France: New AntiCapitalist Party in crisis

[blake 3:17]

France: The NPA in Crisis

— Jason Stanley

FRANCE’S NEW ANTI-CAPITALIST Party (NPA) is in crisis. While only two years ago many on the international left talked about the NPA as one of the brightest lights on an otherwise dim revolutionary horizon, today the Party is hemorrhaging members and struggling to stay afloat.

Founded in 2009, the NPA brought together members of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and a number of diffuse anti-capitalist, anti-globalization and identity-based movements in France. Whereas the LCR had been a party that sprouted from the fertile terrain of the May 1968 moment, the NPA was to be a party of the new, post-Berlin Wall left.

Some on the revolutionary left had doubts about the move away from explicitly socialist, Marxist politics, towards something more in line with the broad global justice movement. Yet growth and momentum — at least apparent momentum — brushed those concerns aside.

At its founding convention, the NPA had 9,123 members spread over 467 local branches. Approximately 5,900 members participated in the Party’s local congresses leading up to its national congress.

All this promised a level of commitment and dynamism to be reckoned with. Even before the NPA was founded, many on the left felt that a window had opened for revolutionary politics. In 2002, the LCR’s candidate in the country’s Presidential election, Olivier Besancenot (later to become the NPA’s Presidential candidate), received 4.25% of the national vote, while a second revolutionary party (Workers’ Struggle) scored 5.72%.

This was better than either party had ever performed in a national election and, significantly, each of the two revolutionary parties had out-competed the long dominant and often stifling French Communist Party (PCF).

Five years later, in the 2007 Presidential election, Besancenot tallied 4.08% of the vote, outdistancing the PCF by an even larger margin. Coupled with a political climate that gave rise to large-scale social mobilizations that won key victories against neoliberal attacks, this appeared to be a special moment.

Yet only two years after the NPA’s founding congress, the Party looks to be on life support. By early 2011, it had lost over one-third of its members. Eight months later, activists close to the Party suggest numbers had continued to decline precipitously. Perhaps more importantly, the sense of hope and dynamism that pervaded the Party in 2009 has been displaced by disappointment and shock.

http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/3490

[blake 3:17]

Interested people should take a look at the comments section at the end of the article. They are likely to grow over the next few days.

[RedSonRising]

What a letdown. Can't say I'm surprised, but I was hoping for a concrete agenda of action and some militancy to drive the party's momentum forward.

[Leftie]

The NPA's recent troubles are largely due to the fact Besancenot isn't standing as their candidate and so isn't leading the campaign and Poutou, the presidential candidate is pretty awful.

[DaringMehring]

People trashed LO (Lutte Ouvriere, Worker's Struggle) for not jumping on board with this broad-based "unity" non-Marxist anti-capitalist party.

While the LCR was dissolving itself in order to constitute the NPA, LO stuck to its guns -- patient work within the working class for a Marxist revolution.

Guess what? LCR just took the final step into its grave. The "global justice movement" is not something a genuine revolutionary party should sacrifice itself to.

Meanwhile, the LO continues. It is only several thousand people, because they only allow dedicated proletarians to be members. However, it has rings of support. In elections, it has reached 5% despite using elections as a revolutionary platform, not for reformist promises to lure voters. It puts on the yearly Fete (Festival) where thousands of people gather for a socialist weekend bash.

And it continues its steady path, slowly growing from a handful of people in the 60s, to what it is today. Opportunistic jumps looking to suddenly get in with lots of people cannot compare to this kind of real growth, which is slow, but actually counts, transforming people and their social consciousness and building an organization. Slow, steady, humble -- and effective. LO is easily the best hope for a socialist revolution in any industrialized country.

[DDR]

LO is easily the best hope for a socialist revolution in any industrialized country.

So a bunch of folkloric people with a fetiche for the industrial working class is the way for revolution? Sorry but count me out.

Really I'm sick and tired of this left who isn't with the times. We have the hardcore trots who live in between 1917-1924 everything else doesn't exist. Then the hardcore m-l's who live in a world where 1953 have never passed. And then we have people like NPA and their Spanish branches (IzAn/En Lucha/Revolta Global, etc.), post-modern trots and altermundistas, who directly doesn't live in this world because they are so post-moderns that they live in candyland.

I hope the NPA (and those spanish parties) burst into flammes, the sooner the better.

[North Star]

The dividing line seems to be how to respond to the Left Front and the PCF. While I prefer the NPA to the other two formations, I think the NPA should lend critical support to Mélenchon in the Presidential elections. Why? Because the PCF & Left Front have more connections to the actual French working class than the NPA does. I like the NPA's structure but it is weak on connections to the unions and the French working class. It's made up of a lot of students and full time activist types. Yes Besancenot is a postal worker, but he seems to be the exception rather than the rule in the NPA. No need to get mired in electoralism, but a united left beyond the Socialist Party, especially given the circumstances could get some impressive numbers in France.

