French presidential elections

[LebaneseCommunistParty]

Ok obviously noone here is going to support Sarkozy. And obviously the first thing that comes to mind is to support for the socialist candidate. But i hear that she's quite the oaf. Who would you support?

[BOZG]

Olivier Besancenot or Arlette Laguiller, critically.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Communists support .. none of the bourgeois candidates.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 09:33 am
Olivier Besancenot or Arlette Laguiller, critically.
Do you think combined, they'll get more votes than they did in 2002 (I think it was almost 11% of the total votes)?

[UndergroundConnexion]

being from there I say:
Marie George Buffet

[BOZG]

Originally posted by CompañeroDeLibertad+April 21, 2007 10:12 am--> (CompañeroDeLibertad @ April 21, 2007 10:12 am)
[email protected] 21, 2007 09:33 am
Olivier Besancenot or Arlette Laguiller, critically.
Do you think combined, they'll get more votes than they did in 2002 (I think it was almost 11% of the total votes)? [/b]
I honestly couldn't tell you, not knowing what exactly the mood is like over there. My French is terrible so I've been looking through articles for the important bits about it and hoping my translation is correct!

I think if they drop votes though, it would be quite a blow to the left.

[Pirate Utopian]

I support puttin' more riotfunk in that ass.

[gilhyle]

I dont know who this Gerard Schivardi is - is he from the Lambertist party ?

ANyway, my view is that the only thing to do is vote socialist. Neither Besangenot, Laguiller or Buffet are what I would call candidates of struggle - i.e. none of them represent any significant organisation of social forces on an active basis. All are merely using the election to promote their various parties. Since the politics of each is wrong, why vote for them ? One possible reason would be that the mass of workers have faith in them and a vote for them would put them to the test. This is not the case.

Royal on the other hand represents the party in which workers do have illusions. Consequently one should vote for her.

This is done in recognition that the tactic will not be effective in the absence of militant struggle - which is mostly absent. The puzzle about deciding how to vote is that there is no way to vote which repreents a sound working class perspective. The puzzle is that there is no course of action which makes sense - but that is capitalist democracy for you. It has evolved to allow you vote and not to allow you to represent your own interests.

SO it is no objection to a voting tactic that it is not electorally effective. Let me put it another way. If Buffet, Laguiller and Besangenot are all deeply flawed candidates, how can you say one is better than the other ? You cant - certainly between Laguiller and Besangenot. Voting Royal allows you to a) avoid abstaining and b) avoid choosing one revolutionary sect over another and c) vote along class lines.

Hence its the best option in a bad field of options.

[UndergroundConnexion]

No, first of you should not put Buffet and Besancenot , Lagullier in the same league.
Besancenot, although having good ideas, and supporting strikes here and there, is working on a social movement, yet he refuses to take any governemental responsibilities, not even on a local scale.

Buffet however, her program is realistic , and well calculated. The PCF would assume responsabilities.

Royal , is a social democrat let's say, and not a socialist. She says she is inspired by Blair, and I think this is scandalous , seeing what Blair has done to Britain.

Schivardi, to answer a question posed above is a trotskyist, with nationalist points of view. On tv he talks alot about the "french this french this". Not an internationalist.
Also the smallest candidate..

Anyways my top 3 :
1. Buffet
2. Bove
3. Besancenot

[combat]

1- Schivardi is not a Trotskyst, and the PT has degenerated to the core.
2- The PS and Royal are identical to what the democratic party is in the US although it used to be a workers bourgeois party back in the time.
3- Besancenot is a reformist with revolutionary rethoric, he's tailing the popular front with the CP and the PS.
4-LO and Laguiller, although to the left of the LCR, are totaly trade-unionists. They offer no political perspective to the masses and had a somewhat reactionary attitude toward the immigrants' uprising in 2005. Worse, they might even call to vote for Royal if she reaches the second round.
5-The CP is a reformist-stalinist party which betrayed the proletariat so many times(1936,45,56,68,81,95,etc) that no serious person would think about supporting it.

As a result, workers have no choice to make. It is better to prepare the incoming struggles that will require a vanguard bolchevik party.

[UndergroundConnexion]

Schivardi is constantly flirting with nationalism , and comes in France more across as a farce I have the idea.

TBayrou is center right, and Segolene not much better.

