THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY

vol. 2, no. 6, June 2009, $ 1.00

Some young french communists and Daniel Paquet

si vous voulez lire en français, : http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/


NOTA BENE: Tim Pelzer, t.pelzer@shaw.ca edited the bulletin. You will find at the end the link to L'Humanité in English, a selection of the french daily communist newspaper published in Paris. With this issue, we start to publish pictures.

Paris--“With communism waning and Western values suspect, Confucius is making a comeback.” This is the title of an article just published in the European edition of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune. It is part of the vicious campaign against the French communist party (PCF). The author of this article, Daniel A. Bell, never tells us what are those Confucian values, except to say that they will eventually replace Marxism.

Today it is fashionable to criticize the PCF, from outside or inside the party. Sometimes, the attacks are rooted in the party’s setbacks in recent years, especially in the elections. True, the 200,000 strong party has lost part of its audience. Many intellectuals and petit bourgeois elements have joined the band wagon.

But one must take into account the amelioration of living standards. If you still think that the average Frenchman is wearing his eternal beret with a baguette under his arm, ready to go bowling, you are in the wrong country. Young people here, influenced by the US mass media, are adopting the North-American way of life.

However, working class people I met on various occasions during May Day in Paris demonstrated that the social forces for transformation of the country are still active. More than 1,600,000 people demonstrated in the streets against government policies that favour big business. During a trip I made to a municipality to meet the Communist Mayor, Catherine Margaté, I met five Young Communist League members collecting money to finance their trip to Cuba this summer. They were enthused to hear that Canadian and US Communists are fighting to free the Cuban 5, including my friend Antonio Guerrero.

The economic crisis is visible in this country of Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Jules Vallès. Unemployment, AIDS and poverty are a growing problem.

One should not be surprised that progressive elements gathered to form the Front de gauche (the Left Front), with the Gauche Unitaire (ex-trotskyst), Parti de la gauche (former socialist party members), the French communist party and some other movements. The leading figure in Ile de France Region, including Paris, is Patrick Le Hyaric, Director of the communist daily newspaper L’Humanité. This Front, that they are building, could become a permanent feature of French political life after the European elections of June 7th. While the PCF is a member of the Left Front, the party’s membership rejected the idea that the party should be dissolved to be replaced by a nebulous organization within this Front.

The Left Front closely resembles Vancouver’s municipal Committee of Progressive Electors and Québec Solidaire, which consist of diverse political forces.

French communists are still divided on such issues as the role of Stalin in the construction of Soviet Union. In private talks, many will tell you that they feel deeply for the people of the former Soviet Union who have suffered immensely since the return to Capitalism.

On the other hand, few are knowledgeable of other communist party’s policies or programs. For instance, there is a general ignorance about the Communist Party of Canada’s contribution to the national question in relation with French Canadian in Québec, or other topic such as NATO. But there is a willingness to learn, especially among youth. The French Young Communist League is eager to meet young Canadian Communists at an upcoming international meeting of solidarity with Cuban youth this summer. French communists also favour building new links with other communist Parties and organizing joint actions.

While some Canadians and Americans think that the PCF has drifted to the right, they should realize that in France, some people believe that the same thing has happened in North America. They believe that the CPC and CPUSA have withdrawn and become sects. Regular exchanges and discussions are vital to avoid such misunderstandings

Finally, the PCF is very dynamic and its members are involved in various solidarity movements with Algeria, Martinique and Viet Nam. Party members play an important role in French society, especially in the trade union movement. The widely read Communist daily L’Humanité, has English, Russian and Spanish editions. The party even manages to publish the glossy magazine L’Humanité Dimanche.

France is a developed country, wealthy and comparable to Canada and the USA. Like in Canada, the right wing tries to divide workers and the Left. In France, the right strives to weaken and undermine the 200,000 strong PCF and 15,000 strong YCL. As Madeleine and Jean-Jacques, both activist of the party, declared with passion and determination, after a sharp debate during a picnic: “We will never abandon our party, mark our word on it!”

