[Marxism] FRENCH NON! WAS A WORKERS NON!

[Michael Sims <mjsbpmagen-mxmail@xxxxxxxx>]

FRENCH NON! WAS A WORKERS NON!

- a ruff analysis of the french plebicite -

Written by Tron Ogrim
tron@xxxxxxxxxxx
Oslo, Norway

(this was written to a semi-closed E-post list in a hurry and has
not been really polished for publication. It is forwarded with my permission
as a service to comrade Michael Sims, who graciously asked me for it.)

(Please excuze all errors in my barbaric english. Im not
a native speaker and have never really mastered this difficult lingo.)

For explanation of norwegian and dutch left party names, see

http://www.broadleft.org/westeuro.htm

LEFTIST PARTIES OF WESTERN EUROPE

- + -

Theres been a question

about social stats about the dutch NEE vote.

Id love to see them too, unfortunately I dont know any.

However, the paper edition of International Herald Tribune for
tuesday 2005-05-31 page 4
had some very interesting  FRENCH election stats

(Source: Vote breakdown from 05-29 IPSOS nationwide
representative telephone poll of 3 355 registered voters)

These stats show very clearly that the french NON was a
WORKERS NON.

The propaganda of a victory for the RIGHT, for RACISTS
or for LE PEN find no support in these stats.  I suggest that
if you study these stats and look at WHERE the NON vote
came from socially, this doesnt seem  possible.

The vote has been described as a LEFT win,  politically.
The class social background of the voters confirm this.

Here are 3 of the stats:

1) By jobs

Labourers            OUI 21%  NON 79%
Farmers              OUI 30%  NON 70%
Office workers       OUI 33%  NON 67%

Middle managers
 teachers, health
 and social workers   OUI 47% NON 53%
 Skilled traders,
 merchants,
 Biz managers         OUI 49% NON 51%

Professionals,
 executives           OUI 65% NON 35%

Togrims comment:

The category names and divisions are not mine,
but the IHT/Ipsos.

I find these stats wonderful, it's like reading
Lenin about who are the core class forces, who
are the closest allies and who can be won over.

You can see here that
THE FRENCH NO WAS A WORKING PEOPLES NO.

The core force were "traditional" workers, out
of the ortho marxist scoolbooks.

French farmers are, as far as I know, small, oppressed,
militant and have both strong unions and a tradition
of unity with the working class. Small working petty
bzwas, not exploiting others labour, or even
semi-proletarian.

It is interesting that EU subsidries, to a great
extent distributed thru a corrupt and maffia-infested
bureaucratic system, form a basis of much french
 agriculture. However, this dint influence those valliant
class allies of the proletariat into working OUI!

The white-collar workers group, as a peripheral and
partly semi-proletarian part of the proletariat,
can be pretty good too when unionized and when
 the workers in the big workplaces take the lead.
Of course, there is a strong anti-privatization
wave among them in all of western europe.
 I guess that if we had a more differensiated stat
of this group we would see that those most oppressed,
unionised and in great workplaces  were the best.

The "middle" groups here would be better if we could
get the stats more differentiated - fisnt teachers
and health workers separated out, small shopkeepers
and bistro owners employing only themselves
 and a few others etc.

My guess is that f.inst teachers and health workers,
largely proletarian, would be much closer to the
SOLID "NON" group than this mixed stat shows.

Possibly the smallest traders/biz people would be
much more solidly NON too.

The SOLID oui group - thats the big bzwasi and
those who identify with it or wanna become it! The
rich biz people or those who dream of  becoming
it - the big biz leaders or those who dream of
being bosses - the top state bosses - the rich
doctors and lawyers or haute cotourists or those
who dream of becoming so -

If this isnt a WORKERS NON, a CLASS NON,
a LEFTIST AND UNIONIST NON
collecting the middle class forces around itself and isolating the
 big bzwa shits much more than the left ordinary manages to do so,
 then Im a polish catolic and understand nuthing of marxism!

