Building a Broad Anti-Capitalist Party in France

He seems to be everywhere. Olivier Besancenot has a prominence in the political arena that now goes beyond his wildest dreams. RESPECT has fraternal links with his party the LCR who are now attempting to build a broad party in France to link those against war, racism, privatisation and the destruction of the environment

This is a far cry from the time when Alain Krivine presented his young protegé, the future presidential candidate, to the press, saying: “Isn’t he nice?” Six years later, this chubby little Tintin face is now ubiquitous on the left, on the TV screen with Canal+ or i-Télé, on the radio waves, and in the columns of Le Parisien … He even takes pride of place in a double page spread in Paris Match, sitting on a stool in an 18th District [Clichy/Montmartre] bistro, posing beneath a photo-portrait of Che Guevara. And the ultimate tribute: a team from “Groland”, a satirical programme with a big youth following, turned out for his last meeting in Paris on 22 November at the Mutualité hall.

The popularity polls, which place him just behind Ségolène Royal and Bertrand Delanoë [Parti socialiste, Mayor of Paris], have become accustomed to this rapid media breakthrough. First it was the BVA poll, which gave the young postworker a 40%-favourable rating, just behind the Mayor of Paris, then the Ipsos poll, and lastly the Sofres poll. Olivier Besancenot, 33 years old, now competes with major figures in the Parti socialiste [PS] for prime position on the Left. That would seem to show that his party, the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), is right to claim that it has become “the sole beacon of socialism in the midst of a Left that has collapsed”.

At his meetings, his mentors, Alain Krivine and François Sabado, who not so very long ago had him repeat their scripts, are now placed on the second rank, as onlookers delighted at their success story. “He’s very good”, they keep repeating, when the young leader thrills his audience by insisting that he wants them to be “the Left that sticks to its guns”, set against the PS, which is “nowhere” and which will have to “relearn the habit of carrying placards on demos”. Even those who have only ever seen the “League” at the political margins can now take delight in this

After thirty years of standing Krivine as their candidate, these older members decided they’d have to take a gamble on recognising the “generation gap” if they wanted to be able to compete with the popularity of “Arlette” (Laguillier) [the candidate of Lutte Ouvrière]. The results they obtained in 2002 (4.27% of the vote) and especially the 4.08% of the vote in the Presidential Election of May 2007 (twice the vote of Laguiller or of Buffet, the Communist Party candidate), have outstripped all their predictions and have decisively placed Besancenot at the head of the radical Left.

Over the past month, they seem to have moved on a further stage and established themselves in direct competition with a PS that has become too pragmatic and which no longer knows how to put clear water between itself and the Right. “The PS doesn’t represent any alternative, and has left a vacuum which Besancenot now fills”, says Vincent Tiberj, Research Fellow at Cevipof, the Political Research Centre of Sciences Po [a political-science university institute in Paris]. This phenomenon has become more marked in the wake of the Presidential Election. An IFOP opinion poll commissioned by Le Journal du dimanche, and published on 2 November, shows that 7% of those interviewed would vote today for Besancenot. The surge in support is particularly strong among among manual workers (12%) and clerical workers (11%). “The PS seems to lack any line or leader that it can put up against Sarkozy. On the Left, only the postie [i.e. Besancenot] remains as the opposition”, according to the analysis of Jérôme Fourquet, director of IFOP.

Besancenot remains a militant and, since the end of the summer holiday period, he has been trying to stick as closely as possible to the course taken by working class struggle. He is everywhere, among the homeless on the rue de la Banque, at a demonstration supporting “users of the Postal Service”, at Colombes for a press conference against the EPR nuclear power station. When he has his say in the television studios, he always mentions an example of “workers in struggle” with whom he has met just beforehand. Playtex, Yoplait, Nestlé, Citroën or Well … He conveys the anger of workers and the demands of those who have been pushed to their limit.