L'Humanité in English

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ENEMY AT THE DOORS

vol. 2, no. 5, May 2009



si vous voulez lire en français, : http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/



NOTA BENE: Special thanks to Tim Pelzer, tpelzer@shaw.ca, for his precious help in editing this newsletter. Furthermore, dear readers, you will find at the end the link to L'Humanité in English which will allow you to read a selection of this french daily newspaper published in Paris.





According to Moldavia’s Central Electoral Commission, the Communist Party led by president Vladimir Voronine won the legislative elections with almost 50% of the vote, reported Associated Press on April 7th. This election took place in one of the 15 former republics of the late Soviet Union. However some refused to accept the election results and demonstrations followed.

Agence France-Presse reported on April 12th that “a large number of those who demonstrated in Chisinau (i.e. the capital city) were activists from the main opposition parties which did not win the elections. The young people, pretty much involved in the first days of the protest were very few […] The Commission approved on Saturday the final results giving 60 of the 101 seats in Parliament to the Communists […] Social difficulties in Moldavia, the poorest European country with a quarter of its population working in Europe or Russia and the lack of work opportunities for youth appear to be the main catalyst of the troubles.”

“Thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Tbilissi for the third consecutive day to protest and call for Georgian president Mikheïl Saakachvili’s resignation […] His detractors, which include many former supporters, accuse Saakachvili of persecuting opponents, silencing the media and not doing enough to reduce poverty.”

As discussed at the Strasbourg meeting in April, western imperialist organizations would like to include Moldavia and Georgia in their efforts to isolate Russia as well as eliminate communist influence in each of these republics. In the case of Moldavia, there is a trend to push it towards the European Union while NATO would be more than delighted to capture Georgia.

At the same time in France, l’Humanité reports, in regards to the situation in the Middle-East, that “the surge in anti-Semitic hate crimes observed in January 2009 is a fact, but it does not mean that “anti-Semitism is back”. It has a specific circumstantial cause: the war in Gaza.” The newspaper explains that “those more hostile to Israel’s policies are often the less anti-Semitic.” It goes further in saying that both communities in France, Jewish and Muslim, should “work together to fight against prejudices and bigotry [and] the inalienable right of these two peoples to have their own land and sovereign State.” Forum Palestine testifies that at the end of January 2009, in Paris alone « 25 000 people (according to the organizers) took the street shouting “Stop the massacres. Sanctions against Israel”, “Gaza, we all stand with you” and “Israel is a murderer”.

What about the future?

Writer William Blum in his Anti-Empire Report, (April 2009) reports that in 1994, Mark Brzezinski (son of Zbigniew), a Fulbright Scholar teaching in Warsaw, wrote: “I asked my students to define democracy. Expecting a discussion on individual liberties and authentically elected institutions, I was surprised to hear my students respond that to them, democracy means a government [with the] obligation to maintain a certain standard of living and to provide health care, education and housing for all. In other words, socialism.”

It is not without irony that we observe that, even Barack Obama has fallen into the anti-communist trap. Let’s bear in mind that before the Organization of the American State’s Summit in April, he said, as mentioned by l’Agence France Presse, that the US would only normalize relations with the Cuban government if it frees all political prisoners and allows Cubans to freely express themselves, travel and attend church. “The U.S. administration has said that Mr. Obama was going to Trinidad and Tobago with the intention to rally the leaders to pressure Cuba.” But not a word about the Cuban 5, including Antonio Guerrero who corresponds with La Vie Réelle on a regular basis. Guerrero has rotted in prison on false charges for the last 10 years, in the United States.

However, this does not mean that all of Barack Obama’s policies are wrong. The People’s Weekly World reports that: “Obama’s budget allocates $ 115 billion next year in federal aid to education, nearly three times more than ex-President George W. Bush’s budget. For health care reform fund, Obama allocates $ 634 billion, and for alternative energy and green jobs, $ 150 billion.”

To conclude, I would like to remind readers what the third president of the USA, Thomas Jefferson once said: “I believe that banks are more dangerous to our liberties than whole armies ready to fight.” This was said in 1802.

L'Humanité in English

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