[DaringMehring]

The dividing line seems to be how to respond to the Left Front and the PCF. While I prefer the NPA to the other two formations, I think the NPA should lend critical support to Mélenchon in the Presidential elections. Why? Because the PCF & Left Front have more connections to the actual French working class than the NPA does. I like the NPA's structure but it is weak on connections to the unions and the French working class. It's made up of a lot of students and full time activist types. Yes Besancenot is a postal worker, but he seems to be the exception rather than the rule in the NPA. No need to get mired in electoralism, but a united left beyond the Socialist Party, especially given the circumstances could get some impressive numbers in France.

If you accept the NPA is a petit-bourgeois formation free floating from the working class, and you call yourself "neo-bolshevik," how can you care too much about it or its strategy? Why does it matter much who they ally with in bourgeois elections? Isn't the only task for them, to ingrain themselves into the working class, something that by their class background and amorphous ideology they cannot do anyway?

[Crux]

Correct me if I am wrong Dahring Mehring, but didn't the LO lend critical support to SP candidates in the last local elections, because they couldn't stomach supporting the NPA? If so that's very definition of secterianism gone wrong. As for the NPA, yes their main problem is that they have not in fact intervened in the working class as much as they should have had and the ex-LCR's decision to dissolve themselfes was, I believe, a pretty clear expression of liquidationism. So on the one hand launching the NPA was definetly a step forward, but it was without any direction. As for the PCF/Left Front, the day they make a clear break with the SP I am all for a broader alliance.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the decline started when the NPA refused to work with Melenchon and co. during the EU elections. Here's a situation where working together wouldn't have costed much, yet this opportunity was refused.


So a bunch of folkloric people with a fetiche for the industrial working class is the way for revolution? Sorry but count me out.

How does the LO define "working class," anyway?

[blake 3:17]

Is there a good thread here on radical or revolutionary parties, elections and governance?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Join the Revolutionary Strategy usergroup and discuss the material there:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=205

[DaringMehring]

Correct me if I am wrong Dahring Mehring, but didn't the LO lend critical support to SP candidates in the last local elections, because they couldn't stomach supporting the NPA? If so that's very definition of secterianism gone wrong. As for the NPA, yes their main problem is that they have not in fact intervened in the working class as much as they should have had and the ex-LCR's decision to dissolve themselfes was, I believe, a pretty clear expression of liquidationism. So on the one hand launching the NPA was definetly a step forward, but it was without any direction. As for the PCF/Left Front, the day they make a clear break with the SP I am all for a broader alliance.

The LO's always-policy has been no support to the SP.

They've adhered to it for decades. No opportunism. Over time, that builds a reputation and a culture that is positive for a far left group. Arlette Laguiller consistently ranked "most trustworthy" of the presidential candidates, among the French public.

However, they made a deviation and a mistake when they chose not to oppose the SP in the elections when Le Pen was running. They justified their softening on the basis that Le Pen was so disgusting, a man who would be guaranteed to carry out vicious attacks on the immigrant population. However, I think they regret it. The convulsions around those events led to a return to the consistent policy.

And no, it has nothing to do with spiting the NPA. LO's attitude re: the NPA has only been proved by history. They understood it from the beginning, no need to waste their effort caring too much about it or modifying their behavior to try to fight it somehow. Just another petit-bourgeois non-Marxist reformist organization playing at radicalism.

LO's role in the strike wave, compared to Besancenot et al, leaves no doubt of that.

[Binh]

LO has made an electoral deal with the Socialist Party and people quit LO as a result. Source: a comrade of mine emailed me after returning from France. He was surprised to learn his contacts had quit. Presidential candidates have to be nominated by 500
of France's 30,000-plus mayors, so that may be why LO did it.

[North Star]

If you accept the NPA is a petit-bourgeois formation free floating from the working class, and you call yourself "neo-bolshevik," how can you care too much about it or its strategy? Why does it matter much who they ally with in bourgeois elections? Isn't the only task for them, to ingrain themselves into the working class, something that by their class background and amorphous ideology they cannot do anyway?

Oh please, LO formed a short term alliance with the PS, which is outrageous given the potential strength of NPA/PCF/FG. LO does have ties to the working class in France, but decided to pursue relations with the PS! If the NPA fucks up then it fucks up. I'm not going to defend it till its dying breath. However, the hostility and it has received is rather laughable in this context. Let's see what happens before we have a post-mortem.