A strike breaks out in the SNCF? He is the first to come out in public to offer his support to the railway workers, rushing down the day before the strike began to the depot at Sotteville-lès-Rouen to ask “the guys to stand firm”. The railway workers received him like one of their own. Alongside the marches during the big demonstrations in Paris, he was given cheers: “Hold out, Olivier! You’re not alone.” In the union offices, his interviews were now being pinned up on the notice boards: “He was already popular, but here he was just brilliant”, says his friend from the 18th District, Basile Pot, switchman at the Gare de l’Est. “There is so much confusion in the way the PS expresses itself politically that people can identify with his straight talk”, says Annick Coupé, spokesperson for Solidaires, the union grouping that comprises the various SUD sections [a militant rank-and-file based union movement that has grown over the past 20 years]. “He had the intelligence to see that there was a political space left empty” as Communist Party deputy Patrick Braouezec concedes.

From 2001 onwards, the young leader of the LCR has been able to show that he is different. There is the casual style: the dark jeans and black t-shirt he always wears, his simple and punchy way of speaking with finely honed slogans, and his stance as “just another wage earner like everybody else” which he insists on in contrast to the suits and ties of the notables. He is just as happy to advertise his friendship with the rappers Joey Starr et Monsieur R as he is to advertise his admiration for Che Guevara. “In the political arena, you get the impression that he comes from another planet”, laughs Léon Crémieux, a member of the LCR’s Central Committee.

The style may be out of place on the Left, but the younger generation is happy with it. “By drawing new causes like ecology and anti-globalisation into the arena, he’s been able to build up a base among first-time voters”, as the researcher Vincent Tiberj emphasises. Within the generation born between 1977 and 1982, Besancenot’s vote has reached 12%.

Besancenot continues to work on his “prole” and youthful niche. His public image receives the attention of his whole team. For his interviews, he chooses Le Parisien and free papers like Métro and 20 Minutes. And he prefers to reply to the enquiries of RMC Info, “a radio station of the people”, rather than the large media outlets for more general audiences. “For lots of workers, these are the only sources of information. It’s become our means of political communication”, as Léon Crémieux says by way of justification. Not to forget the radio stations based in the outlying districts, “to reach the young people in the big housing estates”.

Jonathan Walker translated this Le Monde article on Olivier Besancenot. It is republished from International Viewpoint magazine

Welsh Soldier's death: Rhodri Morgan's silence

With another Welsh soldier dying in Iraq, anti-war campaigners have angrily accused Rhodri Morgan of failing to represent the people of Wales and are launching a mass campaign to demand that the Assembly Government and the new Labour/Plaid administration take a clear anti-war position and call on the UK government to pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Adam Johannes from Cardiff RESPECT said:

"Another Welsh soldier is coming home from Iraq in a pine-box, yet the Assembly remains silent on the war.

The Mayor of London and the First Minister of Scotland unequivocally oppose the war, yet the First Minister of Wales shamefully refuses to take a position on it.

With more Welsh soldiers fighting and - in some cases - tragically dying in Iraq and Afghanistan it is time for Rhodri Morgan to show some principles and represent the overwhelming majority of Welsh people who want an end to our involvement in foreign wars.

Wales has some of the poorest communities in the UK, yet billions that could have been spent on pensioners, hospitals and eliminating child poverty is being spent on the illegal wars that Rhodri Morgan refuses to oppose.

The Iraq War has now created twice as many refugees as the Darfur crisis. Up to a million people have died joining the million who perished due to the UN administered genocide of sanctions in the 1990s. Half the population live in absolute poverty, while even more are unemployed: You can almost imagine some well-meaning liberal calling for Western intervention - only this is Western intervention"

RESPECT VS. NEW LABOUR

The following debate took place between RESPECT and New Labour AM Jeff Cuthbert, during the Assembly elections, in the Western Mail; after First Minister Rhodri Morgan appealed to voters not to punish him because of New Labour’s role in Iraq -

Anti-War vote has a home on May 3rd

Rhodri Morgan was dead wrong when he suggested that voters who wanted to give Labour a bloody nose for the war in Iraq should wait until the next general election, rather than on May 3.

