By David Broder

The first round of the French elections saw the Trotskyist left slip back compared to 2002, despite a strong result for the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire's candidate Olivier Besancenot.

Besancenot won 1.5 million votes (4.11%), up from 1.2 million in 2002 (although a slight decrease in percentage points, since turn out was much higher). Arlette Laguiller, of Lutte Ouvrière, slipped back from 5.7% to just 1.3%, just under half a million votes.

The election was most notable for the relative failure of far-right candidate Jean-Marie le Pen, who surprisingly came second in the 2002 contest. He fell from nearly 17% last time out to just 10.4%.

Undoubtedly, an important blow to the far-left's score was dealt by the desire on the part of most French workers that the Parti Socialiste (social democrat) candidate should get into the second round, and thus avoid a repeat of 2002, when they were faced with a choice between conservative Jacques Chirac and le Pen. That crisis was widely blamed on the splitting of the left vote among numerous candidates. This time, the PS candidate Ségolène Royal (25.8%) did indeed qualify for the second round, where she will face right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy (31.4%).

The collective score of the groups to the left of the PS - if we also factor in the semi-Stalinist PCF (Communist Party), the "Lambertiste" (anti-EU and pseudo-Trotskyist) Gerard Schivardi and anti-globalisation peasant leader José Bové - was about 9%, down from 14% in 2002.

Given the circumstance of a resurgent Parti Socialiste and continuing disunity of Trotskyist forces, the LCR's performance was impressive. Not only did it win more votes than ever - the first occasion on which it had won more votes than Lutte Ouvrière - it ran a strong, visible campaign, its meetings with Besancenot apparently twice as large as in 2002.

Both Besancenot and Laguiller have called for a vote in the second round for Ségolène Royal and the Parti Socialiste. This makes sense, given the strong working class support for that party and antipathy towards Nicolas Sarkozy, a very right-wing conservative who has stolen much of le Pen's anti-immigration platform. Besancenot's call was very weasel-worded, saying "it's not a vote for Royal, it's a vote against Sarkozy", while He called upon workers to "fight [Sarkozy] in the streets and at the ballot box", a reprisal of the slogan which in 2002 led the LCR into implicit support for a vote for Chirac to defeat le Pen. The class character of the parties concerned is however rather different here - Laguiller's open position of (very) critical support for Royal is better, and indeed the first time that Lutte Ouvrière has called for a vote for the PS since 1981.

The PCF, which had discussed a joint candidature with the LCR and Bové but alienated the former by insisting on the possibility of governmental collaboration with the PS, is now a seriously weakened political force. Once one of the very largest political parties in Europe (nearing a million members in the 1950s), the rapid decline of the party in the 1970s and 80s has not diminished. Look at its presidential election results - 1981, 15.3%, 1988 6.76%, 1995 8.66%, 2002 3.37%, 2007 1.94%. The PCF's control over the working class and its labour movement used to be enormous - it crushed the general strikes of 1936 and 1968. The PCF is the party which excused the German invasion in 1939 before reverting to French chauvinism when Hitler "betrayed" his pact with Stalin's USSR. The party which organised demonstrations against immigrants even in the 1980s. Although retaining some limited strength in the unions, the Stalinist behemoth continues to heamorrhage members, readers and supporters. Good.

Workers must vote to stop Sarkozy on May 6th. But that can only be one of a number of mobilisations necessary to fight off neo-liberal attacks. Both remaining candidates plan their own initiatives to deepen the suffering of the youth in the suburbs - Sarkozy calls them scum, Royal wants to send them to "boot camps". Both want more labour "flexibility", and attacks on the welfare state. Neither has any solution to France's housing crisis, unemployment and mass lay-offs. The mass of French workers sense a far greater danger from Sarkozy, clearly the more aggressive enemy of the working class. A principled vote in the second round is one for Ségolène Royal - but no matter who wins the election, the struggle goes on...

Statement from Olivier Besancenot

Nearly 1.8 million voters have rallied round my candidature - 600,000 more than in 2002 [this is not accurate]. Despite the pressure to cast a "useful vote" - which during recent weeks has proven to be Segolene Royal's sole programme - more than 4.5% of voters have voted for me. This is real encouragement for the struggles ahead. Thanks to those who have voted for me. Together, we have succeeded in this campaign, apart from our tally of votes, by offering an answer to social problems. For the right to employment, increasing purchasing power and, furthermore, the right to housing - the minimum wage up to 1500 euros a month, a 300 euro pay rise in all salaries [monthly], requisitioning all empty homes, prohibiting redundancies and mounting a struggle against discrimination - so many questions still existent in society and the world of work; so many mobilisations to come to make our voice heard.

Nicolas Sarkozy is ahead, and has qualified to face Segolene Royal in the second round. The right has for five years led a policy of systematic destruction of the social rights we have won, and Sarkozy now wants to inflict MEDEF [French CBI] shock-therapy to French society. That is to say, more inequality, more injustice and fewer rights. Le Pen has been kicked out of the race, which is great news. But Sarkozy has led an extremely reactionary campaign. Running on the terrain of the Front National [Le Pen's party], this man and his programme pose an immediate danger.

