Article on Le Pen by the French members of International Socialist Resistence.
As you must guess the French section is really busy with the mobilisations against the National Front, that's why I didn't have the time to send a report sooner.
Spontaneous demos were organised on Sunday night just after the results were delivered. In Rouen as in many towns we were more than 1,500 (mainly youth) went onto the streets. We wrote a joint leaflet with the JCR, the youth organisation of the LCR (mandelites), that with distibuted mainly in schools to call for a demo on the Monday. At the university we distributed a Gauche revolutionnaie leaflet entitled "againts the right and the far right:mobilisation!" which was very well taken. The demo on the Monday gathered around 12,000 people from all backgrounds. Our contingent was the liveliest and we attracted many students and school students, some who know IR and others who had never seen us before. we also met contacts that we didn't see anymore and who were really pleased and "reassured " (that's their word) to see us there.
Today (Tuesday) the mobilisation and demos continued gathering mainly young people. 300 attended the general assembly in Rouen University (called and led by us and the JCR). Nevertheless, it is not as easy as in the schools. There is another general assembly tomorrow (Wednesday) at the university. We need now to make the mobilisation grow. Until now people in the communities
and suburbs are under shock and frightened (we had some reports of people from arabian origin who really fear they will be sent back to their home country next month). We need to address to these people, and have students intervening in these areas.
We plan to propose daily demos or lobbbies at a fixed time, a big demo on Saturday, an even bigger one on May Day and of course one on Saturday 5th the day before the secound round of voting. We are also organising a public
meeting on Friday on the question. Even more important we are trying to have the assembly voting an appeal to the people in the communities that we will translate into Arabic.
All IR members are very active and we are winning important political points in the University as we are the only with to have a clear class and anti capitalist analysis of the situation. Despite our weak forces in terms of number of militants we have a political influence in the movement and we are making more and more intersting contacts fot IR and for the organisation.
The question of the vote in the second round of the presidential election is at the core of every discussion and is often linked to the question of the nature of the National Front (is it a fascist party?). These are closely related to the question of the alternative to capitalism and of the means to bar the way to racist and fascist ideology. We won't call to vote for Chirac, and so will LO and the LCR. Every other party is calling to vote for Chirac to stop the National Front and so do the trade unions. We insist in our slogans and in our leaflet on the fact that voting Chirac will not
solve the reasons why Le Pen got so many votes.
The result of the elections has been a real shock for many people, but still some are really conscious that Chirac isn't a real barrier to the National Front ideology and its economical and social programme. They are looking for deep analysis of the results and also for an alternative. We keep on explaining that the Le Pen vote is partly a reaction to the liberal and
anti-social policies made by both the right and the social democrats in the last period. We also explain that the bourgeois parties took on Le Pen's favourite themes:security, immigration... and abandonned the social questions.
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