Submitted on
John Bulaitis (a supporter of the "Socialist Solidarity Network", now living in France) and Martin Thomas (Alliance for Workers' Liberty) debate whether socialists should have supported a vote for Chirac in the second round of the French Presidential election.
Submitted on
Jill Mountford reports from the huge May Day demonstration in Paris against Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Of course it was very exciting to be on a huge demonstration of over a million people, many of whom you could truthfully describe as comrades, expressing their abhorrence for Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Submitted on
In the run-off second round of the German presidential election in 1932, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) called for votes for Hindenburg, a "traditional" right-winger, against Hitler -- just as in the previous presidential election they had backed Wilhelm Marx, the candidate of the Catholic-bourgeois-liberal Centre Party. Their catchcry was that workers must support the "lesser evil". A few months later Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor.
In his writings on Germany, aimed mostly at people in or around the CP, Trotsky largely takes it as obvious, not needing detailed argument, that the SPD vote for Marx or Hindenburg was unprincipled from a working-class point of view. In a later article, on Spain (14 September 1937), when he feels that not so much can be taken for granted in the way of his readers holding certain assumptions, he explains more.
Specifically, he argues that siding with the Republic in the Spanish Civil War was quite different from voting for Hindenburg.
Submitted on
Editorial du bulletin marxiste Liaisons, rédigé le 5 mai 2002 à 23h00.
Au vu de ce qui est annoncé ce soir vers 21h, et après recherche du chiffre réel des absentions et des votes blancs et nuls dont on ne parle pas dans les médias, les résultats du second tour des élections présidentielles sont les suivants :
- Chirac : 66,4% environ (par rapport aux inscrits).
Il ne fait aucun doute que si on lui enlève ceux qui se sont bouchés le nez ou qui se sont estimés contraints de voter pour lui par la politique des dirigeants politiques et syndicaux de la gauche, il a bien moins de 50%. Cependant, le vote Chirac n'était pas un vote sans innocuité : maintenant, réélu alors que sa place est en prison, il va tenter de transformer l'essai et il y sera aidé. Aidé par qui ? Aidé par ceux selon qui nous venons d'assister à un référendum pour la République (la V° République !!! ) au moyen du vote Chirac et qui préparent soi-disant une nouvelle cohabitation après les législatives -une nouvelle cohabitation qui aurait les teintes de l'union nationale (DSK : " Chirac va " présider autrement ", c'est obligé ! ")..
Submitted on
Workers' Liberty est une organisation trotskyste britannique, liée à un groupe en Australie (Workers' Liberty), et qui tient des rapports de discussion avec plusieurs groupes dans d'autres pays. Nous éditons le quinzomadaire Solidarity et la revue théorique Workers' Liberty.
Submitted on
Plusieurs centaines de milliers de gens sont descendu dans la rue dès qu'on a appris que le deuxième tour de l'élection présidentielle, le 5 mai, offrerait une choix entre le fasciste Jean-Marie Le Pen et le droitier corrompu Jacques Chirac.
Derrière ces centaines de milliers sont rangés les trois millions qui ont voté pour les trois candidats trotskystes au premier tour - Arlette Laguiller (1,6 millions de voix), Olivier Besancenot (1,2 millions) et Daniel Gluckstein (0,1 million).
Submitted on
Chirac 81.86 % - Le Pen 18.14 %. In the second round of the French presidential elections, on 5 May, fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has won a smaller percentage than his first round total added to that of rival fascist Bruno Mégret, who called on his supporters to vote Le Pen in the run-off.
The right-wing sitting president, Jacques Chirac, will now, however, be able to appoint a new government with the authority of a larger majority than any previous president of France's Fifth Republic.
Submitted on
Many hundreds of thousands were on the streets of France's cities within hours of hearing that the second-round run-off of their presidential election, on 5 May, would give them a choice between the fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen and the corrupt right-wing Tory Jacques Chirac.
Behind those hundreds of thousands stand three million people who voted for the three Trotskyist candidates in the presidential first round - Arlette Laguiller (1.6 million), Olivier Besancenot (1.2 million), and Daniel Gluckstein (0.1 million).
Submitted on
In France, unlike Britain, municipal elections attract as much interest as national polls. In the municipal elections of 11 and 18 March 2001, there was a higher turnout (66% at the second round) than in Britain’s general election of June 2001; and the revolutionary left scored impressively. Lutte Ouvrière (LO) averaged 4.37% over 128 municipalities, and elected 33 municipal councillors. The Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR), standing in a variety of lists under titles like “100% on the left”, got 36 municipal councillors, and those lists, 91 of them, averaged 4.52%. There were 175 municipalities in total where far-left lists of candidates were presented — 44 of them have both LO and LCR-supported lists — covering about 18% of the electorate.
Submitted on
“At the time I was a student in Bordeaux, active in the French students’ union UNEF. Politically I was hesitating between the PCI [the ‘Lambertist’ group] and Lutte Ouvriere, or, as it was then, Voix Ouvriere. I had friends in the PCI, and my brother was in VO. After May-June I made my choice for VO.