LCR has a potential to be a social movement, and they are relatively active in the streets and the on other areas.



how have the PCF betrayed the proletariat? 1968 I understand but else....
on a local level everywhere the PF was dominating there was social improvement.
And not to forget Marchais was a great leader, despite having his flaws.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling to vote Royal on the second roudn, if it is to block the road for the ultra capitalist policies of Sarkozy, who lets not forget in the candidate riding for the mulitnationals and the big bosses (le grand patronat), and whos brother holds a high position in the MEDEF.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 10:18 am
being from there I say:
Marie George Buffet
she's from the PCF, right?

[UndergroundConnexion]

Originally posted by LeftyHenry+April 21, 2007 09:51 pm--> (LeftyHenry @ April 21, 2007 09:51 pm)
[email protected] 21, 2007 10:18 am
being from there I say:
Marie George Buffet
she's from the PCF, right? [/b]
ye

[Spike]

betrayed the proletariat so many times(1936,45,56,68,81,95,etc) that no serious person would think about supporting it.
There is really no basis to this nonsense. The PCF in fact supported the strikes of 1968. In the early 1980s the PCF came into conflict with the bourgeois social democrats due to their treacherous policies. The CGT was in fact the leading force of the 1995 strike.

[UndergroundConnexion]

ye , true, but the pcf in 1968 did initialy not support the student uprisings. Yet I do think the party did an immense amount of good for the people of France.

[The Grey Blur]

Yes, their co-option and destruction of a revolutionary situation was clearly a brilliant victory for the working-class.

I'd vote Royal, to keep Sarkozy out.

[Janus]

But i hear that she's quite the oaf.
I think that impression was created by her political inexperience when dealing with international issues.

As far as the candidates go, I don't think any of them can really fundamentally change much. However, I am quite worried by the growing amount of support that the ultraconservatives and their candidate Le Pen are garnering.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

My favorite candidate is Olivier Besancenot, but realistically speaking, I hope Royal wins the election.

I don't think Le Pen's advancement to the second round in 2002 was something that he or the NF really achieved but more of a consequence of having such a disunited left. Anyways, if he makes it again, there will be riots.

[Spike]

The proletariat should defeat Sarkozy whose victory would result in union busting and 60 hour/week slavery. Sarkozy is the main enemy.

[BOZG]

Buffet supported French troops in the Lebanon.

La Situation Au Liban (French) (http://www.mariegeorge2007.org/La-situation-au-Liban.html)

[manic expression]

I really like Olivier Besancenot, but in terms of viable candidates, I really hope Royal wins and promptly fails when in office. Why? If people get fed up with social democrats there is a far greater chance they'll turn to revolutionary ideas. It took Kerensky's truly blunderous rule to put the Bolsheviks in a more advantageous position.

[BOZG]

Yeah but it can also push people towards Sarkozy.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 03:45 pm
Yeah but it can also push people towards Sarkozy.
True, and I lack the perspective to best guess who would and who wouldn't in France. A disappointing Royal would help the revolutionary cause IMO, but whether or not she is effective in office is in her own hands.

[UndergroundConnexion]

no an innfective royal would lead people to bayrou, sarkozy and le pen.

[gilhyle]

What the implications of an ineffective Royal would be would depend on the level of class struggle. IN a passive France it would lead people to the right; if militancy builds up it would lead left.

The LCR has been playing this social movement thing for decades; its crap.

THe record of the PCF is shamefull, but thats another thread.

[gilhyle]

As I type I hear poll results putting Sarkozy first and Royal second.

But the burning question in my mind is that if you lay out all the manifestos from right to left with de Villier at one end and Laguiller at the other, it almost works perfectly as a gradient from those who know how to use photoshop to those who dont. Why is it the left have lost all visual culture ?

[UndergroundConnexion]

you mean the way they present theri little booklet, this a3 paper printed on both sides?

The left tends to want to put the most infromation on there possible, making it sometiems less visually atractive

[gilhyle]

Yeah those are the ones I mean. Actually, all the leaflets, left or right, are shockingly badly presented. Its as if they are trying to avoid looking too professional. But the logic of trying to squeeze extra information in, doesnt excuse the front page of Besancenot's leaflet (which has no info on it) which is AWFUL.

