WHEN Francois Mitterand was elected President of France in July 1981, it was greeted as a triumph by the left throughout Europe. His win was followed by socialist electoral victories in Greece, Sweden, and the revival of the electoral fortunes of the SPD in Germany. disillusionment with the performance of the Mitterand Socialist-Communist widespread and the right wing is gaining strength. Meanwhile, in the forthcoming local elections the revolutionaries of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire and Lutte Ouvriere are standing more than 4500 candidates. JOHN ROSS looks at the recent developments in French polities.
The first two years of the Mitterand government have dashed the hopes of LIC huropean left. Mitterand imposed creeze in the summer of 1982; abandoned his promise to reduce military service to six months; ploughed ahead with building up French nuclear wcaoHs.
savagely attacked SUIKCS result ine popularity of the government has fallen rapidly.
Every political commentator, including the government's MOTIB supporters, expect- the right wing parties to make big gains in the March local Emboldened by the Socialist Challenge 11 February 1983 page 8 Spain and But only two years later government is government's waning popularity the right wing have launched a campaigr for the early dissolution of parament.
Chirac The Gaullist leader Chirac has annonced a 60-point plan for 'saving the economy', In practice the plan amounts to the destruction of many of the most important -OCa gains of the French workIng Crass including the abolition of the fifth week yearly paid holidays, of the few really popular measures of the Mitterand government.
ETTOCI motor company. Citroen has been a centre of old style company unionism linked to the fascist right. A long fight, culminating in the occupation of the Citroen-Levallois plant earlier this year, has succeeded in winning union rights and other gains for the workers.
Typically, Socialist Party general SCCICLAL Lionel Jospin has accused the immigrant workers of being manipulated i political and CHaOUS minorities".
The largest abstentions in by-elections have been the old CP strongholds.
The old 'far left' outside the organised workers movement, which came into existence after May '68, now hardly exists.
opposiIDOLLCL tional currents exist inside the trade unions, winning up to 30 per cent of the vote against austerity in mne Socialist-dominatec CFDT, but no real opposition currents nave emerge( the mass parties themselves