France: Election Rivals Agree: Defend Bosses, Attack Workers

PARIS, April 6 — Hunger, poverty and unemployment are the lot of millions in France — and the upcoming presidential elections won’t change a damn thing.

According to an April 3 opinion poll, Socialist candidate François Hollande will beat right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round of presidential elections on May 6 by a 54% to 46% vote.

On April 4, Hollande announced that in his first 50 days in office he would: freeze gas prices for three months, allow people who had worked continually for 41 years to retire at age 60 and raise the back-to-school allowance by 25%.

Over the summer, he pledges to put a surtax on banks and oil companies, a 75% tax rate for incomes over 1 million euros (US$1.3 million) and reinstate the inheritance tax on big fortunes.

And in the fall he promises measures to stop profit-boosting through layoffs and downsizing, and to introduce worker participation on big-company boards of directors, rent control and to create 150,000 jobs.

Sound too good to be true? It is!

Hollande simultaneously announced that: “We’ll need all forces for the country’s recovery. That’s why, the day after the presidential election, I’ll meet with the top 40 companies on the Paris stock exchange, even if many of their directors didn’t vote for me. I’ll tell them: ‘You’re the spearhead of the French economy. We need you, and you need the government. We have to take up the challenge of France’s recovery together.’”

That means the Socialists will run France with and for the capitalists, as they have always done. Hollande will take orders from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a November 28 report, the OECD called for a third austerity plan to cut 8 billion euros (US$10.5 billion) from the government budget, on top of preceding plans which cut 19 billion (US$25 billion).

Conservative French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet told BBC Radio 4 that Hollande “will have to have sort of more wide-ranging cuts. Half the people in his immediate entourage already acknowledge this. They will not say this in public, but his economic policy is not going to be very different from Sarkozy.”

On April 10, 2010, the IMF reported that past “successful” budgetary adjustments have taken seven years on average. It wants the current austerity programs to continue at least that long.

So the Socialists are only going to worsen conditions for the working class, the hungry and the jobless, a racist move since a disproportionate number are of Arab or African origin. Considering who the Socialists are, that’s no surprise. In his 2010 doctoral thesis on the party, Socialist Party analyst Thierry Barboni indicated that:

     • In 2000, 88% of the members on the party’s National Council were elected officials. Not one member was a worker. Thirty-four percent were executives and academics, 36% worked in intermediate occupations (such as health care professionals) and 12% were top civil servants;

     • The party organization in the 10th arrondissement of Paris reflected the party membership generally: in 2006, 69% were middle-ranking and top executives;

     • He who pays the piper calls the tune. In 2006, 25% of party finances came from dues paid by elected officials, and 38% from state financing controlled by the central party apparatus.

It doesn’t matter who’s elected, Sarkozy or Hollande. Either way, another austerity plan is in the works. Conditions will worsen for:

     • The 8.2 million people (13.5% of the population) living below the poverty line, on less than 950 euros (US$1,244) a month. (French statistical bureau report, 3/2012);

     • The 4.9 million jobless (17.3% of the working population) (Unemployment office report, March 2012);

     • The 3.7 to 7.1 million people (6.0% to 11.5% of the population) who are malnourished, of whom 10% have symptoms of scurvy, 25% suffer from hypertension, and 56% are overweight or obese. (Brest symposium, 12/2007)

Here in France, and around the world, dreams of voting to reform capitalism are exactly that — dreams. The only way to eliminate the poverty, hunger and unemployment caused by capitalism is to organize a revolutionary communist party to overthrow it.