Perhaps he is still guilt ridden after his shambolic performance on Question Time last year, when he refused to make a commitment either way on the basis that the war "wasn't a Welsh issue".

He should try telling that to Reg Keys in North Wales, who lost a son in Iraq, or the numerous other Welsh families that have lost sons, daughters and loved ones in a needless war.

May 3 would be the ideal date for punishing Rhodri for impersonating a jellyfish on such a crucial issue. The only problem is that the mainstream parties are more interested in bartering for a place in a coalition government and will therefore sidestep any discussion of the war during the Assembly elections.

That is why it is so important that RESPECT is standing in the South Wales West and South Wales Central electoral lists.

RESPECT emerged from the anti- war movement, and stands against the neo-liberal policies of Blair and Brown.

We have played a key role in campaigns against racism and war and in defence of public services and council housing.Those who have voted with their feet and demonstrated against the war in South Wales can now vote at the ballot box for a party that believes the billions of pounds wasted on war should be invested in our hospitals, our schools and our communities.

DES MANNAY, Gwent RESPECT

This shabby tactic will not fool Wales - New Labour responds

I refer to the letter of April 11 from Des Mannay, of RESPECT. He criticises Rhodri Morgan for not stating a view on Iraq.

But it is Mr Mannay and not Rhodri that is at fault.When Rhodri speaks he does so as First Minister (that was certainly the case on Question Time).

It is unfair and unreasonable to hound him to state "personal" opinions.

Someone in Rhodri's position will always be judged as a public figure and not as an individual.

What Mr Mannay and his friends are trying to do is to shift the focus of this election campaign away from the true issues. By that I mean the areas of devolved government that the Assembly is responsible for.

Mr Mannay, and others that use the same tactic, are simply being opportunist.They do this because they know that the record of Welsh Labour is a good one. Our investment in education, healthcare and our communities is huge and has increased markedly over the past few years.

There is no evidence to support Mr Mannay's claim that spending in Wales has suffered because of UK Government actions.

But they do not want to debate the real issues so they switch to issues that they know are outside the scope of the Assembly. This is a shabby tactic and will not fool the people of Wales.

JEFF CUTHBERT, New Labour Assembly Member for Caerphilly

RESPECT stands with all those fighting for a better world

Labour AM Jeff Cuthbert states in his letter of April 13 that RESPECT are wrong to try to suggest that Rhodri Morgan should take a position on the Iraq War in public since it doesn't fall under his remit as First Minister.

The same could be said of Labour's elected Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, yet he is able to make the war a point of principle - why should things be different for Rhodri?

The fact is that this illegal war has diverted money that could be spent on public services to maintain an occupation that has seen the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of coalition troops.

Mr Cuthbert lauds the Assembly's investment in health and education, seemingly not realising that Labour's slavish devotion to market solutions to social issues has led to much of this investment being frittered away on overpaid management and consultancy. The result? Hospital cuts and massive waiting lists. An excess of school places becomes an excuse to close schools rather than use that excess to drastically cut class sizes.

Rhodri Morgan's slavish devotion to New Labour as opposed to working people has left him sitting idly by while the party is transformed into a party of sleaze, war and big business.

By contrast, RESPECT stands with all those fighting for a better world. This means supporting those who campaign against war and racism; and public service workers fighting to defend our essential services.

It also means supporting the council residents of Swansea who magnificently defeated the privatisation that the Assembly government and city council tried to force on it, or the kids who came out of Cantonian High School to protest against the cuts and closures that have become the hallmark of Labour in Cardiff and Westminster.

JONNY JONES, RESPECT Wales Steering Committee

Support School Staff: Term Time Pay - No Way!

UNISON members in Cardiff are campaigning for the fair and equal treatment of ALL staff working in schools. RESPECT supports this campaign 110% and will be doing everything we can to publicise it!

Sign the petition here:

http://www.cardiffunison.co.uk/schoolpetition.htm

(From UNISON website)

DID YOU KNOW:

Support staff make up around 50% of all employees in Cardiff Schools.

