Plasma Pool

A French postage stamp issued in 2007 featuring militant communist Guy Môquet, reappropriated as a martyr to the French Republic

Soon after Nicolas Sarkozy stepped into the Palais de l’Élysée as the new president of the French Republic in May of 2007, he signed an order that seemed to signify the ultimate triumph of French conservatives over radicals. On October 22, he mandated that all French schools hold readings of the farewell letter of Guy Môquet, a militant communist who was executed during the Nazi occupation. The order, Sarkozy suggested, would give young people a much-needed lesson in patriotism, heroism, and valor. The real lesson reeked of nationalism—a nationalism tightly bound up with xenophobic legislation proposed by French conservatives. But with Sarkozy as president, the order signified something else: the success of the right at folding radical politics into the service of the state. Sarkozy’s order met with little remonstration.

From any perspective, it seemed that the desiccation of the French Left was complete. After the defeat of Ségolène Royal and the Socialist Party in the 2007 election, the Môquet affair was really only a symbolic embarrassment; the third consecutive loss on the presidential stage was a more material one. Still, the population was assured that the Socialists would solider on as the mopey, “loyal opposition,” a role they have dutifully played since 1995. In the past decade, the party has undergone a prolonged slide from the left to the center, implicitly affirming the status quo and the recent conservative victories with its spastic and inconsequential flutterings of verbal resistance.

And France was not alone. In Italy, a unified Left was unable to prevent the most conservative ruling coalition since Mussolini from taking power. In Germany, Die Linke (“The Left”), pawned its Marxist-Leninist roots for a smattering of legislative seats. European radicals who did not veer toward the center were cast adrift, cementing the already entrenched balkanization of leftist parties.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Although the autumn of 2007 was utterly controlled by the right, the summer of 2008 was, if only barely, contested by an invigorated left. Writing about a very different era in France, Marx noted that “the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” The knotted and disappointing history of French radicalism is rife with such nightmares. But on whose brains do these nightmares weigh today?

On June 29, 2008, a small party called the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) held a press conference that may have begun to gather these brains together. Its announcement, like most official announcements, was not an announcement at all, but a statement of what was already known by anyone paying attention. The LCR, after months of hype, finally declared the foundation of a new organization committed to uniting various radical parties not associated with the Socialists. The proclamation itself was not surprising, but it was clear within a few weeks that the LCR had, surprisingly, drawn the interest and support of many.

This early success was due less to political factors than to factors of personality: specifically, the popularity of its primary spokesmen, Olivier Besancenot, a breathless, ruddy-cheeked postman from the north side of Paris. Besancenot—with dark blonde hair, a round face, and a spirited and honest mien—bears his sartorial burden well: black, v-neck sweaters; acid-washed jeans; and a dark tan leather jacket. At 34, he has already stood in as a candidate in two presidential elections. And as the most visible member of that party, he is to be credited with developing the increasing base they now have to call on. He is a regular on free-flowing French talk shows that highlight his rhetorical dexterity. He works the crowds with earnest abandon and is absolutely one of the most exciting politicians on the French Left. And so it was Besancenot who, on June 29, announed that the LCR was calling for the formation of a New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA).

His major stipulation was that the unification of radical parties would represent “a Left of anti-capitalist combat”; he maintained that the NPA would be “a party totally independent of the Socialists, a party which defends the interests of all who are exploited.” As if to further emphasize the radical credentials of the organization, his generalized claims were interlarded with cheers and barks of “our lives are worth more than their profits!” and “put capitalism in the trash!”

Olivier Besancenot (right) announces the formation of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in June 2008

Despite the overwrought pronouncements, Besancenot and the others who spoke in June indicated that this would be more than another iteration of old slogans. The verbal overtures to French radicals and international leftists are only part of the program here—they are assurances for the members of the Worker’s Struggle and the Revolutionary Left (the other potential members of the NPA) that unification doesn’t mean a sacrifice of their far-left principles. What makes the NPA and Besancenot stand out from the nightmarish history of the French Left are their precise and modest demands for progressive change. They offer specific proposals and, apparently, achievable solutions on water usage, immigration and low-income housing. These localized programs and the efforts at regional activism are aimed at groups beyond the young and radical base: namely, voters in the center.

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Chris Marker, in his documentary Le fond de l’air est rouge, noted that in the French political climate of 1967, “it was no longer a matter of negotiating one’s place in society, such as it was, but of putting into question the very basis of the society.” While a similar sentiment may be the fundament of the NPA, there have been forty years of reflection on how to pursue it.

