[Marxism] NPA

[Daniel Koechlin <d.koechlin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In France, there have been three Trotskyist parties fielding candidates 
in every election since 1968.

Their total share of the vote have been around 5-10% of the electorate 
for the last fourty years.

Meanwhile, the French Communist Party (staunchly pro-Moscow until 1993) 
has gone down from 17% to 3% of the vote over the same time period.

The fortunes of those three Trotskyist parties has gone up and down. 
Every so often, one of them, endowed with a new charismatic leader, has 
been rumored to have the potential to "harness popular discontent with 
the current capitalist system and become a major political player".

So it is with Olivier Besanceont, a Paris postman, and leader of the 
brand new NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party, an effort on the part of the 
old LCR to "broaden its appeal" and create an "United Front"). Over the 
last two years or so, the effects of the global capitalist crisis and 
attendant layoffs having become obvious, many commentators saw 
Besancenot as being able to convince over 10% of the electorate to vote 
for him. He is, after all, young and possesses "charming boyish godd 
looks". More importantly, he is a very gifted orator, who never fails to 
lambaste French capitalism.
He has become a regular fixture of French TV talk shows, in which he 
ruthlessly criticizes any unfortunate French CEO invited to the same 
show. "Working people are fed up with talk of 'working together for 
common goals', Mr CEO. They know that there is a difference between you 
and them, and that you are only interested in making them work for you 
for a substantial profit. They don't want to 'help' you 'make things 
better' ! They want better pay and better working conditions. They are 
fed up with your obscenely big salaries while at the same time you lay 
off thousands of their colleagues !"
Besancenot has thus become the most radical of all mainstream voices in 
France. But are the workers convinced ?
The problem seems to lie in the fact that his party, the NPA, is made up 
almost exclusively of teachers and "bourgeois youth". It does not seem 
to possess the appeal that the old "Pro-Moscow" Communist Party enjoyed 
among organized labour in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Workers seem to be somewhat weary of the NPA, ex-LCR.
The NPA has made big efforts to underplay the Trotskyist element from 
the old LCR. They claim to have become "a blend of the best traditions 
within radical environmentalism, unionism, women's rights, gay rights, 
anarchism and communism". They no longer support the notion of 
"dictatorship of the proletariat".
However, the old Trotskyist leadership (Krivine and Bensaid) still 
retains complete control over the new party.   

In the June 2009 European Elections, the NPA got 4% of the vote. Against 
7% for the "Parti de Gauche" (ex-French Communist Party). The fortunes 
of the old French Communist Party were for the first time reversed since 
1972. They had reached a low-point of 3% in the last presidential elections.

However, less than 60% of the electorate participated in the June 2009 
European Elections, which means that the NPA could still, theoretically, 
cause a big surprise in the next (2012) presidential elections.

I, personally, think they might just get around 12-13% of the vote, 
because their propaganda is becoming increasingly populist and the 
economic crisis is deepening in France. I am also very surprised by the 
performance of the Parti de Gauche. In all logic, both organisations 
should now unite. This is however extremely unlikely because of historic 
mistrust between Trotskysits on the one hand and "Pro-Moscow Communists" 
on the other.
Were they to unite, they could get as much as 17% of the vote.








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