The president of the far-right Front national, Marine Le Pen, has clearly got other politicians rattled. Just months ahead of next spring's crucial local and European elections, the ruling Socialist Party (PS) devoted the theme of its summer conference at La Rochelle in west France to how to combat the rising popularity of Le Pen's populist party.
The martial tone at last weekend's gathering was set at the welcoming reception, at which the party's first secretary Harlem Désir called for a “battle for the local and European elections” based on “conviction”. In other words, fighting an ideological battle against an extremist Right and the extreme right. On Friday the head of the local PS federation in the Charente-Maritime, Mickaël Vallet, spoke openly of a “cultural war”, while on Saturday the keynote figure in a session devoted to how to tackle the threat from the Front national (FN) was interior minister Manuel Valls. Then, on Sunday, it was once more the turn of Harlem Désir to turn up the rhetoric. “I call for a republican crusade against the extreme right...I formally call for socialists to make the fight against the extreme right a priority,” he declared.
In his closing speech later on Sunday the prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, too, took up the theme, criticising the growing links between a section of the right-wing UMP and the FN. “It's the Right's problem, but if it continues it will be the Republic's problem,” he declared, noting there was a “very strong temptation towards popularism” among voters. “We know that these periods of crisis favour these bad reactions...We have an obligation to succeed. We mustn't give the impression that everything has been tried and all that remains is just one despairing course of action left, a vote for the extremes,” said the prime minister.
The PS had debated for a long time over whether it should start the new political year on the theme of fighting the extreme right. Harlem Désir, who was the first president of the anti-racism organisation SOS Racisme, was himself hesitant about the move, fearing that it could give the FN a boost by placing it at the centre of the political world. Some members continue to think it is an error, while others prefer to talk about “populism” in general rather than the FN specifically. But the result of the by-election at Villeneuve-sur-Lot earlier this year, following the resignation of budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, sent shock waves through the party. The FN candidate made it through to the second round of voting, with the Left eliminated in the first round. PS activists also point to the way the radical right hijacked the protests against the same-sex marriage law, and the fact that in June an anti-fascist activist Clément Méric was beaten to death by extreme-right supporters in the middle of Paris.
“The focus for this year is on the extreme right,” confirmed the PS party spokesman David Assouline. In the end, socialist party officials were convinced that, unchecked, the FN would do very well at the local elections, and that after the European elections it could even become the French political party with the largest share of the popular vote. This led to the decision to launch the “ideological battle”.
Yet even by the end of the La Rochelle party gathering on Sunday, it was still hard to know exactly what form this “battle” will take. The PS leadership freely admits that “the content is in the process of being developed. It's under way.” To some observers it seems surprising that this project still remains 'work in progress' just months away from key elections.
There were times during debates at the La Rochelle conference, which was attended by a number of government ministers, when the party felt paralysed by the fear of not wanting to cause problems for either the president François Hollande or prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. Unlike the years under former first secretary Martine Aubry, there were few representatives of what could be termed civil society – charitable associations, unions, intellectuals – taking part at the 2013 conference. It is true that the academics Camille Peugny, who played a big role in inspiring François Hollande's policies on youth, and Vincent Tiberj, who worked on the issue of diversity for the campaign, were both present. But this was at a gathering of Aubry supporters on the fringe of the main conference.
The conference also underlined to what extent the party, which since the start of the Hollande presidency has failed to find its place and identity under Désir's leadership, has become little more than a vehicle to lavish praise on government ministers. “The party is running on part empty,” said one of the leaders, who describes a Socialist Party whose headquarters have been deserted by ministers and where even party officials spend less and less time.
“This ideological battle is just packaging,” said one MP, a supporter of Martine Aubry, about the conference. “It would have been better if people had come and shaken us up a bit. It was too turned in on itself, with a real intellectual weakness on the part of the leadership.” Emmanuel Maurel, a leading figure on the left of the party, noted wryly: “We've been bringing up the cultural battle since 2002. But it needs to be given the means and the content.”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
In reality the “content” of the ideological battle against the extreme right is an issue that divides socialists. In a sense, the dispute between interior minister Manuel Valls and justice minister Christiane Taubira is an illustration of the division. In its session on combating the FN, the party chose the tough-talking interior minister Valls as the key-note speaker. Some consider that a strange choice for a party that often swears that the priority against the FN is education (so why not choose education minister Vincent Peillon as the speaker?) or employment (so why not employment minister Michel Sapin?). Unless, that it, is is considered that the fight against the extreme right is above all a republican fight, one in which emphasis is put on the French republic's values. Manuel Valls, who was strongly applauded during his speech even though he was also – and very unusually for the conference - subjected to whistles when he mentioned the dismantling of Roma camps, certainly did not hide his support for what he called the “uncompromising Republic”. He told his audience: “Winning against the extreme right means that no subject must be off limits. Let us speak about everything, and let's speak clearly.”
And it is principally on this theme of the Republic and its values that the PS is organising a forum in Paris to set out the detail of its combat against the FN. “The FN remains an anti-republican, racist party that is against all progress. It is not a party like other parties,” Désir reiterated on Sunday. Christophe Borgel, who is the PS's national secretary for elections, said the battle against Marine Le Pen's party consisted of three elements. “To unmask the extreme rightwards shift and the ties between a part of the Right [editor's note, the UMP] and the extreme right; to highlight the ineffectiveness of the FN's programme; and to get out there on the ground,” he said. The party's spokesman David Assouline also noted: “An attack based on the Republic's values is fundamental, faced with the assertion of values that are more and more extreme.”
