Municipal elections in France, which took place on March 11 and 18 and are an important litmus test for the mood of the country, have brought a few surprises.
The conservative right has lost the two most important local government positions, the mayors of Paris and Lyons, to the ruling social-democratic Socialist Party (PS). This is the first "socialist" mayor of Paris since the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871.
But in spite of the fact that they were able to win 19 cities with populations of more than 30,000, the PS still came out of the elections as losers, its overall vote down.
The poor results of the two biggest government parties are above all due to the high level of voter abstention, a situation which couldn't be turned around in the second round of voting. Voter abstention increased from 30.6% in 1995 to 38.7% this year and it was strongest in working-class areas and the outer suburbs, which have a high proportion of immigrants and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
The extreme right — divided between the FN (National Front) and the MNR (National Republican Movement) — suffered considerable losses. In 1995 they still had officials in 103 municipalities; now they only have officials in 35. However, in some areas, above all in the region around Marseille, they have maintained a strong electoral footing of 20-22%.
The French Communist Party (PCF) were the biggest losers in the election. They lost votes in all their strongholds: the "red" industrial belts, the working-class suburbs, the small towns and municipalities and the rural areas.
Newspapers have calculated that, if municipal results were replicated in the national parliament, their fraction would have 10-20 fewer seats — even party chief Robert Hue would have lost his electorate of Argenteuil. The parliamentary existence of the PCF is endangered; they risk becoming a mere satellite of their larger coalition partner, the PS.
Increasingly, more factions and independent groups are developing in the PCF. A few have even led successful election campaigns which have been completely independent from the party, never even displaying the logo of the party. In other cases local groupings of the PCF have supported open lists, in which the far left has also had candidates. An extraordinary party congress is scheduled for autumn.
The third party in the government coalition, the Greens, has, on the other hand, considerably gained support. The vote for the Greens is likely a critical vote from those who want to support the government, but who are giving a clear signal that the government will have to change to its politics if that is to remain the case.
The biggest surprise was the considerable electoral success of the extreme left, even though the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and Workers' Struggle (LO) reverted to having separate tickets, after running a single list for European parliamentary elections. In many cases, however, the LCR was in combined tickets with other political and social organisations.
LO, which traditionally manages better results in elections, has received votes of up to 19.4%; they ran 129 tickets in 109 cities and municipalities and in the majority of cases received over 5% of the vote. According to their statistics they gained the highest number of votes in working-class areas and outer suburbs with high levels of unemployment.
The LCR either ran or supported 93 tickets, over 30 of which were combined tickets. Thirty-nine of those received over 5%, 28 received more than 7.5% and 12 got more than 10% of the vote. This signifies a clear electoral breakthrough for the LCR.
Since the electoral success of LO's Arlette Laguiller with 5.3% of the vote in the presidential election of 1995, the extreme left in France has been able to build upon its electoral success. With this it has been able to exploit some of the dissatisfaction with the government's politics and the crisis of the PCF.
[From the German socialist newspaper, Sozialistische Zeitung. Translated by Danny Fairfax.]