The Left of the Left Demonstrates

The Front de Gauche and allied groups will demonstrate today against the austerity policy that the government of François Hollande has embraced. Their anger is comprehensible. Hollande artfully campaigned on the notion that there was an alternative to austerity. He promised to renegotiate the Merkozy agreement, now respectfully rebaptized the TSCG and erected as a sine qua non of sound government. The gauchistes are also perfectly correct in their analysis of the consequences of austerity: there will be plant closings, business failures, layoffs, and suffering. To all of this Hollande now argues--or, rather, implies--that There Is No Alternative. This is the famous Thatcherite justification for retrenchment. So the only question is whether Hollande's implicit analysis is correct.

So what is the alternative? If France were to try deficit spending, would investors park their money elsewhere and send French borrowing costs higher? This is not absolutely certain. Germany cannot absorb capital indefinitely, and interest rates are already negative. To the extent that investors wish to remain in the euro, France would still be attractive even if it were to diminish the budgetary shock. Hollande seems to be gambling on "shock therapy": if he concentrates all the pain--a shock to GDP of -3%--in his first year, then things will improve over the remainder of his quinquennat. This would be a better bet if Germany were stimulating its economy, but it isn't, nor is anyone else in Europe. Hence the risk is a mutually reinforcing contraction that will steepen the slide and leave everyone in a deeper hole.

Politically, Hollande seems to be tacitly assuming that he can brave the anger from his left, because the left of the Left has no place to go. The Right can cavil, but he is essentially continuing the economic policy of Sarkozy-Fillon and in fact pushing ahead where they were too timid to go. His cuts are deeper, his tax hikes are sharper than the Right dared while it was in power. This is a big bet for an essentially cautious politician like Hollande, and it's not clear where he retreats to if things go wrong. Nor does he have any carrots to offset the lash of his many sticks. The likely outcome is a sharp rise in anti-EU, anti-German, anticapitalist sentiment.

Joffrin Analyzes Mélenchon's Failure

For Laurent Joffrin, Jean-Luc Mélenchon failed in the presidential election and even more spectacularly in Hénin-Beaumont because he misdiagnosed the state of mind of the working class:

Autant Jean-Luc Mélenchon a fait preuve depuis un an d’un grand talent, d’un abattage exceptionnel et d’une réussite certaine en donnant à la gauche de la gauche une visibilité inédite, autant il paie le prix d’une grave confusion idéologique. Son aventure reposait sur un postulat : pour ramener à gauche les classes populaires détournées par le vote FN ou l’abstention, il fallait radicaliser le langage, la tactique et le programme. Un discours agressif et dénonciateur, le refus de toute perspective gouvernementale avec les socialistes honnis, des propositions de rupture en matière économique ou d’immigration : il fallait en tout point déclarer la guerre au réformisme. Pour séduire les ouvriers déçus par la gauche, il fallait être beaucoup plus à gauche. C’est ce raisonnement, plus que le candidat Mélenchon, qui a échoué à Hénin-Beaumont.
Les classes populaires, contrairement au postulat mélenchoniste, ont les pieds sur terre. Elles se méfient de la radicalité verbale qui recouvre avant tout l’irréalisme. Aussi bien, un candidat qui proclame à tous vents que l’immigration ne pose aucun problème ne saurait remporter un grand succès auprès des ouvriers et des employés, qui craignent la concurrence d’une main d’œuvre sous-payée et corvéable à merci.

I think we all tend to overinterpret the results of elections. One could equally well point to the fact that the Front de Gauche was not nearly as well organized in H-B as the Front National, that Mélenchon, even more than Le Pen, was un candidat parachuté, who chose the district only because he wanted a symbolic and ego-nourishing confrontation with the leader of the FN, and that Mélenchon's focal issues were particularly ill-adapted to the situation on the ground in the district. Still, I think that Joffrin's basic point--that gauchiste intransigence did not pay off--is correct. The left of the left will now have to rethink its position. It can still play a useful role as critic of the center-left government. What was not useful was the attempt to construct a duopolistic cult of personalities pitting a charismatic orator of the extreme left against the dynamic heiress of the FN dynasty. Mélenchon défrayait la chronique for a while, but his failure leaves the left of the left adrift, leaderless, and in search of a new message. The attempt to revive, if only rhetorically, the revolutionary militancy of a bygone era has been definitively rejected. It's time to move on.