Its incredible. An amateur working for free for a student in a student union election would produce better artwork. You would fail any design course if you presented that as a project.

it seems to me it reflects a rationalist view of humans which is naive. The hammer and sickle was a great visual image (a good update posted recently on this site). The red flag was a great visual image. The left nowdays (at least in France) doesnt even seem able to pick a half attractive background colour !

[UndergroundConnexion]

I thought the besancenot leaflet was pretty nice. I have it on my table right now as I am typing.

It has the main slogan "nos vies valnet plus que leur profit", which tells a lot about the party, and the colours are well chosen.

It looks way better then the laguillier or buffet ones. Even better the the Royal one (although I prefer seeign a pic of Segolene :D). The LCR leaflet is also very clear, something that cannot be said about of leaflets.

But I do remember the Robert Hue leaflet of 5 years ago , which was aful, shitlaods of small letter, really not attractive at all

[RedArmyFaction]

Well comrades, it's a two horse race now. Sarkozy or Royal ? I'd vote for Royal. She's left wing for sure and she's pretty good looking for her age. I'm shocked that Sarkozy won the first round of voting since he's not really seen as French but is Hungarian and Jewish in roots, and French people are generally seen as racist. But it's good that Le Pen is out. :rolleyes:

[Pirate Utopian]

Who cares if she is good looking?, and she isnt "left-wing for sure", her only adventage is not beeing Sarkozy.

[UndergroundConnexion]

and looking good :D

[KurtFF8]

Well between Sarkozy and Royal, I'd obviously go for Royal. But her stance on how to deal with the youth (e.g. military school for juvenile delinquents) isn't quite what I would favor and not something that I think her party is in favor of.

I do think she has a chance at winning if the rest of the left decides to back her, and from what I hear, this is likely to happen.

[gilhyle]

The net electoral question is has the French electorate moved to the right or is there a significant element of Bayrou's vote that will swing left. But if so that is a very reactionary vote whether it goes to the RPR or the Socialists.

Underneath is the reality that Buffet seems to struggle towards (imitating Tony Benn's point in the UK) : namely that schema of the result either way is one characterised by the absence of an invigorating socialist alternative : that is what defines the election....and for that the LCR and LO are to blame with their tired, irrelevant, cliched politics.

[Tommy-K]

In the run-up to the French presidential election in France, the final vote is now between the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist Segolene Royal. Thankfully the fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen got the least share of the votes and was consequently knocked out in the first round.

It seems Royal has a lot of support. The news said she was looking to be the French answer to Margaret Thatcher, although apart from them both being female (I assume that's what they were referring to) they are nothing alike.

Do you think that if Royal gets voted in this will be a positive change for France? Do you think she really is as 'socialist' as she says she is?

Discuss.

EDIT: The French Socialist Party is similar to Britain's Old Labour, i.e. Social Democrat if anything, but still situated much further to the left than any other party in France.

[Whitten]

EDIT: The French Socialist Party is similar to Britain's Old Labour, i.e. Social Democrat if anything, but still situated much further to the left than any other party in France.

You mean other than the dozens of real socialist and communist parties?

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 09:18 am

EDIT: The French Socialist Party is similar to Britain's Old Labour, i.e. Social Democrat if anything, but still situated much further to the left than any other party in France.

You mean other than the dozens of real socialist and communist parties?
uberlol :lol:

http://www.pcf.fr/
http://www.initiative-communiste.fr/
http://www.lcr-rouge.org/

[luxemburg89]

I read in the paper that the left-wing parties (most of the French Socialist and Communist parties anyway) are lending their support to her. It seems to be a step in the right direction.

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 09:18 am

EDIT: The French Socialist Party is similar to Britain's Old Labour, i.e. Social Democrat if anything, but still situated much further to the left than any other party in France.

You mean other than the dozens of real socialist and communist parties?
I meant they were the most leftist party of the major political parties in France.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

I don't know much about french politics in fairness, but as far as I'm aware Royal is a very moderate socialist and her running for president upset some of the left of the party...

I'd like to say that if she'd get in she may be more influenced by the left of the party, but I really don't know. Notwithstanding the fact she'll have to make a lot of concessions to the centre voters if she wants to become president, I doubt her term would earmark much change for France though would still be better than if Sarzozky was elected.

