authors of the joint common programme with them. It took ten years to achieve, and only a few months for the communists to wreck it; but for Mitterrand to have drawn the conclusion that the policy had been mistaken would not only have been fatal for himself in his attempt to hold on to the leadership of the party, it would have provided the communists with precisely the outcome that they wanted. Their claim that the socialists had taken a decisive turn to the Right would have appeared justified and once again they would have been left as the unchallenged leaders of the French working class. Mitterrand met this problem head on at the Metz congress by allying himself with that wing of the party closest to the communists, the CERES, led by Jean-Pierre Chevenement, and deserting his former colleagues and incidentally his rivals on the Right, Michel Rocard and Pierre Mauroy. The result was that though Mitterrand failed to get an absolute majority for his re-election as Secretary General — he got 47 per cent — he has come nearer to commanding the support of the French Left as a whole than any other French socialist since Jean Jaures.
As Mitterrand sees it, the tragedy of the French Labour movement has been not so much the split in the socialist party which produced the communist party way back in 1920 but the take-over by the communists of the French equivalent of the TUC. This has meant, according to Mitterrand, that the French socialists have become increasingly isolated from their original working class base and it is only in recent years as a result of the policy of alliance with the communists that the socialists have not only made up the leeway but are in the process of becoming the dominant force in the trade unions. To reverse the policy now is to leave the field clear for the communists; to continue it is to erode their influence still further, in any case what future is there for a socialist party which breaks away from a major ally on the Left in favour of alliances on the Right? It will then quickly sink into the state in which Mitterrand found it when he joined it ten years ago — an adjunct of government but not a party of government. It is nevertheless ironic that it should be Mitterrand, a non-Marxist himself, who should now be allying himself with the most dogmatically Marxist wing of his party in order to avoid a decisive break with the communists.
Thus it was odd to hear him at Metz agreeing with the Left that when in power the party would make a 'complete break' with capitalism, as though he actually meant it, while Rocard rather plaintively was pointing out that the only real alternative to a market economy was a siege economy: that is, rationing. To get the fully absurd flavour of some of the proceedings, however, it is necessary to quote this extract from a speech by Mitterrand's new protégé, the leader of the Left, Jean-Pierre Chevenement: 'we are now once again in 1940. The France of Giscard is about to hand itself over to the United States. Who will be the new de Gaulle?' Who indeed? Nevertheless there is method in all this madness, and this shows itself and will continue to show itself in the election results. The socialists did well, for example, in the recent cantonal elections and the communists held their ground giving the Left a total 54 per cent of the vote. A similar result and a possibly even better one for the socialists can be confidently predicted for the European parliament elections on 10 June. This election will inevitably turn into a referendum on the government's domestic policy, and the consequence will be that the country as a whole will vote the motion of censure that Parliament itself refused to vote recently. Then finally there are the presidential elections in 1981, — and who can be certain in those circumstances that Mitterrand, a fairly youthful 65 by then with , a long chain of defeats behind him but with a long chain of near victories also, will not finally make it? A year ago Giscard seemed the certain winner. It is not nearly so certain now, and Mitterrand's policy at Metz has made it even more uncertain.
Despite the rhetoric and the rivalries at Metz the Party emerged with its voting potential considerably enhanced and Mitterrand's position greatly strengthened. Barring accidents he is now certain to be the Party's candidate in the 1981 presidential elections. His alliance with the Party's Left-wing may infuriate communists and anti-communists alike, but it makes it that much easier for him to get the communist vote or a large proportion of it in the second round and makes it much more difficult for the communist leadership to advise their voters to abstain. Furthermore Mitterrand will balance or rather reinforce a more Left-wing domestic policy with a more nationalist one on Europe. This will ensure that he gets not only communist votes but also Gaullist ones in the second round. It is already being estimated that at least 30 per cent of Gaullist voters will not vote for Giscard in the second round and that many of these will go to Mitterrand. Meanwhile his overall appeal will be further strengthened by the fact that he will be rid of the handicap of formal ties with the communists and that the common programme to which both were pledged no longer exists. A great improvement in the economic situatiocould, of course, make Giscard once again almost certain to be re-elected as President; a reconciliation with Chirac might do the trick, too. But so far there is no sign of one or the other and, if I were betting on the 1981 presidential elections now, my money would go on Mitterrand.
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