Monday, June 6, 2016

Mélenchon 2017: the great fear of the communist party – Le Figaro

FIGAROVOX / chronically Good surveys of Jean-Luc Mélenchon not enthusiastic Pierre Laurent. Jérôme Sainte-Marie explains the strategy of discrepancies between “France rebellious” and the PCF.


A graduate of Sciences Po paris and a degree in history, Jerome Sainte-Marie worked at the Government Information Service and the Louis Harris Institute. He then headed then BVA Opinion from 1998 to 2008 and CSA Opinion from 2010 to 2013. He founded the parallel ISAMA institute in 2008.

He currently leads Pollingvox, a study and consulting firm specializing in issues of conscience, founded in 2013. Latest book: the new democratic order (Editions du Moment)


. concomitantly Sunday, June 5th Congress of the Communist Party and the gathering place Stalingrad highlights the current estrangement between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the main political formation that supported the plot in 2012. This gap: 12% of the vote the leader of the “rebellious France” is already beyond the 11.1% of the votes collected four years ago, or even in a position to anticipate the current President of the Republic, despised by communist sympathizers. Why PCF he seizes not, or not yet, the opportunity to weigh in as the left ever since 1981? After a return to the communist setbacks in the presidential election, it appears that it is the same chance of Jean-Luc Mélenchon of success that concern the unit from the Place du Colonel Fabien, and place it in a situation of political schizophrenia rarely equaled.

the presidential election, or Party of nightmare

on June 1, 1969, Jacques Duclos, candidate nominated by the Communist Party in the presidential election, gathered 21% of the vote cast, 400 missing 000 votes qualification for the second round, while Defferre, supported by the SFIO, contented himself with a very modest 5%. This was the first and last time that the Communists outstripped the Socialists at the decisive vote of the Fifth Republic. The magnitude of Jean-Luc Mélenchon bet is evaluated in this light: take power, where at least recompose the future opposition to his advantage, breaking the hegemony of the Social Democrats on the left, against all previous.

the singularity of his approach appears better when compared to that of the Communist Party on the one hand, the extreme left the other formations. These, in a logic Leninist, have an instrumental relationship to universal suffrage, and only use of the presidential election that as a platform to serve their organization and struggles that it supports. Such was the sense of the presence of Alain Krivine in 1969, like those of all Trotskyists from candidates. Their results matter, and the fact that polls currently allocate between 2 and 3%, cumulative score, with Lutte Ouvrière and the NPA do not deter participation in the elections. The position of the Communist Party is very different, and besides, this party is characterized by its repeated absence during the presidential election: it was the case in 1965 and 1974 by rallying to François Mitterrand in the first round, and, in another way, in 2012, with the support for a candidate who never inset PCF, Mélenchon precisely.

s ‘being declared early Jean-Luc Mélenchon has captured the momentum, taking the Communist Party against the foot. How to Pierre Laurent, oppose a candidate found in four voting intentions of its former voters in five, and remains very popular among communist sympathizers?

The reason this attitude has varied over the years. Even at the time of its splendor, the Communist Party has never been in position to win the second round. At least he could count, thus strengthening its negotiating position with its left partners. Since its electoral collapse of 1988 – André Lajoinie making less than 7% of the vote – the poll is accelerating its decline, with the nadir as 1.9% of Marie-George Buffet in 2007. Also the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon was -she regarded Place du Colonel Fabien as a double opportunity: at best, enjoy the dynamics of the left front to further weigh against socialists, at worst, does not directly associate the name of the party in a bad score. It was, however, neither the one nor the other: 11.1% of the Jean-Luc Mélenchon constituted a real surprise – polls measuring the 3% when it was invested – but their political usefulness for FCP was reduced or even zero since the 2012 legislative its number of elected was halved, with only seven communist deputies. Once again, the presidential election proved to be a problem for the party without satisfactory solution.

The breath of destabilizing “France rebellious”

There is now much worse for the communist leaders. Despite a disappointing score lists of the Left Front in the European elections (6.6%), despite the inclusion in the first round of the Communists to the lists headed by the Socialists in municipal elections in many cities including Paris, despite finally the precipitate rallying and vain Pierre Laurent Claude Bartolone second regional tour Ile de France, the communist sympathizers persist in their hope for an alternative to the Socialist Party. Government policy, with the pact of responsibility, law and Macron El Khomri law, is largely responsible for this obstinacy.

By being declared early Jean-Luc Mélenchon has captured the momentum, taking the Communist Party against the foot. How to Pierre Laurent, oppose a candidate found in four voting intentions of its former voters in five, and remains very popular among communist sympathizers? Added to this is a popularity growing strongly, with for example in the TNS Sofres barometer for Le Figaro Magazine, 27% of French and 49% of supporters left who want to see it play a greater role in the future . The possibility that beyond the first round the candidate of the Socialist Party is therefore with chain effects quite unpredictable.

That the Communist apparatus dreads at the highest point, because most positions he has left in local communities, and which condition its economic survival as well as political, depend on an agreement with the Socialist Party. This is certainly of “unequal treaties”, but which ensure representation in regional councils, departmental and municipal. For these agreements take, the communists must challenge government reforms and their political identity do exist, otherwise their usefulness as extra strength disappear without pop, the decisive turn their socialist partners.

It is precisely this that the momentum of Jean-Luc Mélenchon threat. By refusing to participate in very hypothetical primary left, it removes a convenient pretext for further rally to Francois Hollande. By offering such political outlet to the social movement, it encourages it and helps make the irreparable fractures left. By initiating, on the basis of surveys, considerable momentum, it undermines the chances of qualification of the Socialist candidate in the second round of presidential elections, and makes, assuming it would get there, the voice overs very random.

for these reasons, the communist leaders, that decades of electoral defeats have made modest reluctant to engage in an electoral adventure as ambitious as the one proposed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. They know how ruins field might look like the institutional left if it was eliminated in the first round in 2017. But their reticence may weigh little in the autumn if still destabilizing the breath of “rebellious France “.

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