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by Tommy-K+April 28, 2007 09:44 am--> (Tommy-K @ April 28, 2007 09:44 am)
[email protected] 28, 2007 09:18 am

EDIT: The French Socialist Party is similar to Britain's Old Labour, i.e. Social Democrat if anything, but still situated much further to the left than any other party in France.

You mean other than the dozens of real socialist and communist parties?
I meant they were the most leftist party of the major political parties in France. [/b]
since when is the PCF and LCR not major? (ok since Robert Hue fucked them over, but still, they have mass support)

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, Trotskyists got almost 12% of the votes in the 2002 elections. They got 6% of the votes in the most recent one.

The PCF got over 3% in the 2002 election, and about 2% in this one.

Royal's "Socialist Party" is about as socialist as the "Socialist" Parties of Bachelet in Chile and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Spain.

[Spike]

That globalist scoundrel Sarkozy must be defeated. His victory would result in union busting, elimination of benefits, and discrimination against Muslims. All leftists have to vote for Royal.

The PCF is in such a pitiful state. It's hard to believe that this party once dominated the post-war Left. Not even worth bothering throwing away a vote on them anymore.

[Brekisonphilous]

is she leading the polls?

when is the final election?

[che_diwas]

I am not that sure on who the original french vote... but since i'm from asia, the votes of the immigrants, the religious minorities and most of the women will surely go for Sigolene Royale...

This is the second round polls, so any french member in this forum, tell us how the voters of the first round who voted other than royale and sarkozy will vote in the final round...

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 12:38 pm
is she leading the polls?

when is the final election?
From what I've heard, she has been slightly behind Sarkozy in the polls. The second, final round of the election is May 6.

[che118]

She's not left wing at all i would consider her centrist. She lists Tony Blair as one of her idols???


I still don't think the French should vote for her

Viva communism

[Avtomat_Icaro]

I doubt that many people vote would the "true" communist parties in...so she is kind of an alternative to them and those right wing parties.

[Goatse]

She's just a social democrat (at most) but better than nothing.

[Janus]

Merged

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I was just told that Sarkozy won with 53%.

[Pirate Utopian]

Riottime it is then?

[Janus]

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency by a comfortable margin Sunday and immediately signalled his victory would mean friendly relations with the United States.

His socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, conceded defeat for her hopes of becoming France's first woman president. With nearly 70 percent of ballots counted, Sarkozy had just over 53 percent of the vote, according to the Interior Ministry.

Washington can "count on our friendship," Sarkozy told hundreds of cheering supporters, though he added that "friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions."

President Bush swiftly phoned the new president-elect to offer congratulations.

"The United States and France are historic allies and partners. President Bush looks forward to working with President-elect Sarkozy as we continue our strong alliance," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

Largely untested on the global stage, Sarkozy delved into foreign policy in his first speech as president-elect, urging the United States to take the lead on climate change and saying the issue would be a priority for France.

"The people of France have chosen change," Sarkozy said, while pledging to be "president of all the French."

Voter turnout was projected at 85 percent — a level not seen in 40 years — thanks to the dynamism of both candidates and the high stakes for a nation losing global clout to neighbors Britain and German and even developing countries like China and India.

"I gave it all my efforts, and will continue," Royal told supporters as she conceded defeat. "Something has risen up that will not stop."

Sarkozy — a charismatic but divisive figure known for uncompromising, even brutal language — inherits from Jacques Chirac stagnant wages, a lagging economy and frustration in impoverished, immigrant-heavy suburbs.

While exuberant Sarkozy supporters partied in central Paris, police quietly looked out for possible unrest in suburbs where Sarkozy is unpopular and riots broke out in 2005.

Sarkozy — for whom the presidency has been a near-lifelong quest — is certain to face resistance to his plans to make the French work more and make it easier for companies to hire and fire.

Sarkozy, 52, says France's 35-hour work week is absurd, and as interior minister, cracked down on drunk driving, crime and illegal immigration.

He is an admirer of the United States who has borrowed from some American policy ideas. Tough-talking and blunt, he alienated many in France's housing projects when he called young delinquents "scum."

Sarkozy wins French presidency (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070506/ap_on_re_eu/france_election;_ylt=AubRiARa2Nt7cf5tRNTiJdRvaA8F)

[Mahdavikia]

A l'aide!!! :o
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