Le Pen Beats Mélenchon

Législatives : Jean-Luc Mélenchon reconnaît sa défaite à Hénin-Beaumont

Le leader du Front de gauche est arrivé en troisième position du premier tour des élections législatives dans la circonscription d'Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais). Marine Le Pen est arrivée largement en tête du scrutin devant le candidat du PS, Philippe Kemel.

Front de Gauche Welcomes Tspiras to Paris

The Front de Gauche welcomed Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Greek radical left Syriza party, to Paris.

No PS-FG Accord for Legislatives

Negotiations between the PS and the Front de Gauche over the legislative elections have broken down. It seems that the Communists favored an agreement, but the Parti de Gauche balked.

Mélenchon, parachuté chez les Ch'tis

Was it really necessary for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is hardly familiar with the town in which he has chosen to run for parliament, Hénin-Beaumont, to say this about the local FN, which has been tilling this ground for years:

Mais il ne peut s'empêcher de décrire à des journalistes le FN local comme "quatre alcooliques et dix dégénérés". "Au visage de la haine", il veut opposer celui de la "fraternité et du partage".

Mélenchon in a nutshell: the grand gestures to humanity--fraternity and sharing--on the one hand, the contemptuous dismissal of his opponents on the other. And the particular choice of words, "four alcoholics and ten degenerates," is especially unfortunate in light of the incident in a soccer stadium a while back, when a banner was unfurled that read "Pédophiles, chômeurs, consanguins : bienvenue chez les Ch'tis." Linking "degeneracy" with this region of northern France is really not something that a politician who wants to combat the prejudices that are the stock-in-trade of the FN should be doing.

Already the Hit Show of the Legislative Season

Mélenchon-Le Pen, Season 2, is already the hit show of the legislative round. The screenwriters will no doubt come up with some salty dialogue to match these exchanges from Season 1:

Le 18 janvier, à Metz, Jean-Luc Mélenchon ouvre le feu et qualifie la présidente-candidate du FN de "semi-démente, qui propose des solutions auxquelles personne ne peut croire". Il donnait ce jour-là un meeting sur ces terres lorraines frappées par la désindustrialisation pour commencer "l'opération de nettoyage par rapport à la prétendue présence du FN dans les milieux ouvriers et employés". "Cette Mme Le Pen, qui n'a aucune espèce d'imagination, passe son temps à faire des emprunts forcés pour dire : je parle comme Mélenchon. Voyez mes ailes, je suis un oiseau. Et de temps à autre, je suis xénophobe, voyez mes pattes, je suis un rat. Cela nous fait une chauve-souris."

Dès le lendemain, Marine Le Pen riposte : Mélenchon "perd ses nerfs, je comprends ! C'est quand même pitié de voir quelqu'un qui se présente comme étant le défenseur des ouvriers n'attirer" que 2 % de leurs intentions de vote, ironise-t-elle. Tout en dénonçant "un vrai dérapage", la présidente du FN considère : "Tout ça, c'est du cinéma, c'est un grand comédien, M. Mélenchon. Devant les caméras, il éructe, il menace, il insulte. Mais en dehors des caméras, c'est un homme charmant, affable, presque un petit garçon."

Mélenchon-Le Pen

Jean-Luc Mélenchon may challenge Marine Le Pen in Hénin-Beaumont. Beyond the clash of these two colorful personalities, an imaginative analyst might see the labor pains of a new political formation struggling to be born: a party of the laissés-pour-compte of globalization, la France du Non et des exclus, a party of workers in declining sectors, retirees, small businessmen, blue-collar workers displaced by immigrants, etc.