No candidate has ownership of the votes [he's won], and everyone is, evidently, free to make their choice on 6th May [the second round]. But for 5 years the LCR has fought the policies of Chirac and his prime ministers in the street and at the ballot box. It's in that vein that I call on you to demonstrate on May 1st in every town in France for the important social policy changes that I have fought for in this campaign, and against the anti-social project of Sarkozy. Against this confident right wing, the second round necessarily has the character of an anti-Sarkozy referendum for all of those who want to resist his politics. On the 6th of May we will be with those who want to stop Sarkozy becoming president. That doesn't mean supporting Segolene Royal, but voting against Nicolas Sarkozy.

Faced with this hard right, the Parti Socialiste and its candidate are not up to the task. Throughout this campaign I have fought for redistribution of wealth. That is not the plan of the PS, which puts itself on the same political territory as the right in accepting neo-liberalism and seeking profits for big business. Even on questions like nationalism and patriotism, the PS has sought to rival the right. That's why the LCR does not support Segolene Royal.

I call upon those who have sympathised with our propositions to work together so we can together creat a force able to fight for them in mobilisation. Whoever is president after the May 6th vote, we must continue to fight neo-liberal policies, and the LCR will continue to work for the greatest unity in the coming struggles. That, whether or not Sarkozy unfortunately wins on May 6th; but equally if Royal is elected, she must face opposition from the left and not only on the right.

We need a new anti-capitalist force. To help, as we have in the last five years, struggle and resistance, in supporting the new political generation which grew up in the mobilisation against the CPE, in the suburbs and in the workplace. The LCR calls on you [to help us] together construct this force, able to fight capitalism and offer the hope that another world is possible.

Statement from Arlette Laguiller

Firstly, I must thank all those who have voted for and supported me for their conscience and their confidence in me. As had been obvious, it is Sarkozy and Royal who will compete in the second round. The fear of seeing Bayrou or Le Pan beating Royal was never seriously entertained, except to aggressively push from the first round the idea of a "useful vote" [for Royal].

As regards the past, I do not regret - far from it, I am proud of it - having been the only candidate to refuse in 2002 to call for a vote for one right-winger over another, and having refused to vote for Chirac; Chirac the ally of Sarkozy. Doing that to defeat Le Pen, who had hardly won many votes in the first round and got through to the second because Jospin [PS], thanks to his politics, had lost two and a half million of his supporters.

Chirac was largely elected with right-wing votes alone. Le Pen had no chance at all of being elected but, now, Sarkozy has plenty of chance to do so. Today Le Pen is still here, and moreover is so via the ideas of Sarkozy, which give Le Pen's a run for his money.

In this year's second round, there is no worthy candidate for the workers. After all, Sarkozy - of course - and Ségolène Royal, no more than him, would not raise their little finger to reslove the biggest problems facing the working class, which means unemployment, continual attacks on quality of life, and the serious crisis in housing. However, I hope with all my heart that Sarkozy is beaten, since his arrogance deserves nothing else, and his programme means nothing but goodies for the bosses, in particular the biggest businesses.

The measures he has proposed are the continuation of the policies of these last five years - the worst government we've had for a long time - that is to say, ramping up the pressure on the poor to give more and more to those who get rich at the expense of the rest of the population.

So I will be voting for Royal, and I call on all voters to do the same. But if I do this, it is simply in solidarity with all those among the masses who say they want "anyone but Sarkozy". I share their desire to defeat Sarkozy, but I however will say to them that Ségolène Royal will not improve the lot of the working class any more than Sarkozy.

Royal is just as much in the camp of capital, in the camp of the exploiters, financiers and those who lay off workers, as Sarkozy - they are good and loyal servants to them. One or the other will do nothing but serve the big bourgeoisie, as they have both done in all the governments they have ever served in. It is their common situation in the camp of the big bosses which makes it impossible that either will resolve the problems of the great mass of the population - as I said before, that means mass unemployment, a serious crisis in housing and a continual reduction of purchasing power.

The results of the first round - if you add up the left-wing and right-wing totals - would lead us to believe that Royal has only a small chance of winning in the second. But it is she who took on such risks! She chose a nothing campaign, looking towards the bosses just as much as towards the masses. Gifts drawn-up for the former, nothing but vague slogans for the latter. A campaign unable to raise enthusiasm among those not seeing social progress, a campaign which relies entirely on the anti-Sarkozy effect but which doesn't want to piss off the bosses.

But despair cannot be enough to raise hope.

So even if I unreservedly call for a vote for Ségolène Royal, I have no illusions in what her, the former ministers and the leaders of the Parti Socialiste will do if they get to power. I stand in absolute solidarity with all those who want to vote for Royal. But I will say to them that they will be quickly, and totally, disappointed, just as they were five years ago with Jospin's government. Ségolène Royal, if she is elected, will not be worse than Sarkozy, but neither will she be better! She may perhaps not take all the measures in favour of the élite that the right is doing at the moment - but under her rule, and even before the five year term is up, we will be seriously disillusioned, as we were with the last Socialist government.

We must impose our main demands upon her with sufficiently strong and united social movements, exactly as we should to Sarkozy. I have said all this in my campaign, but many voters thought that they had to use their vote in the first round for a cause they believed to be "useful". I say that they are fooling themselves. Their first round vote was not worthwhile. In the second round, I hope, it might serve some good to defeat Sarkozy, but it will not get rid of the pro-boss-class policies which either Sarkozy or Royal will apply.

It is however, for the sake of solidarity with the wishes of the - doubtless - majority of the camp of the working class, that which has always been and remains my camp, that I choose to vote for, and call for a vote for, Ségolène Royal.

But I am convinced that all workers must, whoever is elected, as quickly as possible get back onto the terrain of struggle.