2) Monthly net salary

Less than 1000 Euros   OUI 40 % NON 60%
1000 - 2000 E          OUI 35 % NON 65%
2000 - 3000 E          OUI 42 % NON 58%

More than 3000 E       OUI  63% NON 37%

Togrims commentary:

You see clearly how those who earn most vote massively
OUI!.

My experience from Norway and other countries is that
 this is based on class solidarity and identification with tory and
 rightist (liberalist etc) politics: In the higher bzwa strata, there
 is a strong ideological conciousness about the EU project
 being a part of the rightist "political project" - defence of
 capitalism, "western society and ideals" etc.

This is more typical of trad tory parties and rightist socdems
 than of the more desperate and declasse elements that vote
 for the racist, semi-fascist and fascist parties of the Progress
 Party (norw FrP) or Lepenist type. (Among voters of the "soft
 racist" FrP there are now a NO majority too. 10 years ago there
 was a YES majority among them. While the traditional tory
 party in Norway, the traditional capitalists party H, has the
  biggest and most stable group of YES voters of all parties.)

In general, the economic stats fits very well toghether with
 the class stats above.

Rich OUI aganist poor NON!

And, in general, the poorer voted more NON - but, interestingly
enuff, the between 1000-2000 were a  little more than the below
1000 voters!

Why?

Togrims guess is that the 1000-2000 will be more unionized voters
 and more industrial workers, possibly with some skills. So more
 politically concious and more influenced by the CGT.

The below 1000 will be more workers in very bad jobs, small shops,
 restaurants, cheap hotels etc, with few workers, no union, no
 strong workers collective. So more receptive to the massively
 pro-EU mass  media and their own bosses propaganda.

To conclude: My guess that the TOP among 1000-2000 earners
 is a sign of the importance of the consolidated workers collective
 in bigger factories and of unions on the election result.

Comments from people who know France better than Togrim?

3) AGE GROUPS

18-24   OUI 44% NON 56%
 24-34   OUI 45% NON 55%
 35-44   OUI 39% NON 61%
 45-59  OUI 38% NON  62%

60-69 OUI 56% NON 44%
 70 +   OUI 58% NON 42%

Togrims comments:

In general, we see the same tendency as in (both) the norwegian
 referendums, the swedish, finninsh, austrian (1994) and, I believe
 (but Im not sure) the danish referendums:

+ The young vote NO, the older vote YES.

In Norway, we have the same tendency in left/right votes during the
 last 20 years. We have trial scool elections just before the "real"
elections every 2 years with more than 100 000 paticipants. In
those elections the "soft left" SV get 20 - 30% (while up to
2001 10% or less in the "adult" elections) while the "hard
left" RV get 4-6% (1,2-1,8 in the "adult" elections).
More than 50% of RVs "adult" voters are below  30, allmost none
above 50 (So I dont exist!) The SV voters have a similar
 age profile, with a less drastic fall with age.)

(In Malta, where there was a very strong NO vote against membership,
 the youth vote was more YES. This was because the Malta NO was
 heavily industrial and transport unskilled working class, dominated
 by the "old fashioned" proletarian dominated Malta Labour Party
(a party very like the UK Labour or the norwegian DNA some 40
or 50 years ago, dominated by older and mainly physical labourers,
and their unions with the transport workers union as the core,
while the NO side had  allmost no influence in universities and scools,
which were dominated  by YES propaganda (including outright lies
about everybody being given free stipends to study in Europe!).
If there had been a strong NO youth movement  in Malta, NO would
have won.)

However, there's an interesting difference between Norway and France.

In Norway, the YOUNGEST were the strongest NEI voters. This
 was correct among young people of voting age, and pre-voting age
 youth were even STRONGER Nei.

We had a "trial referendum"  with about 100 000 scool pupils about
10 days before the plebicite  in 1994. Of the participants there,
about 3/4ths were too young to  vote in the "adult" plebicite.

The result was about 60% NEI.-  the "adult" result about 52%

However, in France it is a bit different. The below 24 are marginally
 better than the 25 -34 year olds. (It would be interesting to see
 if this tendency continued among the below 18s!)

Then there is a "bulge" - a "middle age spread" in the french  vote:

 The BEST NON! group is a middle group of people 35-59, with the
 45-59 marginally best!

