THREE DAYS of extensive debate in the glare of the media spotlight - ever present TV cameras recording the debates for the main French TV news and the reporters taking notes for front page reports in the next day's newspapers - the 15th Congress of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, French Section of the Fourth International. Three days marking a turning point for the LCR.
Following last year's successful Presidential election campaign, LCR comrades have played a key part in the upsurge of strike action this May-June. As a result LCR membership stands at over double that of the last Congress three years ago.
So the key debate for an organisation brimming with self-confidence is how we take forward our increasing presence as a real force in French society? As Olivier Besancenot, LCR spokesperson and Presidential candidate put it, "in the elections we were able to talk to millions of working people, in this year's struggles people are listening to what we have to say, they want to hear from us."
The LCR majority proposed to walk on two legs.
Firstly through an electoral pact with Lutte Ouvriere (LO), the other significant French far left organisation, the LCR will have a major impact in next year's regional and European elections. As a fourth force -far right, governmental right, centre left and now the far left - they threatened to destabilise the ex-governmental left alliance.
Secondly, the LCR has launched an appeal for a new anti-capitalist, feminist and ecologist political party. A series of local and regional debates will conclude at the end of next year with a national conference to try to bring together all those who are prepared to fight for a new society. This means existing revolutionaries such as LO, dissidents breaking with the discredited Socialist Party - Communist - Green electoral bloc, the reinvigorated base of the worker's movement fresh from this year's strikes, the thousands who mobilised on the streets against fascist Le Pen during the Presidential election second round, the. anti-war movement and the anti-capitalist youth from ATTAC and the Social Forum
STOP LCR contingent mobilised against War, February 15 movement, present: at Nice, Genoa, Florence and Evian and coming to Paris for this month's European Social Forum.
In the democratic tradition of the Fourth International a number of different platforms presented their views in the Congress debate. Their main ideas had been subject to rigorous examination in local discussion and publicly through the LCR's press. Key issues were taken up by the mainstream dailies such as Le Monde.
For those on the British left who like to BUSH Saignes du monde. pe
claim that such permanent openness is
debilitating the Congress should be a salutary lesson. Even though the debates were
sometimes sharp a real agreement was
forged. Comrades were united in the aim
to open up the LCR, to seriously engage in
the process of building a new mass workers
party, radically anti-capitalist and resolutely
democratic. The differences thrashed out
in the debate - who are the key targets to
approach and on what basis - only serve
to strengthen the final decisions
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soclalst resistance Winter 2003 5
Unity of the Left