INDUSTRIAL DECLINE AND SOCIAL TENSIONS

The 'small city' here is Dreux, 60 miles west of Paris. The question is asked, how could the Front Nationale of Le Pen capture 61% of the Dreux vote in 1989? Francoise Gaspard was once the Socialist mayor of Dreux, and brings her knowledge of local demographics and history to bear. Up until the early 1950s, Dreux was a small town, but between 1954 and 1975 the population rose from 16,818 to 33,095 (+ 197%) bringing with it severe social stress, and a perceived threat to the social identity of the town. New, but horrible high rise estates mushroomed in the former fields around the edges. At first, workers from Brittany came in, then Italians, Hungarians and the Spanish. Later Moroccans came, and after 1962 the 'Harkis' - former Algerian soldiers, displaced when the French pulled out. During the same period, long standing traditional industries declined - the shoe factory closed in 1960, for example. New industries, cars pharmaceuticals, and aerospace, opened up. A TV tube factory created 6,000 new jobs. Despite this seeming prosperity, racist tensions bubbled underneath. In July 1971 a reception centre burned down.

TERRITORY FOR EXTREMISTS

Prosperity left in the early 1970s, stagnation and recession set in. Through 1975 to 1985 many factories closed in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo. Communities tended to be ghettoized in separate estates, with white working class people uneasy, looking for scapegoats. From its groundbase of ex-Vichyites, extreme Gaullists and OAS supporters (militant pro-colonialists opposed to withdrawal from Algeria) the FN started to grow. 'Where there is ugliness, there is no democracy. When things are rotten, democracy goes out of the window' - Roland Castro, Architect.

ELECTORAL PACT WITH THE RIGHT

A local FN politician, Jean Pierre Stirbois, formed an electoral pact with the CDS, a right wing party. This was a shrewd political move, giving him the electoral leverage to get into the local council chamber. The elections were characterised by dirty tricks like the 'Dear Mustapha' letter, a stunt designed to whip up racial hatred, and fake posters suggesting central government were planning to settle thousands of foreign workers in the empty estate flats. By 4th September 1983, after eleven years of such tricks and electoral horse-trading, the FN could poll 17% of the vote. In just four years they had moved up to this from 303 votes (2.5%) Earlier in 1983, the left held on by a mere 8 votes. Low turn out and the drift away from the left helped the far right. By 1989, they could poll 61%, a worrying thought if the BNP electoral progress mirrors this in Burnley and Oldham.

RESPONSES ?

What solutions does Francoise Gaspard offer? - This is the most disturbing part of the book. The militant anti fascist left has been 'unable to mobilise anyone but themselves'. [p 115] Intellectuals have been silent or ineffectual. The mainstream right has actively collaborated with the fascists and (something like the mainstream parties in Britain) apes their xenophobic, racist rhetoric. Central government allowed the situation to continue as a demographic calibration exercise, (the so-called 'Matignon Experiment' ). About the only real ray of hope on the horizon were the ordinary people who went round the vast high rise estates recounting their own experiences of the Vichy era and the mass deportations, to try to persuade people not to vote FN [p 163]. Aside from this, she offers no real answers, the usual platitudes about 'rediscovering the citizen' and for political parties to rediscover the voters.

THIS LETTER FROM WEIMAR IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH

This is not good enough, in my opinion. Do we find there is any real acknowledgement there that their built up urban environment, and recessions fuel it? Is there a real willingness to tackle this head on? She talks about the breakdown of civic virtue, yes, and admits that 'to build a place like that was a crime'. [p 151] To talk of 'Rediscovering the Citizen' and that whole agenda represents an unacceptable rightwards shift in thinking. The rise of the FN and other far right parties, is partly a result of the failure of the left. The left became complacent, bureaucratic, distant and corrupt. The first step towards an answer is to acknowledge this. The next step involves reconnecting with people, not in tokenistic focus group ways or through fake PR exercises, but by putting their needs and aspirations at the centre. This problem will not be addressed by imposing yet another skewed, pro-capitalist, communitarian agenda. A basic core Socialism would repudiate, reject, challenge the evil of global capitalism, not go along with it. It wholly excludes 'Blairism' and similar creeds. It unequivocally encompasses such things as the democratic public ownership of utilities, public transport and the right to free access to education. Without this, the left has not got a hope in hell of reconnecting with the people, because it subordinates itself to the right.

This said, I believe this book is well meaning, its factual descriptions of what is happening are good, even if its 'solutions' are watery. This book ought to be studied by everyone who wants to oppose the rise of the far right.

– Steve Booth

Green Anarchist: Front Page Current Articles First 10 Issues See: uk.indymedia.org for more on the university expansion.

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