WHY?

Togrim guesses:

+ THESE are the people influenced by 1968 and the radical 70s?
 The oldest here are born in 1946 and were 22 in 1968
 The youngest are born in 1970 and so were just too young to
 be very active during the 70s, but their bigger sisters and brothers
 would be there, and they will remember lots of demos and stuff ...

+ OR: there are more unionized people, cgt activists etc among
 the people older than 35. as the 25 to 34 year olds cant get
into the big factories and get the better unionized jobs in the
present social situations?

(So the youngest NON! voters are influenced  by mass millieus
in scools and universities, while among the above  35s there
is more influence from factories, big offices, scools, hospitals,
they  have kids and loans and problems that radicalize them?)

+ OR BOTH?

Other guesses? FranceLovers's knowlegeable comments?

- + -

 Two other tendencies NOT registered in these stats:

4) Capital  City - Rural.

Togrims comments: We know from the MAPS that the NON vote
 in France was HEAVILY RURAL (and working class districts in
 cities, including Paris) while the OUI vote was URBAN (rich
 districts!) (+ Bretagne and the overseas colonies (exept for
 Reunion which had a big NON! like metropolitan France).

This is just like Scandinavia (and some of the best NEIN! results
from Austria, like in Tyrol).

The cities - and especially
 the capital - is the seat of the big capitalist bzwasi, the big state
 bureaucrats, the press - where all the bosses are VERY OUI!
 OUI! OUI! - the bzwa rightist including right socdem and right
 green and rightist "EUroleftist" politically corrupt leaderships -
and all their ideological OUI/YES/JA rightist intellectual prostitute
hangaround snobs and idiots.

The countryside and provinces are marginalized, oppressed by
 the capital city and big capital, there are small working farmers
 that the bzwa capital snobs all wanna very much to get rid of,
 old factories being closed, scools and hospitals being starved,
 municipal workers being privatized and in general lots of people
 feeling that they are looked upon by the EU and Capital
 (in a double sence) politicans as some kinds of unwanted pests
 and country and working class bumpkins.

5)  Men - Women

 In all the plebicites where Ive seen stats about this, men (and
especially rich, older men) have been the staunchest YES
supporters and women (and especially the poorest, youngest women)
have been the strongest NO voters.

In Sweden in 1994 a MAJORITY of the women voted NEJ. So it they
 had decided, Sweden woulda been outside The Stupid Empire still!
 Unfortunately a somewhat GREATER majority of MEN voted JA.

The same goes for right-left voting in all of western Europe,
as far as I know.

In Norway SV is the strongest party among the
youngest woman voters. RVs sex/age group where it has
relatively most voters are women below 25.

Very extensive election research in Norway shows that both this and
 NO to EU woman voting is because women voters in general are
 more concerned about solidarity, support to the poorest groups,
 children and the elderly, defence of the social services of the
state, the envionment, antiracism, international solidarity etc,
and this is  in their opinion connected with voting NO to the
EU and voting left.

So unlike the situation before 1930, where the left vote was more
male than female, the left vote in Norway has been more female
than male at least since the 1970s.

I know NO stats from the french election about the female vote.

But my GUESS is that more women than men voted NON!

Id luuuvve it if anybody can find and send me any sex-related
voting stats!

6) WHAT ABOUT THE RIGHT NON!, THEN?

Of COURSE there were right NON! voters in France.

So there is in every other EU referendum in Europe at present.
In Denmark the semi-fascist Dansk Folkeparti is a strong NEI
party (but the left, Enhedslisten, smaller left orgs, the left inside
the SF and Socdems, the anti EU movements Folkebevaegelsen
Mod EU and Junibevaeglelsen are still the MAIN NEI forces.)

In Austria in 94 Haider joined the NEIN! after he had been
a JA supporter for many years. However the ones
who had supported a NEIN! for all the years before were
greens and left socdems, including the heroic NEIN! leader
Freda Meissner-Blau who was a green prez candidate
against Waldheim when nobody else dared to confront him.