[DaringMehring]

Oh please, LO formed a short term alliance with the PS, which is outrageous given the potential strength of NPA/PCF/FG. LO does have ties to the working class in France, but decided to pursue relations with the PS! If the NPA fucks up then it fucks up. I'm not going to defend it till its dying breath. However, the hostility and it has received is rather laughable in this context. Let's see what happens before we have a post-mortem.

Please. LO had a short-term "alliance" meaning joint lists in about 40% of the country in municipal elections.http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/lo-fait-liste-commune-avec-ps-et-pcf-dans-65-villes_470306.html

They spell out pretty clearly what they think of the NPA there. They place no value on building it. And why should they? It is as they say -- a radical reformist organization.

Btw I was wrong about Le Pen, I was mixing up with something else. LO attacked leftists who wanted some kind of popular front against Le Pen: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article419
By the way they got a high vote total in that election.

I don't know the details of the LO CC's decision making process. But I do know their policy for decades has been opposition to PS. So it got broken a little bit one time -- measure of the organization's ideological strength how much commotion that cause. You heard it from Binh, people resigned. I know my contacts in LO have no use for the PS.

By composition the membership of LO is several thousand working radicals and professional revolutionaries -- you show me where you have that kind of working class membership in another rev. socialist organization... They are small, but they came from nothing and made their development count.

[Crux]

Yes joint lists with PS is completly unprobldematic...say what you will about the limitations of the NPA but last I checked they were not allying with bourgeosie parties.

[DaringMehring]

Yes joint lists with PS is completly unprobldematic...say what you will about the limitations of the NPA but last I checked they were not allying with bourgeosie parties.

So some group, lists 40% of its candidates in one municipal elections jointly with PS in one election, out of its 40 year history (for reasons I don't fully understand) contrasted with its typical aggressive rejection of front tactics with social democrat types.

AND, richly enough, the person from CWI, which's whole history is trying to be a fraction of the Labor party. But I guess the Militant / Ted Grant entryist past is not ashaming enough to make this guy keep quiet on this matter. I suppose, the fact that the CWI always tries to orient itself into some "broad left electoral alliance" the idea that a group would not care about something like the NPA really ticks him off.

But guess what, the NPA did shit, is shit, and is going to shit. Meanwhile, LO remains, fighting workplace struggles from the inside. While CWI or NPA or whatever group plays bourgeois elections, the majority of LOs work is in direct fight with the boss. Their militants led the Martinique/Guadeloupe general strikes by the end -- strikes that ended in victory.

But I guess some how that is no option to LCR/CWI/whatever united electoral front for bourgeois parliament games.

[Crux]

So some group, lists 40% of its candidates in one municipal elections jointly with PS in one election, out of its 40 year history (for reasons I don't fully understand) contrasted with its typical aggressive rejection of front tactics with social democrat types.

AND, richly enough, the person from CWI, which's whole history is trying to be a fraction of the Labor party. But I guess the Militant / Ted Grant entryist past is not ashaming enough to make this guy keep quiet on this matter. I suppose, the fact that the CWI always tries to orient itself into some "broad left electoral alliance" the idea that a group would not care about something like the NPA really ticks him off.

But guess what, the NPA did shit, is shit, and is going to shit. Meanwhile, LO remains, fighting workplace struggles from the inside. While CWI or NPA or whatever group plays bourgeois elections, the majority of LOs work is in direct fight with the boss. Their militants led the Martinique/Guadeloupe general strikes by the end -- strikes that ended in victory.

But I guess some how that is no option to LCR/CWI/whatever united electoral front for bourgeois parliament games.
Cool story, bro.

[blake 3:17]

LO and the LCR did run joint candidates in the past and least on occasion. The LCR was multi-tendency and factional. The people I know best were with the dominant currents which led to the NPA. I also spent some time with a comrade from the Revolutionary Tendency (this was ten or more years ago). The TR was aggressively anti-PS, and the furthest right they's move was to support a vote for PCF.


But guess what, the NPA did shit, is shit, and is going to shit. Meanwhile, LO remains, fighting workplace struggles from the inside. While CWI or NPA or whatever group plays bourgeois elections, the majority of LOs work is in direct fight with the boss. Their militants led the Martinique/Guadeloupe general strikes by the end -- strikes that ended in victory.


I don't think this kind of verbal attack on the NPA is OK. Sell outs, reformists, incompetent, fine. But "shit"?

For those not part of the LO circuit one way or another, they're really hard to evaulate. I've hard some stories about LO members running up to bulletin boards. sticking their flyer up and then disappearing. Sometimes this is necessary. I don't want to denigrate anything good they do but LO does act in mysterious secretive ways and is off putting to many. Their candidates have gotten some profile, so that's good and it would be interesting to hear what they have to say.

I know some people who really