French CP, SP must break from bosses take the power!

Scan page 12

The acute political and economic crisis of the Fifth Republic in France has by no means been resolved by the results of the first round of the elections, in which the workers' parties won 49.5% and the bourgeois parties, 48.4% of the vote.

As we go to press the news has just come in that an arrangement to ensure that the bestplaced workers' party candidate goes forward on the second round has just been concluded between the Socialist and Communist Party leaders.

Also included in this uneasy reformist-Stalinist alliance protection for their bourgeois stable mates in the class collaborationist 'Union of the Left" -the so-called 'Left Radicals' Rut docnite this one thing workers' parties will some tangible results.

The pressure on CP and SP leaders to come to an arrangement on second round voting was reflected in a statement from the reformist CFDT trade union confederation which pointed out that workers would not understand why any of the worst placed workers' candidates should refuse to withdraw in order to ensure the defeat of the bourgeois candidate.

Stalinist leader Marchais, whose party took 22% of the vote, had seemed to be bending to popular pressure on this issuewhile holding out for certain conditions in the 'Common Programme The reason for these manoeuvres has been interpreted in different ways. 'commissars" —as if the French Communist Party retains any more than the name 'Communist' But left wingers who argue that Marchais wants to impose a 'left' government are even more confused.

Stalinist Marchais is determined to ensure that any possible government including CP representatives is tied hand and foot to the institutions of the capitalist Fifth Republic.

But his problem is that the aspirations behind workers' votes go well beyond this reactionary aim.

Their support for CP and SP candidates indicates a desire to make a real fight to end the 20 year-old Fifth Republic and bring to power a government that will act in their interests in their struggles to defend jobs, wages and working conditions. the war, and pressing for their demands in conflict with these leaders, new layers of French workers can begin to learn the necessity for revolutionary leadership.

Demands

This is why it is vital that revolutionaries aim for the victory of the Communist and Socialist Parties by urging a vote for the best placed workers candidate.

At the same time they must agitate for those socialist demands which a CP-SP government must be forced to implement.

And, while refusing to vote for bourgeois Left Radical candidates workers must fight harder than ever to break their parties from all alliances with such bourgeois political formations and from the reactionary Common Programme that means nothing more than ranitulation to the structure of