Like teachers, they work term time and take their holidays during the school holidays. Unlike teachers, many don’t get paid for the full year.

School support staff are not in ‘part time’ jobs – so how is justified that they get part time pay?

WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR:

* Equality for all school staff and an end to term time only pay, which means;
* Paid 52 week contracts
* Fair pension entitlement
* Full week = full time status
* A maximised number of paid hours and weeks
* Tackling low and unequal pay and achieving proper levels of reward and career opportunities.

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US ?

This is a new campaign but already we are building popular levels of support in Cardiff and nationally within UNISON. On top of organised general meetings for all school members, over 60 UNISON members are now signed up as contacts in their school to receive regular information. The campaign is being co-ordinated by UNISON officers, the UNISON Cardiff schools convenor, stewards and school support staff members who make up a campaign steering committee.

SOME COMMENTS FROM UNISON'S PETITION:

"Schools work as teams. All staff contracts should be on similar terms and conditions. 52-week contracts for teachers should mean the same for all support staff. That comes from a teacher. The inequality must stop now!"

"Second class employees First class workers"

"Equality for all"

"I have worked for 20 years in the school but my pension is worked out as 13 years due to being paid for 38 weeks instead of 52."

"Under valued and under paid!"

"Term time workers are just as important as the rest so stop treating them like their not. Equality for all workers now."

"This system discriminates against people ( mainly women) who make a valuable contribution to our children's education, and hence our society. They should be paid in the same way as teachers who they work alongside every day.UNISON is working to end this unequal treatment."

Postal Workers on Strike! Smash the Pay Freeze!

In the hot summer of 2004 we launched our coalition, RESPECT.

At that time, the CWU in South East Wales voted to support us in the European Elections.

On Friday, RESPECT members in the postal service joined other workers in a strike against Gordon Brown's attempt to impose a pay freeze on workers across the public sector.

Many other RESPECT members also visited picket lines in solidarity and collected donations at their workplaces for striking postal workers.

This follows strike action by workers in the PCS and other unions on the same issue. Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the PCS and a member of RESPECT's National Council has been pushing for different unions to strike together on the same day. It is rumoured that he has written 5 times to Billy Hayes, the leader of the CWU with the proposal that they co-ordinate strike actions and not received even a reply.

It seems that Labour Party member, Billy Hayes, places loyalty to his discredited party over the interests of CWU members and working people as a whole. RESPECT members are organising at the grassroots to put pressure on the union bureaucracies to co-ordinate strike action to smash Gordon Brown's pay freeze.

Jonny Jones from Splott RESPECT in Cardiff visited picket lines to show solidarity, he writes:

"From the Post Office in the Mumbles to the massive sorting office in Cardiff, the CWU picket lines in South Wales were friendly and very determined to win their dispute.

There were around a dozen pickets at the main sorting office in Swansea, most of whom were very glad to see Respect supporters on the picket line. One picket joked that there were more teachers than posties!

In Cardiff the strike was almost completely solid. One picket said that only one person had gone in and that we should feel free to print his name in bold.

AJ Singh of Cardiff CWU said, “If Alan Leighton wants dignity and respect in the postal service then he needs to show some dignity and respect by paying staff properly and not eroding their working conditions”.

Strikers talked about the possibility of joint action with the PCS and will be working with PCS members to set up a joint union meeting on how best to beat Gordon Brown’s pay freeze."

Plaid U-Turn on Nuclear Power - Briefing #2

Following an earlier article on Plaid's nuclear u-turn explaing why we opposed nuclear power in principle, Adam Johannes from Cardiff RESPECT explains why even on his own terms, Ieuan Wyn Jones' argument for Wylfa B is bogus.

The Leader of Plaid explains why their manifesto doesn't oppose nuclear power:

"The reason there is no reference to nuclear energy in our manifesto is because it is a non-devolved issue, with decisions taken at Westminster."

This was the same argument used by the Leader of Welsh Labour to justify his lack of position on Iraq. It attracted ridicule then & it deserves ridicule now.