Sociologically, such a party might make sense, but history has forged two distinct sensibilities in these social strata, two sensibilities so different that the cleavage between them is unlikely ever to be breached by political entrepreneurship. Mélenchon's effort may be viewed as an epic battle to prevent Marine Le Pen from consolidating her gains among these groups, for it is she who has come closest to achieving a party realignment, and if she makes further gains in the legislative elections and/or provokes internal dissension within the UMP, she may take yet another step toward making the extreme right the premier party of les classes populaires.

Mélenchon recognizes this danger, but it's not clear how much support he would actually command among the blue-collar workers of the 11th District of Pas-de-Calais. These are not the nostalgics of May '68 who thrilled to his speech at la Bastille. Le Pen scored better than 31% in this district in the first round of the presidentials, against under 15 for Mélenchon. The deck is therefore stacked against him. If he decides to throw his hat in the ring, he will deserve some credit for fighting the good fight, but it seems to be a losing battle.

Why Mélenchon Failed?

David Djaiz attempts to explain why Mélenchon failed but to my mind succeeds only in reproducing the incomprehension.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon a offert des réponses plutôt convaincantes à l’insécurité économique et sociale des Français comme le montrent plusieurs enquêtes. Malheureusement, et comme le rappelle Laurent Bouvet dans un texte publié le 24 avril dans le Monde, sa campagne a été beaucoup moins percutante s’agissant de l’insécurité culturelle, à quoi l’on pourrait ajouter l’insécurité affective qui est un déterminant important du vote FN.

L’insécurité a bel et bien été le thème central de cette campagne, tellement massif et protéiforme que les commentateurs ne s’en sont pas rendus compte. Cette insécurité a pris mille visages et n’est plus la seule insécurité « policière » qui avait occupé la campagne de 2002 : il y a l’insécurité économique (peur du chômage et des délocalisations dans un contexte de crise de la mondialisation), l’insécurité sociale (peur de la casse des services publics et des commerces de proximité), l’insécurité culturelle-identitaire (peur de l’immigration et de la dissolution de l’identité française-occidentale) et enfin l’insécurité la plus difficile à appréhender pour le sociologue, l’insécurité affective, qui est le sentiment de voir ses points de repères habituels se dissoudre ou se rétrécir dans un monde où tout s’accélère. Force est de reconnaître que le Front de gauche n’a pas su répondre à ces deux dernières formes d’insécurité qui sont moins discursives mais qui pourtant surdéterminent les autres.

This is doublespeak. Deciphered, what Djaiz is saying is that Mélenchon offered protectionism, like Le Pen, without xenophobia and racism, which added punch to the protectionist message. Since the left cannot support the latter, it must rely on a slow process of cultural improvement and collective education.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon a affirmé vouloir mener une bataille culturelle contre Marine Le Pen à trois mois du premier tour. La stratégie était la bonne : c’est bien l’imaginaire collectif que la gauche doit reconquérir à l’hégémonie de la droite, par l’action militante et syndicale, par l’éducation populaire, par la formation politique. Mais cela ne peut se faire que sur le temps long et dans un climat apaisé.

This is just the kinder and gentler form of the revolutionary romanticism that Mélenchon so eloquently embraced. But what is needed is not a revival of the "collective imaginary" of the left but rather a commitment to "collective realism," which recognizes that the globalized economy cannot be rejected, reversed, or "protected" against but must be conquered by abandoning old ways and taking advantage of France's comparative advantages. That means change, and it means bucking the conservatism of some segments of the working class. Mélenchon failed because he reinforced that conservatism, because he fed the fantasy of revolutionism rather than the reality of politics, which as Max Weber said, is the "long, slow boring of hard, dry boards."

The Resistance Metaphor

Another thing struck me in the reports from Mélenchon's Marseille rally: at several points the large crowd changed "Résistance! Résistance! Résistance!" What the chanters proposed to resist, of course, was the forces of globalization, even more than the Sarkozy government. The metaphor of "resistance" is a very powerful one in French political culture, for obvious reasons. Resistance was not only the raison d'être of Gaullist politics, it was also the chief claim to legitimacy of the Communist Party, "le parti de 75 000 fusillés" (it would be bad form to quibble about the precise number).

