The Communists break ranks
Sam. White
Paris About this time seven years ago — that is to Say about one month before the last Presidential elections — there was a strong Whiff of financial panic in the Paris air at the Prospect of a Mitterrand victory. This time, although the outcome promises to be as Close as it was then, the Bourse is confident, the franc solid, and there is no noticeable In crease of traffic towards the Swiss frontier. The difference is revealing — for although the two principal contestants remain the same — Giscard and Mitterrand — and the polls now as then show them running at 50-50 each, the whole nature of the contest has been changed by the breakup of the 'union of the Left'. By wrecking this union the Communists have not only enhanced Giscard's chances but removed most of the fears over the consequences of a Mitterand victory. It is not only that a Mitterrand without the Communists fails to scare, but that he would find it as difficult to secure an effective majority in a new National Assembly as he would in the present one. That is why he is committed, as his first act of policy should he win, to dissolve the present House and hold early Parliamentary elections. But a parliamentary majority would almost certainly still elude him, for it would require a much bigger swing in voting patterns than the simple majority needed to put him in the ElYste. A vote of 50.001 per cent will get him there but, because of the way French constituencies are weighted in favour of rural communities, he would need at least 54 per cent of the vote to have any hope of a parliamentary majority. And this is something which the left, even when united, has never succeeded in achieving in France.
Mitterrand could, of course, swallow his pride and invite the Communists to join the government. But this would invite his own instant destruction, not only at the hands of the Communists themselves who would only await a suitable occasion to leave but also at the hands of the Opposition. The only alternative would be for him to pick up some fringe support — a few radicals here, some left wing Gaullists there, together with a centrist or two, and hope for the best. The more ambitious of Socialist policies would have to be put into cold storage to await better times. Meanwhile the Communists, as though despairing that anyone else will brandish the 'Red Menace' to scare away voters from Mitterrand, are brandishing it themselves. A few days ago Georges Marchais went on television to proclaim that a Mitterrand victory would be greeted by a wave of sit-in strikes aimed at forcing him to take Communists into his government, and to carry out immediately his major policy promises. Breath-taking in its crudity and obviousness, this statement by Marchais — it was carefully read from a document to show that he was not merely flying off the handle — removes any lingering doubts that the Communists' chief purpose in this campaign is to defeat Mitterrand rather than unseat Giscard. The next day there were only broadly smiling faces at Giscard's headquarters, with jubilant comments on all sides to the effect that the election was 'in the hag'. The joy was so unrestrained that it needed a warning from Giscard himself to his campaign managers not to play up Marchais's words since any over-exploitation of them might backfire. In fact, of course, it is absurd for Marchais to pretend that the Communists have the power to call such strikes. They have not. He did, however, in order to lend credence to his threat, evoke the memory of the sit-in strikes which greeted the victory of the Popular Front in 1936 but these were in I fact like the strikes of 1968: spontaneous I ones, which it took the Communists weeks to get under control. The threat is an empty one, as empty as the threat of a strike wave if Giscard won in 1974 and which instead has produced a period of unparalleled industrial calm in the country. What is interesting is that this time the threat should be made not against Giscard but against Mitterrand. This brings us back to the central mystery: why? Why should the Communists be acting 'objectively', to use one of their favourite terms, as Giscard's best allies to a point that is causing some embarrassment in Giscardien ranks? Are they bending to some internal political needs or Soviet foreign policy ones? 1 cannot accept the former theory, based as it is upon the view that the 'union of the Left' favoured the growth of the Socialist Party, as it undoubtedly did, and to a weakening of the Communists. In fact the disparity between the two parties has grown to the advantage of the Socialists since the Communists 'broke ranks. Furthermore the Communists have known how to play a humble second fiddle to the Socialists — when it suited them and suited Moscow. They did that in 1936 when, in order not to frighten off voters from the POpular Front, they even announced that, although they would support it, they would refuse to participate in a Popular Front government.
Again in 1974 they refused to stake out any claims to government seats. The only explanation for the present line, which has made their poll ratings drop from 20 per cent to 16 per cent, is not internal but external; that they are doing Moscow's bidding. Even the present sensationally low ratings — the lowest the Communists have scored since the war — are certain to dip even lower if events in Poland take a bad turn. Here Marchais himself is involved in a tense cliff-hanger. He has repeatedly said — the last time in the broadcast already refered to — that the Russians would not intervene militarily in Poland. Clearly he I has received some high-up assurances on this point from Moscow, and his hope must be that, whatever the Russians do finally, they will hold off until after the first round of voting in a month's time. Otherwise the Communist vote will drop well below even the 16 per cent mark. Marchais will have to sweat that one out himself, but someone who is not doing any sweating at the moment is Giscard himself. It is difficult to see what more Marchais can do for him between now and election day to assure his victory.
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