It is also a little disingenuous.

In both their 1999 and 2003 Assembly Manifesto's Plaid took a position on nuclear power, they were unequivocally against - only in 2007 does it suddenly become a devolved issue that therefore doesn't require comment, many will suspect this is because the leadership has chosen to support Wylfa B.

We in RESPECT oppose nuclear power on principle, but even on his own terms, the leader of Plaid's arguments that he has to support a new nuclear power station in Anglesey due to jobs and the local economy are spurious and misleading.

In this briefing I aim to explain why:

JOBS - NOT UNTIL 2020!

Plaid claims this about jobs. But Wylfa Nuclear Power Station in Anglesey is due to close in 3 years.

The new nuclear power station - Wylfa B - won't be built until at least 2020! Yet we could transfer to renewable energy sources more cheaply in less than 6 years. These new jobs that Plaid tell us about are years away. What do the people of Anglesey do in the mean time?

Plaid also ignore the rich job creating possibilities of renewable energy. There is potentially huge employment for workers in the installation of a vast amount of marine current turbines and maybe even their manufacture according to research by FoE Cymru.

PLAID POLICY MAKES EASIER NEW LABOUR'S NEW PROGRAMME OF NUCLEAR POWER AND RESULTS IN GLOBAL NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The Welsh Assembly has resisted the UK government's interest in building new nuclear power stations in Wales.

Ieuan Wyn Jones's u-turn on Nukes represents capitulation.

It also facilitates New Labour's plan to embark on a new programme of building nuclear power stations rather than transfering to renewables.

Plaid are also encouraging nuclear proliferation, if the UK pushes ahead with it's nuclear programme then how can they argue that other countries in the world don't go nuclear?

This increases the danger of another Chernobyl and increased pollution: Radioactive contamination from Sellafield can still be found in the Irish Sea.

ELECTRICITY GAP

The closure of Wylfa in 3 years will result in an electricity gap. How to fill the gap? The government want to continue down the nuclear power/nuclear weapons route. But nuclear power is massively expensive and relies on millions of pounds of tax payers money in subsidies.

Plaid are closing the door to renewables filling the gap by supporting Wylfa B. Plaid and New Labour want to spend 10 years building Wylfa B, a new nuke on Anglesey. But we could transfer to renewables much faster and much cheaper.

Wylfa currently provides around 30% of Wales' electricity.

Existing and proposed offshore and onshore windfarms could generate almost the same amount of electricity in less than 6 years, and tidal lagoons on the severn and Swansea Bay might be able to generate more electricity than Wales needs.

The prospects for renewable energy on Anglesey are actually pretty favourable, just off the Wylfa headland there's a very strong marine current flow, some environmentalists argue that massive amounts of renewable energy could be coaxed through underwater turbines - possibly rivalling the output of Wylfa.

So the choice is a speedy transfer to renewables and educating the electorate, or copping out and arguing for a new nuke that probably won't be built until 2020 at the earliest and would rely on massive public subsidies and pave the way for more nuclear power stations.

There is potentially huge employment for workers in the installation of a vast amount of marine current turbines and maybe even their manufacture according to research by FoE Cymru.

So the choice is between cleaner, cheaper, more environmentally friendly job creating renewables or Plaid and New Labour's expensive, dangerous, unclean, unsustainable, polluting new Nukes.

RESPECT says make Wales and the UK a 'global showcase for clean energy' and demonstrate that nuclear power is unnecessary, unsafe, unclean and uneconomic.

An Inconvenient Truth in Bridgend

A showing of the acclaimed film about climate change and a chance to meet two grassroots activists - Paul Lynch and Ahmed Al-Jeffrey, RESPECT candidates for South Wales West

Monday 16 April at 7 pm

Council Chamber

Municipal Building

Angel Street

Bridgend

RESPECT will be standing on May 3rd for a rapid transition to a low carbon economy.

Hosted by Bridgend RESPECT

Renewable Energy not Nuclear Power!

