France

If not us then who?

Thursday 10 December 2015, by Christine Poupin

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The National Front is ahead of all other parties, with a total of more than 6 million votes nationally. Everything has been said - and rightly so - about the overwhelming responsibility of the Socialist Party in this catastrophe. Unquestionably its security and racist policy, going as far as proposing to withdraw [French] nationality, has banalized and legitimized the discourse of the far right, while its systematic destruction of political rights and social protection has succeeded in provoking despair among workers, unemployed, pernsioners and casualized workers, those who were called the "people of the left".

The PS has collapsed to the point of outright disappearance in the second round in many regions. We can say it had it coming coming and that it’s only electoral justice, justly deserved punishment for betraying so many hopes, ignoring so many promises. The PS does not represent in any way the most popular classes. So be it! But who does now represent them? Or more exactly what collective, organized force(s) make it possible to both express anger at social injustice, build solidarity to resist exploitation and oppressions, to keep alive the hope of a better future, the consciousness of the collective power of the oppressed and exploited and trust in this power to change the world? The answer is simple and dramatic: no party worthy of the name!

Nevertheless, thanks to the torn shirt of a Human Resources Director, workers’ anger breaks out standing proudly, refusing to bow its head. Nevertheless a school can build a rampart of mobilization around a migrant child threatened with expulsion. Nevertheless every day, thousands of union and campaign activists keep alive solidarity. Neverthless, mobilization for the climate is proposing another system, detoxified not only of fossil fuels but also from commodity alienation ... Yet ... Yet all this energy, this intelligence, has no adequate political force. To build it, to build together a new political representation along with a new emancipatory project, this is the urgent challenge.