In April 2002, electors voted in large
numbers for the far left to punish the
then SP/CP/Green government which had privatised more than the previous right wing government.
This is obviously what happened again this time, now that the right wing government has attacked pensions and welfare rights.
The far left was squeezed by this understandable reaction, especially as the threshold to get elected this time was raised from 5 to 10 per cent. It still should be noted that the combined Right and FN share of the vote is still a slight majority at 51.57 per cent.
The Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) (French section of the Fourth International) once again ran a campaign with the far left Lutte Ouvrière (Workers'" Fight).
The LCR campaigned on general political • • • issues as well as simply economic and social ones. The LCR mobilised for a demonstration against the war held on the Saturday before the war, and raised issues of globalisation and how this is being mediated by the EU.
The LCR, unlike LO, also clearly opposed the law forbidding students wearing headscarves, although it did add the statement that they should be discouraged from wearing them in schools.
The LCR-LO campaign had a huge impact. The SP/CP/Greens had to answer to the agenda set by the LCR-LO, and it was acknowledged that they had played a major part in encouraging and structuring the strikes and mobilisations against the government since last spring, and its national speakers are invited to radio and TV debates and interviews.
The huge impact of the LCR-LO campaign can also be seen from the size of its
local meetings, e.g. 1100 in Tours (pop.
150,000), 1700 in Rennes (pop. 250,000),
1500 in Nantes (pop. 500,000), 1500 in Lille,
600 in Montpellier.
The far left now has the permanent support of approx 5 per cent of the electorate,
but has a periphery of an extra 5 percent
who will vote for them on occasion. Opinion
polls indicate that 22 percent of the electorate support its positions in general (the
same polls show 25 per cent also sympathise
with the general positions of the FN).
Part of the agreement with LO was that there should be no call to vote for the SP/CP/Greens in the second round. The political trajectory of the SP and the CP is
There is therefore a debate as to whether the LCR should continue giving electoral support to the French SP, and on how to build a mass anti-capitalist working class party, within which revolutionaries play a
The fact that this discussion is happening is not a sign of the LCR imploding, but that it is
The parliamentary left and others (eg. in the Le Monde paper) describe the result as a "defeat for the LCR-LO strategy". The results indicate that this is not the case, as the far left maintained its share of the vote.
Patrick Scott
n Britain Coca-Cola have recently got
a bad press and much embarassment
over the introduction and then rapid
shelving of their new designer drink
Dasani (ingredients: bottled tap water
plus a few chemical impurities added for French elections: how the statistics stack up: There was a big swing to the parliamentary left (Socialist Party, Communist Party and Greens) who climbed back from 32.42 per cent of the vote at the presidential elections in April 2002 to 40.31 per cent last Sunday. Unlike previously, in most places the three parties stood on joint slates in the first round. Where they stood on their own, the CP and the Greens increased their share of the vote and resisted the
The total for the parliamentary right was 34.96 percent and the far right 16.61 per cent (15.I| percent for the Front Nationale). The FN had 15.1 per cent at the last regional elections in 1998, and 19.3 per cent at the presidential elections in 2002.
The FN maintains and extends its share of the vote nationally although it lost out in some of its bastions (Marine Le Pen down 4 per cent to 12 per cent). The FN is unlikely to SUSH STOP
win the presidency of any of the regions.
Sunday 37.77 per cent.
elected councillors.
shown by the following results:
• 1997 parliamentary 2.7 per cent,
• 1998 regional 4.4 per cent,
• 2002 presidential 10.49 per cent,
• 2004 regional 4.58 per cent.
turn-out at 1,078,447.
The turn out was greater than during the last regional elections in 1998. Abstentions then were 42 percent and on
The threshold for getting elected was raised from 5 percent to 10 percent to prevent the "extremes" from getting elected. Both the LCR and LO lost their previously
The far-left maintains its share of the vote over the long term, despite the drop from the 2002 presidential sore as • 1995 presidential election 5.3 per cent, So the far left vote is slightly up as a percentage on the last regional elections, and has more in numbers given the greater
Colombian daily newspaper demanding that the protesters' demands and the rights of Coca-Cola workers be respected, ie demanding that paramilitaries should not take reprisals. Subsequently Sinaltrainal agreed to call off the hunger strike, which ended on 27 March. Whilst a final victory for Colombian Coca-Cola workers is far from certain, it is clear that Coca-Cola were forced to