SEVEN YEARS DE GAULLE

electoral alliance with the Communist Party (Charleroi, Mons, Brussels) the swing to the Communist Party was at best the same (and in Brussels and Charleroi considerably smaller) as in Liege where the Communist Party stood alone!

In fact, the new party will have two MPs, Francois Perin in Liege and Pierre Legreve in Brussels. But neither of these seats can be counted as a victory for the 'Socialist Left' Unlike Brussels, Charleroi and the Borinage, the Liege Federation of the Walloon Workers' Party did not enter into an electoral alliance with the Communist Party. Instead, its chairman Francois Perin independently concluded an aliance with the Walloon Front' (a nationalist organisation) in what was called 'Walloon Common Action'.

Walloon Front This gave rise to the paradoxical situation in which the Liege section of the Walloon Workers' Party was in alliance with a party that was opposing the Walloon Workers' Party in Charleroi. In fact, the electoral material of the Liege Walloon Workers Party called upon the Charleroi workers to vote Walloon Front and not Walloon Workers' Party!

Perin's electoral propaganda was entirely nationalist. Posters showed closed-down factories 'ruined by Unitary Belgium' and new, prosperous factories that Federal Belgium' would bring.

Leaflets called upon the Walloons to 'defend themselves' against the Flemish and Brussels majority in Parliament and in the traditional parties. LEADING members of the french secret service in Western France have been arrested as agents of the extreme right wing Secret Army Organisation (OAS). According to reports this occasioned 'no surprise' in official circles. In other words, de granted that men pledged to seize power by a military coup granted that men pledged to should be at the head of the arm of state concerned with security.

Coming seven years after the assumption of power by de Gaulle, with the aging and opinionated president still unable to secure the successor, it raises the, question: how stable is the Fifth Republic?

On May 13, 1958, tension in Algiers suddenly exploded into an activist putsch led by a coalition of Gaullists and colonists whose aim was to keep Algeria out of the hands of the Algerian nationalists.

Before the threat of a military take-over the discredited politicians of the Fourth Republic quickly turned to de Gaulle as the saviour. Only a strong leader, backed by police and military power, could prevent the disintegration of the state.

In May 1958 the French bourgeoisie was plunged into a deep crisis. Great opportunities were therefore presented for the intervention of the working class. However, the combined efforts of the Communist and Socialist parties effectively blocked working-class action.

Referendum

The Communist Party raised the cry of 'defence of the republic'-i.e., bourgeois parliamentary institutions, already discredited in the eyes of many workers and lower middle-class people. The Socialist party, through Guy Mollet, helped to open the doors for de Gaulle's assumption of power.

With the coming on the scene of de Gaulle the parliaDe Gaulle: aging and opinionated president mentary regime was quietly buried. A new constitution vested wide powers in the president, and de Gaulle himself was elected to that office for seven years. In the Referendum of September 1958 this constitution secured an 80 per cent vote.

Through the next few years some bitter struggles took place within the French ruling class which went almost to the point of civil war at the time of the attempted putsch of January 1960.

Green light

The main issue was the settlement of the Algerian war, which had to be imposed on the 'ultras' and a section of the army.

De Gaulle had been virtually brought to power by the activists and ultras of Algeria. At first he gave the green light to those generals who still hoped to win the war by a military strike.

It became clear, however, that a military solution of the conflict was impossible. The war was not only a drain on French resources which weakened her position among the states of Europe, but it also threatened to spread to other French colonies and to revive class struggles in France.

De Gaulle therefore decided to seek a solution of the Algerian question in such a way as to safeguard the main investment interests of French capital at the expense of the European settlers in Algeria.

This led to a bitter conflict with the OAS from which the Gaullist regime emerged triumphant.

As a corollary to his Algerian policy de Gaulle built up a strong state and sought to regain the unquestioned obedience of the army. This was necesary in order to Gaulle's henchmen take it for eize power by a military coup improve the prospects for French capitalism by domesticating the trade unions and holding back the growth of real wages.

However, it has not been necessary for de Gaulle to destroy the working-class unions and political parties as had been done in Nazi Germany. These organisations had already divided and confused the working class in the period since 1944 and cooperated in one way or another in maintaining the stability of French capitalism.

De Gaulle was thus able to use these organisations as a counter-weight to his enemies of the extreme right while they, in effect, disciplined the working class to the needs of the bourgeois state.

Compromises

Whenever a section of the class showed a will to fight, its own organisations succeeded in confining the struggle to a narrow front, preparing the way for compromises which amounted to defeats.

At the same time, with a strengthened state apparatus and administrative or legislative means available to cripple or destroy working-class rights, de Gaulle has been able to preserve some liberal appearances.

Over the last seven years, in return for some modest improvements in real wages, the working class has been harnessed to the needs of capital with the minimum of resistance.

High rates of investment, continued concentration of industry and large profits ensured through state support have been characteristic of French capitalism under de Gaulle. Big business thus has a great deal to thank him for, and its direct representatives hold leading positions in the government.

However, this situation is inherently unstable for both political and economic reasons. In the first place the working class, despite the extent of the set-back suffered in 1958, has not been defeated and its organisations, however treacherous, have not been destroyed. It thus still remains possible, under conditions of legality, to begin to construct an alternative leadership.

Succession

Secondly, the expansion and prosperity of the past seven years have not solved some of the specific problems of French capitalism, which still contains an inflated agrarian sector and backward industries.

Nor, despite de Gaulle's strong talk, is it able to be independent of U.S. capitalism. And, like the rest of the capitalist world economy, it is still prone to recession and crisis which could upset the present social balance. Meanwhile, prices continue their upward course.

Thirdly, despite appearances, the de Gaulle regime is essentially a transitory political formation bound up, as it is, with the personality and prestige of one man.

No doubt his re-election as president is assured, but this in itself is ominous. The bourgeoisie has no alternative to rule by a strong man, but there is no alternative strong man in sight.

The question of the succession is thus more than one of personalities. It poses the question of what is to succeed de Gaulle. The divisions within the bourgeoisie, the hatreds and tensions pushed below the surface in recent years, are bound to re-emerge with his eventual departure.

The present class struggles in France, still sectional in extent, offer the ground for preparing the working class to take the initiative under a new leadership in the period ahead.