'People feel left behind'
But the content of this “attack” is far from being agreed on unanimously, even among those at the heart of the PS and those close to François Hollande who note that the FN is gaining votes well beyond beyond its traditional radicalised, overtly racist and xenophobic electorate. “The real question is where the progression in the FN vote is taking place and what is causing its progression,” says agriculture minister Stéphane Le Foll, who is very close to the president. His focus is on the so-called peri-urban areas - the outskirts of towns and cities - and the recent studies that suggest that the further away from town and city centres one goes, the higher the FN vote. “In these areas there is a feeling of being relegated in status, of being left behind,” says Le Foll. “We must find a way so that everyone feels they are part of a collective story. We must succeed in giving each person the idea that they belong to a collective destiny.”
It is a concern shared, in part, by the MP Laurent Baumel, co-founder of the 'Gauche populaire' or 'popular left' movement in the party, which is made up mostly of former supporters of ex-IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and which is critical of government economic policy. “The cultural battle is a rather shallow slogan,” he says. “It all depends on the diagnosis. The rise of the FN always feeds on the crisis of the policies that have been carried out. And the political upsurges of the FN are always a symptom of government policies. The best response is to fight for a change in direction in economic and social policy with the central theme being consumer spending power,” says Baumel. He, too, puts a focus on the urban periphery; typically working couples earning between 1,000 and 1,500 euros a month who live on the outskirts of towns and who need to take the car each day to go to work.
“That's my disagreement with Manuel Valls; while he's close to people on issues of society he's more on the side of the elites on economic matters...let's soften our economic and social policy and we will take the ground from the FN!” says Baumel. Another MP on the left, Olivier Dussopt, says the party needs to win over its base support again. “And you don't do that my telling people in the shit that what they're doing is rubbish,” he says.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Yet the issue of consumer spending power was virtually entirely absent from the conference debates. Yes, the question of employment was at the centre of discussions. But only the young socialist movement, the Mouvement des jeunes socialistes (MJS), during the closing debate on Sunday, brought up the topic of raising salaries and demanding a minimum wage of 1,500 euros a month – the monthly gross minimum wage is currently 1,430.22 euros. “Fighting a cultural battle is playing on our territory, on social issues,” the MJS president Thierry Marchal-Beck told the audience.
The head of the young socialists was also the only one to strike a different tone on the issue of pension reform, which according to Olivier Dussopt was the “black hole” of the conference. No plenary session at the conference was devoted to the subject, instead there was simply a 'workshop' with no minister present. Meanwhile, at the same time as that workshop was taking place, the social affairs minister Marisol Touraine was involved in a round table on women's rights. Interestingly, neither of the two trade unions that have called for a day of protests on September 10th against pension reforms, the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) and Force Ouvrière (FO), were present at the pensions workshop.
The PS insists that the two unions were invited but declined to take part. This was vehemently denied by Stéphanie Binet of the CGT, who was invited to take part in the discussion on women's rights. “As there were already too many unions at the round table on pensions, I imagine that’s why you have given us this one on women,” she said, ironically, in front of Marisol Touraine.
On a broader note the former environment minister Delphine Batho, a former vice-president of SOS Racisme, said: “If the fight against the FN has to be at the centre of our activity out on the ground then we must take with us a plan to transform society. A part of the cultural battle is providing the aspiration for a better life.” At the time she was sacked Batho had already criticised a “change of direction towards austerity in all but name, and which is paving the way to power for the extreme right”. She also added: “The politics of austerity in Europe is a breeding ground for the extreme right.”
The minister for urban areas, François Lamy, meanwhile, insisted that the response to the FN needed to be based on the Republic's core values “in other words, equality”. He added: “Our reference points must be the values of the Left. We must give meaning to the notion of progress, for the only defence against the rise of populism will be the Socialist Party.”
On the left of the PS there is also a fear that a “cultural battle” will mean focussing on issues such as national identity and immigration rather than social issues. “To fight the FN we have to accept that we're from the Left,” said Emmanuel Maurel. “It means setting out clearly the cultural battle and the steps to be taken, like not giving 20 billion euros [editor's note, to companies] in the competitiveness agreement. The government hasn't spoken about salaries for a year now, that's a first since the Left has been in power! The only possible response to the FN is a Left that frees itself from the dominant ideology,” insisted Maurel, who won close to 30% of party members' support when Harlem Désir was elected party boss in 2012. “And that starts with words and deeds that avoid adopting opponents' terminology, such as saying social 'charges' instead of 'contributions' [editor's note, he is referring to the obligatory employee, employer or self-employed payments towards pensions, health and social security benefits known as 'cotisations sociales', or social contributions, which are sometimes called 'charges'] and not focussing the discussion on immigration and law and order.”
This analysis is shared by Guillaume Balas, a member of the party's national bureau who is close to left-wing minister Benoît Hamon. “The urgent point is that we don't ourselves do stupid things and restart artificial debates on immigration that distract from the real issues – on the environment, social issues and Europe,” he said. “It's not enough just to wait for [economic] growth to return and for unemployment to drop. We have to set a direction and advocate a new development model. The cultural battle has to be fought against neo-liberalism,” Balas said.
Once the French Parliament returns from its summer break, the members of a number of different political strands in the Socialist Party are planning to renew their appeals for a major reform of the tax system. They believe that this, too, would be an important weapon in the fight against Marine Le Pen and her party.
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English version by Michael Streeter