French Popular Front N Crisis

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class component of the bloc is completely subordinated to the programme and policies of its bourgeois partner.

The popular front is thus an entirely bourgeois political formation, constructed on the basis of a programme whose cornerstone is the defence of the capitalist system.

The present day Union of the Left in France is an up-to-date version of the popular front, comprising as it does an alliance between the French Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the bourgeois Radicals.

In the past few weeks the Union has been wrangling over the programme it should adopt for the general election next March--a piece of haggling which clearly reveals the capitalist nature of the bloc.

The debate which has managed to combine virulence of tone with banality of content, has tocussed centrally on what defence policy the Union should adopt.

NUCLEAR

Last May, after years of verbal opposition to nuclear defence, the CP's Central Committee began advocating the neo-Gaullist concept of the need for an all-round nuclear strike force to protect France (i.e. French capital from any outside attack.

According the CP leader Roland Leroy, "It is necessary ... for the French to decide now on a policy of disarmament and for an independent defence for France, which will require the maintenance of an independent strike force against all aggressors."

The key word here is "independence" , by which the CP mean a nuclear strike force with missiles pointed in all directions-both at the USA and the USSR!

The Stalinist policy of "socialism in one country" which has oblired the French CP to seek a closer rapprochement with its own bourgeoisie, thus ironically propels it further along the road towards a complete break with the Soviet bureaucracy.

But in taking up is Gaulle's policy of the independer : nuclear Mitterand deterrent the CP are obviously hoping to win some support from disenchanted Gaullists at next spring's election.

Paradoxically, though, the CP's advocacy of an independent nuclear strike force has met with the guarded approval of Soviet leader the possibility of a French withdrawal from NATO should the Union of the Left gain power.

Socialist Party leader Francois Mitterand has likewise seen this possibility and wants to expunge all traces of it from the joint REFERENDUM While clainung agreement with the call for world nuclear disarmament, he wants the question of French use of nuclear weapons to be decided by referendum.

Mitterand is obviously hoping that a plebiscite would reject the idea of an "independent strike force". so obliging France remain in NATO and thereby tied lo the USA.

CP leader Georges Marchais has attacked the referendum proposal as "unconstitutional •and has begun to drum up nationalist feeling for the revamped Gaullist idea of a France frec "from Fast or West"

The political differences on the detenis question are real the det tion are real and Marchais reflect in a distorted way the material bases of each party.

The leadership of both the CP and the Socialist Party begin from the need to defend their own bureaucratic interests--a need which dictates policy of defending French capital.

For Mitterand, this. is best achieved by participation in NATO and the maintenance of links with the USA For Marchais-who must still negotiate a position between his own bourgeoisie and the Soviet bureaucracy-national defense can best be accomplished by establishing an "independent" France within the overall context of world detente.

There is thus no qualitative class dilference between either side in the dispute-both are equally antagonistic to any independent working class policy.

In the whole polemic there has been no mention from either side of the independent interests of the working class.

For that reason the current arguments will not seriously jeopardise the unity of the Union of the Left.

That unity-forged on the basis of a programme acceptable to the bourgeoisie-•can only be smashed by resolute working class activity ained at breaking the working class parties from their bloc with the bourgeoisie

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesdav

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Brezhnev, who sees in the phrase "independent defence for France"