In Norway we had no NEI! rightists of importance in 1972
and 1994. However, in 2005, the "soft racist" rightist
FrP ("Progress (!) Party") doesnt take a stand on the EU,
to not split away its base of NEI voters, many of them working
class.

If we look at France, yes, Le Pen supported NON!

- However.

+ The main POLITICAL forces who were the ACTIVISTS on the
NON! side werentt Le Pens people at all! They were the traditional
leftists activists - the PCF people, the various "extreme left"
trot groups etc, CGT and other union activists, socdems and
greens who broke with their party leaders OUI line, activists of
the ATTAC etc.

+ Let me add that THIS is the most solidly ANTIRACIST
parts of french political life.

+ The main OUI! forces were the two main governing TORY
upper class parties - and the state apparatus, the press elites
(the EDITORS, not the JOURNALISTS!) - the state bureaucrats
etc - That is to say, the OUI! was basically NOT a mass campain
AT ALL! but a mobilisation of all kinds of bzwa, bureaucrat
and rightist LOYALIST people without not much ACTIVITY at all!
Very "eastern european" - or indeed, very much like Putins support
in Russia today ...

This is typical of ALL YES! campain Ive seen. THEY ARE NOT
MOVEMENT, THEY ARE PASSIVE LINEUPS OF PRO GOVT,
PRO BUREAUCRACY, PRO STATE, PRO CAPITALIST AND
PRO EU LOYALISTS AND CAREERISTS, PAID FOR BY
THE STATE; THE BIG INDUSTRIALISTS UNIONS AND THE
PARTY APPARATUSES.

When there is no activists and grasroots movements (which is
typical of the sucsessfull NO! movements) these passive loyalists
official mobilisations are owerwhelming, extremely well financed
and supported by all the main mass media and all kinds of
famous persons (who now on which side of the sandwich the
butter is, as we say in scandinavia!), are totally OVERWHELMING,
and they win. However, when there ARE strong mass
mobilisation, they may be punctured like baloons. and
collapse pitifully, even against seemingly far weaker mass
movements, without money, without support from the
"strong and famous" etc.

+ And let me add that in there are MORE THAN ENUFF RACISTS
IN THE TWO FRENCH OUI! TORY GOVT PARTIES!

(However, for some strange reason, the "french nationalism"
(Giscard said that a NON! would be "bad for french interests"
and people would "laff at france" )  the"opposition to Turkey"
and outright racism in those parties are not mentioned in the
BBC, the press diatribes against "NON! racism" etc ...

+ Le Pen (and, unfortunately, many other racist, semi-fascist
and fascist outer right european politicans) differ from the solidly
OUI tories of France (and the norwegian H, the very racist danish
pro-EU govt party V, the very pro EU tories Moderaterna etc etc)
mainly because they APPEAL TO THE WORKING CLASS AND
SMALL FARMERS AND SHOPKEEPERS - demagogically
oppose globalisation, support some of their collapsing social
security, etc. So Le Pen takes old PCF and SP voters
(like Carl I Hagen in Norway win old socdems and pensioned
industrial workers and trade unionists etc.)

SO LE PENS VOTERS CAN BE WON FOR A NON! BECAUSE
THAT IS IN THEIR CLASS INTERESTS - while the more
solidly traditional tory voters of the govt parties follow the
traditional tory OUI line much more slavishly.

+ THE FACT IS THAT THERE ARE RACIST VOTERS ON
BOTH sides of EVERY EU PLEBICITE IN EUROPE AT
PRESENT.

+ Basically, this is because theres a rising tide of racism
in Europe at present, unfortunately.

+ Some of the most fascist rightist forces are NO, because they
compete more DIRECTLY with the traditional left (socdems, communsts)
about desperate elderly WORKER and poor petty bzwa voters,

HOWEVER; THE MAIN NO FORCES IN EVERY COUNTRY WHERE
I HAVE BEEN  AND KNOW THE SITUATION HAVE BEEN THE
OLD AND NEW LEFT; WHICH ARE AT THE SAME TIME THE STAUNCHEST
ANTIRACIST FORCES.

+ But the PRO EU PRESS TEND TO REPORT THIS AS "THE NON!
IS RACIST" "LE PEN IS THE MAIN NON! FORCE IN FRANCE" ETC.

