Revolution/IMT France: The banker wins - Now 'Rebellious France' must mobilise!
Thoughts on the french election results from the french section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). See link for full article.
It was definitely the right call from the majority of Melenchons movement not to support a vote for the "lesser evil", who is in fact a very "big evil", a representative of the very forces of capitalism and austerity that have created the crisis that gave rise to Le Pen and other far right populists, and only promises more of the same.
As Melenchon pointed out after the elections, Le Pen in fact came third after the abstainees and blank voters in the election, and still lost - and now the movement of resistance can continue to be built without being tarnished by having backed the banker, who will now proceed to attack labour rights and the working class with extreme brutality.
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Originally Posted by Revolution/IMT France
http://www.marxist.com/images/cache/..._w640_h427.jpgPhoto: Mutualité-Française
The most chaotic presidential election of the Fifth Republic has just resulted in the election of a new head of state. At the end of the first round, the winner of the second was already known. Millions of left-wing voters reluctantly voted for Macron to defeat Marine Le Pen.
It must be said that none of the leaders of the left or the trade union leaders offered them a concrete alternative in terms of what to do faced with two right-wing candidates. Most of the left leaders simply called on the electorate to vote for En Marche's candidate, Macron! But he is not in a strong position, as his 20.7 million votes do not represent a homogenous bloc of support for his policies. Those who voted for Fillon, Macron, Hamon, and Mélenchon in the first round, and then went on to vote Macron in the second, round are a mix of left and right, devoid of clear class lines.
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The result of the internal consultation of 'Rebellious France' last Tuesday, when the ranks were asked what position the movement should adopt in the second round, showed that the farce of the 'Republican front' is rejected by a growing number of young people and workers. The 65% of 'Rebellious France' activists who refused to support the idea of calling for a Macron vote in the second round sent out a strong signal. We do not fight the FN by calling for a vote for right-wing parties. A serious struggle against the FN involves mobilising the youth and the workers on a programme that breaks with capitalism, because it is precisely the crisis of this system that is feeding the FN vote. That, and also the inability of the left governments in the last twenty years to solve the problems of the masses. The left and the labour movement must reconnect with the ideas and the programme of a revolutionary transformation of society. We from Revolution defend these ideas and this programme.
http://www.marxist.com/france-the-ba...t-mobilise.htmI was actually absolutely shocked that Melenchon didn't offer some token support to Macron. Colour me surprised it turned out he isn't a sell out like some others. Still, the vote between a neoliberalist and a fascist would be a tough one.
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I was actually absolutely shocked that Melenchon didn't offer some token support to Macron. Colour me surprised it turned out he isn't a sell out like some others. Still, the vote between a neoliberalist and a fascist would be a tough one.
Indeed. Well, he has his background in a 'deep entryist' tradition of trotskyism. Who knows, he might have called for a revolution when the capitalists sabotaged the economy afterwards, had he won ;)
On a more serious note though, while he is at least currently a reformist and it is above all the movement behind him that matters, he is a quite interesting person and a brilliant speaker.
Listening to him, one can after a few sentences hear that he thinks dialectically which is pretty cool. This is a rally where he speaks by to huge crowds of tens of thousands, simultaneously by hologram in the cities of Lyon and Paris at the same time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70WorEgphZU
He enters the stage and starts speaking about 20 minutes into the video. English subtitles are available.
It was a very interesting election that's for sure, particularly the first round. I quite liked that there were three decent(ish) leftist candidates in Nathalie Arthaud, Phillipe Poutou and Melenchon. And I saw an interesting news video on the Guardian about the current protests in Paris where one middle age woman was saying something along the lines of 'they're saying that 60% of people voted for him but 40% of the population either spoiled their ballot or didn't vote at all!'. It's always something I'm annoyed by regarding the reporting of bourgeois elections - that they ignore those who didn't vote or spoiled their ballots in order to create a sense of legitimacy. And this is all going on amidst the general struggle against labour laws.
Political lessons of the French elections
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