Although the French Left once sought global revolution, gauchiste activists are presently guided by more local concerns and now offer a sort of “micro-radicalism.” By suggesting specific proposals on local and regional issues, they are adopting a position that is uncommon, though not unprecedented, for the French. Instead of modeling themselves on the Socialists, who are forever obsessed with counting electoral votes, the NPA seems to be styling itself as more of a community organization. Their proposals are less focused on government-led projects than community-derived solutions. The strategy is less grand and has been tried before: it was the model French Communists developed immediately after the World War II, and which led to their successes in the 1940s and ’50s when they garnered twenty-five percent of the vote in presidential elections.

While this strategy of articulating precise, urgent, and often local demands may seem less bold and more modest, it is, as Slavoj Zizek argues, potentially more revolutionary:

The lesson here is that the truly subversive thing is not to insist on ‘infinite’ demands we know those in power cannot fulfill. Since they know that we know it, such an ‘infinitely demanding’ attitude presents no problem for those in power: ‘So wonderful that, with your critical demands, you remind us what kind of world we would all like to live in. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, where we have to make do with what is possible.’ The thing to do is, on the contrary, to bombard those in power with strategically well-selected, precise, finite demands, which can’t be met with the same excuse.

Not only do we know that the powerful can’t fulfill our demands, they know it. So the NPA has been compelled to find a new position. They are, on the one hand, refusing to join the Socialists, but they are also uninterested in playing Don Quixote. Both positions, it seems, are complicitous with ruling authority because they are either too demanding or too accepting of state rule.

At the outset, this roots-oriented activism appears to be succeeding. In early November the weekly news magazine, Le Point, reported that Bescancenot has a 69% approval rating among left-leaning respondents, four points higher than that of Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party candidate for president in 2007. Even still, the NPA, and especially Besancenot, have come up against important opposition from the left. Clémentine Autain, a feminist author associated with the Communist Party, wrote recently in Le Monde that the project is susceptible to failure on various levels: “It might assemble cultures that are too different to make common cause” or might just be a “fan-club” for Besancenot.

These criticisms are fair. The LCR, Besancenot’s old organization, has alienated other groups because of its association with the Fourth International, a Trotskyist organization. As a concession to these groups, Besancenot has said that the NPA will drop its connection to the Fourth International; and as a concession to those who worry that the NPA will be little more than a fan club, Besancenot has said that the party won’t have a single head, but will be represented by a variety of spokespeople.

Olivier Besancenot

This is, frankly, bullshit. Multiple people may be speaking for the NPA, but it’s clear the party is Besancenot’s, and he has made no serious effort to change that. It’s not clear, though, that public fascination with Besancenot is a bad thing. He truly is one of the most exciting politicians on the French left, and has done much to reconnect his party with its most natural constituents, the working class. He appears earnest, and honestly concerned with improving the position of the worst-off in French society. Yet if the party is going to be predominately associated with his character, it will only be as strong as his person. And if he endures, what happens after Besancenot?

Since June, there’s been much to report on about Besancenot that has nothing to do with the NPA. First, it was discovered that the company that makes Tasers hired someone to spy on him and to dig through his trash. A few weeks later it was revealed that Besancenot had permitted a former member of the terrorist group Action Directe to join the NPA who had recently suggested he had no remorse for murdering the president of Renault Motors in the 1980s. Whether or not Besancenot can parlay this attention into coverage of his politics will be both his major challenge and his major opportunity in the coming months.

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Although the attention the NPA and Besancenot have garnered since June owes much to his personality, there are of course other social, political and economic explanations for his rise. One hardly needs to call our present global economic crisis “the worst since the Depression” to suggest that our current incarnation of capitalism in crisis. Our economic imbroglio has been a revelatory experience for many who believed they were the beneficiaries of an unregulated super-economy, when they were, in truth, its victims. At the same time, in France, conflict between Sarkozy and the railroad, the school system, and postal service has resulted in massive strikes, highlighting a vehement dissatisfaction with the state’s economic and social policy.

France is at a moment with revolutionary potential. With powerful interests at their weakest in generations, with a population expressing widespread dissatisfaction in the government and the economy, French radicals possess leverage they haven’t enjoyed in quite a while. So far, Besancenot and those supporting the NPA seem to be taking advantage of the times. Their micro-radicalism is a smart response to huge problems. It’s the first clever move from French leftists in decades, and their immediate successes indicate how timely it has been. Who knows if they’ll continue to do so, or if they’ll be able to overcome their own political challenges? Much more will be clear in January, when the NPA convenes for the first time as a unified party—and chooses a better name. For the moment, though, the left has something to look forward to and something to be proud of: a small-scale politics that has great potential to be more subversive and more effective than anyone would have guessed. Guy Môquet might yet be redeemed.