+ WHILE THE RACIST FORCES ON THE OUI! SIDE IS NOT REPORTED
AT ALL!

ONE EXAMPLE: When I was covering the Austrian plebicite as a
journalist in 1994, I was at the victory party thrown by the
industrialists union. There, the guest of honour was - the nazi war
criminal former prez, KURT WALTHEIM! This was not mentioned
in ANY FOREIGN DISPATCH ABOUT THE AUSTRIAN PLEBICITE
I SAW - exept in mine!

The fact is: The CLASS FORCES and the POLITICAL FORCES
on the french NON side was mainly WORKING PEOPLE and
LEFTIST. The racist and extreme rightist forces was a secondary
phenomenon, and in the main a RESULT of just these extreme
rightist politicans COMPETITION with the left for the support
of workers and working people.

- + -

PS

7) About the NETHERLANDS VOTE

Since writing this Ive seen some numbers about the dutch vote.
(Im no expert about the Netherlands, so there may be some
misunderstandings here.)

The tendencies are similar to the french, and even more like the
norwegian and swedish votes:

(Maybe not so strange, as The Netherlands is a small germanic
country, like the scandinavian ones, with a political culture more
like Norway and Sweden than France - among other things,
the main leftist tradition is of a strong socdem labour party
like in scandinavia, and NOT of a stronc Communist party
and union, like in France.)

+ Politically, the MAIN people voting for the NEE! were from the
big old socdem PvdA voters (the biggest group of NEE! voters)
the leftist NEE! SP (96% of the SP voters voted NEE!) and
the Green Left. As far as I can see, the majority of the 62% NEE
were from these 3 "traditional left" parties.

+ The SP has abiut DOUBLED in voter support during the NEE!
campain! The PvdA and the GL, where the leadership supported
JA, have both LOST voters (GL was equal to the PS about one year ago
but is now less than 1/2, the PvdA has lost too,)


+ The Pim Fortuyn racist list supported a NEE1 but seem
to have gone towards 0% in the opinion polls!

+ So the leftist but very sucsessfull SP (that begun
as the KPN(m-l) based on the KEN(m-l), a maoist
group that built itself up based on a harbour workers
strike in Rotterdam, many years ago!) was the dominating
ACTIVIST and POLITICAL force in the dutch NEE!
movement. An antiwar, anti NATO anti racist and
pro socialist party.

+ Socdems were the biggest POLITICAL group among
the 62% NE voters.

+ Traditional WORKING CLASS cities and villages
were among the strongest NEE! districts.

Proletarian Rotterdam was the strongest NEE! city of the
4 big ones, with close to 70%.
Amsterdam was NEE! but below the country mean.

+ Heavily christian farmers and fisher villages who
normally support the pro JA! govt christian party were
above national mean NE! districts too, with votes
up to close to 90%.

+ A few VERY RICH AND UPPER CRUST DISTRICTS WERE
THE ONLY ONES WITH STRONG JA! MAJORITIES!

The RICH SHITS VOTED JA!

+ Racist and rightist GROUPS played a small role
in the NEE! campains and their supporters were a minority
of the NEE! voters.

+ THE JA! vote was dominated by the
tory and christian govt JA! parties ... like in France ...
and after them, a strong minority among the socdem voters.

+ YOUTH were above the national NEE! mean,

A scool pupils trial vote (somewhat like the norwegian
ones) gave about 70% NEE!

+ RURAL DISTRICTS were OWERWHELMINGLY NEE! -
Like in France, Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Again,  rhis was no racist and rightist NEE! vote.
This was a working class and working peoples NEE, dominated
politically by the far and moderate left!

Comradely
Togrim
Oslo

TRON    OGRIM is a writer and journalist

and a veteran norwegian leftist and NEI! activist
who joined the Left socialist SF party in 1961
and walked in his first anti EU demo in Oslo in 1962.

He is an ordinary member of the RV party
and of the broad norwegian NEI TIL EU movement

He is grateful for more stats (or links to stats)
about the french and dutch referendums.



        

        
                
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