RESPECT statement on Plaid Cymru dropping opposition to nuclear power:

RESPECT Wales are shocked to hear that Ieuan Wyn Jones AM, Leader of Plaid Cymru, has stated that – in principle – he supports the building of a new nuclear power station in Anglesey.

This represents a historic break with Plaid’s policy of supporting a nuclear free Wales.

This is bad news for every anti-nuclear campaigner in the UK.

New Labour want to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, Plaid have undermined the fightback against nuclear power everywhere by supporting this plant and strengthened the hand of Blair, Brown and the pro-nuclear lobby.

And behind nuclear power lies the spectre of nuclear weapons . . .

RESPECT believes that nuclear power cannot be part of the solution to climate change because:

* Nuclear power is costly. It relies on government subsidies of billions of pounds that would be better spent on developing renewable energy.

* Nuclear power is not carbon neutral as its supporters claim. At every stage of the production cycle, from the mining of uranium to the building of reactors and the storage of waste products, greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere and other pollutants leaked into the local environment.

In Southern Australia, the Olympic Dam uranium mine is the region’s largest producer of C02. The mine has also caused huge environmental damage with some of the most ancient springs in the Australian outback are drying up.

* Nuclear power is unsafe. From Chernobyl to Three Mile Island nuclear power has been disastrous.

In Sellafield, leukaemia and cancer rates have rocketed in the vicinity of the power station. There is still no solution to the storage/disposal of nuclear waste.

An Observer article in July 2002 reported, “almost 90% of Britain’s hazardous nuclear stockpile is stored so badly it could explode or leak with devastating results at any time”.

According to a study by Friends of the Earth Cymru, Wales’ current electricity needs could and should be met entirely by renewable energy. In a July 2005 briefing they write:

“Wind energy, offshore and onshore could generate around 30 per cent. Underwater turbines could generate up to 50 per cent. Biomass, solar power and hydroelectric schemes could also make smaller, but significant contributions to make up the difference. Tidal lagoons in the Severn estuary could generate more electricity than Wales needs. Wave energy and tidal streams are other technologies that could be considered.”

RESPECT believe the climate crisis must be solved through a combination of renewables, energy efficiency measures including a massive programme of building insulation, a shift from private motoring towards public transport, and a rapid transition to a low carbon economy.

We demand:

* Emergency steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels, alongside massively increased investment in sustainable energy – including solar, biological, and wind and wave power.

* Opposition to Rhodri Morgan's tidal barrage and call for investment in tidal lagoon technology that is more cost effective & does not jeopardise local habitats.

* No more oil wars. Troops out of Iraq & Afghanistan.

* An international treaty which goes way beyond Kyoto. Campaign for local councils to cut emissions by 25% over 5 years. We demand the government to set binding annual targets of 3% cuts at Welsh Assembly and UK government level.

*A cheap and integrated transport system to provide an alternative to car use, making the current road building programme unnecessary. Re-direct the £30 billion spent on road building into public transport.

* Localised food production with a big reduction in food miles.

* Sustainable town & city planning.

*Tough action against corporate polluters & companies like Esso.

* Halt airport expansion and end the £9 billion tax-break to the airlines. We oppose the expansion of Cardiff Airport.

*Keep Wales nuclear free. Close all nuclear power plants. No to Wylfa B. Scrap trident nuclear weapons.

* All new buildings to be energy efficient. Increased public investment to make homes energy efficient and free insulation to every home. Build new sustainable council housing.

* High quality facilities to maximise recycling. No to incinerators. The aim should be full recycling of waste. In Neath, Respect supporters initiated the Stop the Incinerator campaign.

* Build a massive grassroots movement to save the planet.

The leadership of Plaid are willing to form a coalition with New Labour or even the Tories. They have supported the St. Athan’s Military academy, now they are supporting Wylfa B nuclear power station.

We invite any socialists who are supporters or members of Plaid to join a party – RESPECT – that stands unequivocally against war, racism, privatisation, destruction of the environment, nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

PLAID CYMRU? NO THANKS!