Version imprimableNicolas Sarkozy has been just elected president of the republic with
approximately 53% of the votes. With him, it is the programme of the
MEDEF (the French employers’ organisation) which is now in government.
New tax gifts to companies and the rich, new privatisations of public
services, the hunting out of ‘sans papier’ children, challenging
fundamental social and democratic rights like the right to strike or unlimited job contracts are on the agenda of the new president of the Republic.
This evening, the UMP state once again has central political power.
The populist demagogy used in this campaign will lead to anti-social,
repressive and antidemocratic measures, which will undoubtedly
provoke very broad resistance and struggles.
The LCR will now concentrate all its strength on building these
mobilisations. It proposes a united front of all the social and
democratic forces is immediately built to organise a response faced to the extreme neoliberal and repressive programme of Sarkozy. The LCR will take all the initiatives possible in this direction in the next days.
It has also been shown that a social-liberal left, which tried up to
the very end to make an alliance with the UDF of Bayrou, is not a very
effective protection against a hard and authoritarian right.
The openings towards the right only confused the message. Parts of
the popular classes have lost their sense of direction and were looking
for change. Ségolène Royal did not know how to blow on this wind of hope for change. This is why she lost.
More than ever the building of a powerful anti-capitalist force,
implanted in the workplaces, the public services and the popular districts, is necessary to make it possible to win against the right and the MEDEF in the struggles and in the ballot boxes.
This was the message of Olivier Besancenot¹s and how the LCR intends
To continue: to bring together the anticapitalist forces on a basis of
independence from the Socialist Party leadership.
It is on this base that we are standing in the parliamentary
elections, presenting a programme of urgent social and democratic demands.
Montreuil,
May 6th 2007.
