By Viriato Lusitania

Le Pen and Marcon in the runoff on May 7

Even if the abstention is slightly more compared to the previous presidential election, the voters ignored mostly the calls for boycott launched here and there.

After the first round of French presidential elections one of the two great capitalists, the puppet of European capitalism, of general liberalization of society, the “neither right nor left” candidate Emmanuel Macron will contest the runoff vote with the Front national leader Marine Le Pen on May 7. Macron benefited from massive support from financial capital and the mainstream medias, and from all parts of the apparatus of the Socialist Party and the CFDT union, from all those who have imposed the shameful Labor Act. Macron will initiate all the so-called ‘reforms’ for the benefit of the MEDEF, the employers’ federation in order to Americanize thoroughly French political life, its culture and even its language. But like Renzi in Italy, Macron would soon be faced by the French working-class movement who have not forgotten the great class fight against the Labor law of the past year.

There is no question of awarding Macron a patent of anti-fascism when it is the pro-patronal, warlike and alignment orientation behind the US imperialism of the Sarkozy, Hollande and all its ministers and ex-ministers, of which Macron, who for years dug the bed of the extreme right in France. Especially since now, Macron is also supported by the leaders of the right (the Republicans-LR), the PS and the European Commission and Berlin.

This support is not against Le Pen’s “fascism,” but to operate the capitalist plans as soon as possible which imply the subordination of French capitalism, with some concessions, to  “European” capitalism, actually Germany, that has already been prepared by Hollande and Merkel with the assistance of their respective peoples. A situation reminiscent of Petain’s capitulation to Hitler in 1941.

Le Pen is in the second round, albeit with a lower score than the one she dreamed of running for the Elysee. Conscientious workers’ activists will act on the ground to lower the FN’s score in the working class, because it divides the working class, pushes for inter-communal warfare and fascism, even if the march to the police state has largely been orchestrated for decades by the right and by the PS governments (who were recently trying to prohibit mass unions demonstrations!).

By fighting hard in the popular milieu to reduce the votes FN, it is necessary to reduce as much as possible this party of hatred which rots the political atmosphere in this country for years and which blocks the progressive alternative for the greater good of capitalism by deviating the legitimate anger of a part of the people to the dead end of racism.

For all that, while the right (Fillon, Juppe, etc.) and the PS are already calling for a Macron vote, we must not vote for this candidate whose ultra-liberal policy aims to get out of the capitalist crisis by further diminishing the incomes of the workers and increasing those of employers, accompanying the US wars, liquidate all the social gains … So to feed the FN, that feeds on all these social betrayals.

Fillon is eliminated from the second round: just punishment for the indecency of this super-Thatcherite candidate and profiteer. The right, the selfish and Versailles partisans of Fillon will once again experience difficult days and this is good for the workers and for the popular movement.

Independently of the sincere voters who followed him, the candidate of the official PS, although betrayed by his own “comrades” of the right of the PS, by Hollande and most socialist ministers, Hamon pays the bill of a PS destroyed by the politically slavishly pro-MEDEF (Bosses Union) of Hollande and arrives fifth of this election. Will the workers who are still members of the PS finally understand that this bellicose party, entirely subject to NATO and the MEDEF, has long ceased to be a decent place for true progressives?

Even if he did not reach the second round, J.-L. Mélenchon obtained a high score which is a point of support for the progressives and the workers of this country. He succeeds in spite of the indecent anti-communist campaign against him by Hollande, Laurent Berger and company. We are proud to have made the clear choice of an active communist intervention, “critical and dynamic”, to support this candidature which was the only one in the current state of the balance of forces, to preserve and expand the indispensable space to future social resistances.

Certainly, Mélenchon is not a real communist and his positions have remained more than hesitant on the reopening of the road of socialism in France.

But Mélenchon wants to leave NATO and it is vital at a time when Trump is marching to the most dangerous military confrontations in Syria, Korea and Ukraine. It is therefore urgent, not to demobilize, to work to defend peace with all who are willing to do so. We call on all peace-loving people to organize together, demonstrate before the second round, against Trump and his march to war on all fronts.

More than ever, we must reach out to all those who want to act to rebuild a real communist party, to support class unionism, to build the antifascist, popular and ecological Workers’ Front indispensable to break the fascism, to block Trump’s march to the World war and to get France out of NATO and capitalism in time.

First round

Summary of the 23 April first round 2017 French presidential election results

Candidate Party % 1st round

Emmanuel Macron En Marche! EM 8,656,346 24.01%

Marine Le Pen National Front FN 7,678,491 21.30%

François Fillon The Republicans LR 7,212,995 20.01%

Jean-Luc Mélenchon La France insoumise FI 7,059,951 19.58%

Benoît Hamon Socialist Party PS 2,291,288 6.36%

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan Debout la France DLF 1,695,000 4.70%

Jean Lassalle Résistons ! 435,301 1.21%

Philippe Poutou New Anticapitalist Party NPA 394,505 1.09%

François Asselineau Popular Republican Union UPR 332,547 0.92%

Nathalie Arthaud Lutte Ouvrière LO 232,384 0.64%

Jacques Cheminade Solidarity and Progress S&P 65,586 0.18%

Total 36,054,394 100%

Valid votes 36,054,394 97.43%

Spoilt and null votes 949,334 2.57%

Turnout 37,003,728 77.77%

Abstentions 10,578,455 22.23%

Registered voters 47,582,183

Sources: Constitutional Council, Ministry of the Interio