PARIS, September 13 — The Socialist government running France for the bosses since May 2012, is wobblier than ever. The bosses’ other governing party, the right-wing UMP, has been discredited by the 2007-2012 Sarkozy regime’s policies and by current scandals. The National Front fascists are eager to grab power. That’s France today: social fascists versus open fascists. The elections are a mechanism by which French banks and businesses (finance capital) maintain state power. Whether it’s the liberal fascists or the outright fascists, both sides spell disaster for workers.
The Sarkozy gang upped the retirement age and lowered retirement pensions, broke the historic strike of undocumented immigrants by promising them papers (which most strikers never received) and pushed racism. In a 2007 speech, Sarkozy adopted the racist stereotype that black people are child-like, saying, “The African man has not entered history sufficiently.…Africa’s problem is that it lives too much in the present.”
Disgusted, many voters believed François Hollande’s election campaign speech: “My true opponent….will never be elected, and yet he governs. That opponent is the world of finance.”
But since they took power, the Socialists have pursued the same fascist pro-boss austerity policies as Sarkozy. In January, then-Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced, “I am a social-democrat [a right-wing Socialist] and so is the president,” while defending a 10-billion-euros giveaway, supposedly to enable French bosses to compete better with other imperialists.
After the social fascists lost control of 155 cities in the nation-wide municipal elections, president Hollande named a new Prime Minister, Manuel Valls. More window-dressing — Valls pursued the same pro-boss policies as Ayrault.
Meanwhile, unemployment continues to explode — 20.3 percent in July. Deportations of undocumented workers continue — 27,000 in 2013 — which is not surprising, as Valls infamously complained in June, 2009 when he was mayor of Evry, about seeing “too many non-white faces” at the city flea market. By August, Hollande’s approval rating had fallen to 17 percent.
More and more Socialist deputies and ministers became dissidents, fearful that in the 2017 elections, the government’s disastrous policies would deprive them of their comfortable positions. Hollande and Valls responded on August 25 by ousting the dissidents.
Now, the Socialists’ governing majority in the National Assembly is a bare 50.2 percent and is expected to lose control of the Senate in this fall’s elections.
The UMP is broke due largely to shady financial deals during Sarkozy’s 2012 election campaign. Sarkozy himself is under investigation for various crimes. The party is divided into warring factions, with two others, François Fillon and Alain Juppé, vying with Sarkozy for the party’s 2017 presidential nomination.
Anti-Arab Racism Hurts All Workers
But the bosses have a third option: the openly fascist National Front (FN). In August, FN leader Marine Le Pen proclaimed her readiness to govern France. And the fascists are indeed getting ready.
This intensified anti-Arab and immigrant racism will  continue to drive down wages and benefits for all workers. It will be useful should French troops be needed as cannon fodder in Obama’s coalition in the fight for oil profits in the Middle East.
In September at the FN’s summer conference hall, a sign said, “The DPS [its storm trooper organization] is recruiting…everywhere in France.”
A hot theme at that conference was the racist, paranoid belief in the supposed replacement of French people by Arabs. Le Pen’s foreign policy councilor, Aymeric Chauprade, said: “You see it every day, this change in the population…the big replacement is obvious.” The head of the FN youth organization repeated the theme: “If we don’t do anything, our people will be replaced.”
The overt fascists have also circulated a fake ministerial letter on the social networks. It “earnestly advises” city governments to sponsor “a weekly beginner’s course in Arabic” as an extra-curricular activity in primary schools, and is supposedly signed by the Education Minister. This fabrication follows that the Eiffel Tower will become a mosque, that French schools will forbid the “plus” sign because it resembles a Christian cross, that school canteens will stop serving pork, and similar anti-Arab lies.
Large numbers here are apparently swayed by this racist garbage. According to a September 4 opinion poll, if presidential elections were held today, the FN would win up to 32 percent of the vote; UMP between 17 and 25 percent; and the Socialists 17 percent percent in the elections’ first round. In the second round, the FN would win a run-off against the Socialists but would lose in one against the UMP. In all cases, the bosses would win.
All three parties — from social fascists to open fascists — are financed and run by the bosses. For workers, the only solution to racism, fascism, mass unemployment and government austerity is communist revolution, to establish a society run by and for workers. Arab, African, French workers of the world unite!