I have no wish to quarrel with the legacy of the Resistance. But "resistance" is not a political program, as even the actual Comité National de la Résistance discovered in 1945, when the unity imposed by the existence of a common enemy disintegrated in the face of the problems of postwar government. This is the essence of my quarrel with the Mélenchonistes. Resistance may stem from good instincts, but those instincts must be educated by sound analysis. And legitimate pride in standing in solidarity with the victims of wrongheaded policy must not be allowed to veer toward overweening arrogance toward those who cannot march in lockstep with the resisters. A genuine political program must recognize the existence of choices, not between good and evil, which is the stark choice to which resisters want to reduce every conflict, but between better and worse: "Gouverner, c'est chosir," said Mendès France, and that dictum still holds true.

On the Extreme Left Vote

Jean-Luc Mélenchon's political skills have enabled him to monopolize the extreme left vote, claim the allegiance of many who might have voted Green had the EELV fielded a stronger candidate, and reclaimed some working-class voters who had drifted toward the extreme left. The accomplishment deserves recognition, as do his forthright pronouncements on certain controversial social issues. Yesterday, for example, in Marseille, he praised the France of métissage, the univeralist France that welcomes foreigners and extends to them (in principle) the rights and benefits of citizenship (as commenter Brent rightly reminds me).

Still, his achievement should not be overstated. Suppose he gets 15% of the vote. Here's what I wrote (with George Ross) about the extreme left back in 2009, when Besancenot was its preferred candidate:

The Common Program of the 1970s transformed [the Socialist Party] into a party interested in governing but did not entirely dissipate the conviction of a part of the population (and of the PCF itself) that the best way to protect the interests of the “people of the left” was less to influence government policy than to oppose it. This sentiment, though less powerful than it once was, continues to motivate perhaps 10–15 percent of voters, who cast their votes for the parties of the extreme left, the extreme right, the Communist rump, and even the Greens, in the hope of demonstrating a disruptive potential sufficient to inhibit governments from pursuing reforms deemed to be aimed at dismantling the French social model.

Mélenchon has merely consolidated this vote and achieved, according to polls, its consistent high-water mark of 15%. If he goes beyond that, if he wins 16 or 17% on April 22, I will have to reconsider and suggest that something significant is stirring in the depths. But at the moment, I see simply a reshuffling of the deck.

The quote if from What's Left of the Left:
Book

Yankee Go Home

Jean-Luc Mélenchon held another monster rally yesterday in Marseille. Were there 120,000 people there? To judge by the sea of red flags visible on TV, it's not out of the question. Among other things, JLM called for the US Sixth Fleet to be withdrawn from the Mediterranean (hey, when you're on a roll, why stop?) and promised to lead a mass mobilization on May 1--a "citizen insurrection," in fact--but only if the unions want him.

In 10 years, he says, the Front de Gauche will be in power. Meanwhile, it's never too early to send the Yankees packing.

Mélenchon's Friends

I see that Jean-Luc Mélenchon has a lot of friends among readers of this blog, many of whom seem to share his good manners in treating their opponents, of whom I have now designated myself one. Yes, indeed, I am a "social traitor" with an undoubted soft spot for imperialist lackeys and plutocrat bankers (I keep my money in a bank, after all, as do many of my fellow reactionary old codgers, who've saved what they could from the grasping predators), but I'm not without comrades in the treacherous social-democratic camp. Here's one:

Malgré son talent, son humour dévastateur, son énergie, sa culture, j’ai beaucoup de mal avec ce bonhomme : il personnifie la franchouillardise jacobine et centralisatrice, l’arrogance du « gallus » perché sur ses ergots qui pense avoir raison contre le monde entier sous prétexte qu’il fait davantage de bruit que ses voisins de basse-cour.

Mélenchon Is Rude

I'm sorry, but this diatribe from Mélenchon is completely uncalled for. He may not care for Le Parisien, but the journalist is doing his job. He's a worker, for crying out loud, and Mélenchon, for all his eloquence, is a brute. It's shameful to treat anyone this way, and if Sarkozy did it, Mélenchon would be the first to flay him for it. I do not like this man, and if I thought he had any chance of winning the presidency, I would be alarmed. As it is, I think it's regrettable that he now represents the left of the left.


Mélenchon: Les journalistes sont de "petites... by ecoledejournalisme

Will "Pas Voté" Win the First Round?

The abstainers may outnumber the supporters of the winning candidate in the first round of voting. That is the depressing finding of an IFOP poll, which predicts a sharp decline from the 84% participation rate of 2007:

Le sondage de l’Ifop publié dimanche dernier a mis le doigt sur le risque majeur de cette élection : le retour d’une abstention forte. Seuls 68% des électeurs se disent « certains d’aller voter ». Il est bien possible que, parmi les 32% restants, des hésitants se rendent finalement aux urnes. La certitude est néanmoins là, confirmée par d’autres indicateurs comme ceux de la Sofres : on sera loin des 84% de participation de 2007, très probablement en dessous des 78% de 1995, sans forcément descendre jusqu’aux 62,6% de 2002.

Philippe Guibert, the author of "Plaidoyer pour une gauche populaire," diagnoses a campaign that has failed to address the concerns of the popular classes. This has become a familiar refrain in a part of the left. It's the obverse of the critique that holds that the problem of many modern democracies, and not just France, is "populism," that is, a revolt of the popular classes based on a belief that the powers of government to oppose, thwart, or reverse potent economic forces is greater than it actually is and therefore a refusal to accept certain types of reform (the fight over retirement reform in France is a good example, but one can find equally telling examples in the United States with a right-wing political valence, such as the refusal to raise the debt ceiling).

The problem with Guibert's critique of the establishment left, and of other similar critiques, is that it assumes that "elites" could in fact address the concerns of "the popular classes" without compromising their own core beliefs. In short, it's clear that many voters are disaffected with "elite" solutions, but it's not at all clear what Guibert thinks should be done about that. More pandering and fudging, as Hollande has done with his pseudo-rollback of Sarkozy's retirement reform, which only changes the rules around the margins? In any case, here is his characterization of the failing of even the "populist" candidates of the extreme left and extreme right to mobilize the disillusioned:

Jean-Luc Mélenchon développe une très belle indignation, accompagnée d’une radicalisation dans les propositions sociales – Smic à 1 700 euros net et retraite à 60 ans pour tous. Mais cette radicalisation sociale semble ignorer l’ouverture de notre économie aux autres pays européens et aux émergents, alors qu’elle existe de façon bien réelle dans la vie des milieux populaires du privé. C’est sans doute pour cette raison qu’il ne parvient pas, pour l’instant, à effectuer de percée décisive dans le vote populaire, même si il y a gagné des points. A l’inverse, M Le Pen a construit sa campagne, elle, sur une radicalisation économique : sortie de l’euro et protectionnisme national. En y perdant en crédibilité personnelle et en oubliant du coup les « fondamentaux » de son électorat, immigration et islam. Depuis l’automne et la velléité de référendum grec, les Français sont massivement favorables, à près de 85%, à l’euro : le retour au franc a nettement reculé dans l’opinion, tout particulièrement dans les milieux populaires et ce sont les Grecs qu’on verrait bien sortir de l’euro...

He's right that Mélenchon simply ignores France's deep implication in the global economy. I don't quite know what to say about his contention that Marine Le Pen is losing ground because she forgets "the fundamentals" of her base, "immigration and Islam." Would he have her take an even harder line on these subjects? What would our neo-populist social critic recommend?

So, is the problem politicians who are not worthy of "the people," or a "people" reluctant to face the harsh realities of a changing world? Sometimes the call for a more radical approach is really a call for a more intransigent conservatism. Sarkozy actually recognized this in 2007, when he organized his campaign around the concept of "rupture" and "overcoming all conservatisms." This year, however, he has given in to the "populist" diagnosis that his advisor Patrick Buisson shares in many ways with Philippe Guibert. And to judge by the high forecast abstention rate, this strategic choice has only demobilized the target audience, which doesn't believe in his change of heart.