Julian Mischi
Jacobin
 |
| Presidente do Rassemblement National de extrema direita francesa, Marine Le Pen, em Paris, 7 de fevereiro de 2024. (Gonzalo Fuentes/AFP via Getty Images) |
Este artigo é baseado em um capítulo publicado em Pourquoi tant de votes RN dans les classes populaires?, editado por Gérard Mauger e Willy Pelletier.
Durante décadas, a esquerda francesa foi dominada pelo Partido Comunista Francês (PCF), uma organização que construiu fortes redes de apoio na classe trabalhadora francesa ao longo do século XX. No entanto, a partir da década de 1980, esta poderosa organização entrou em declínio, deixando um vazio a ser preenchido. A Frente Nacional - o partido de extrema direita, liderado por Marine Le Pen, que se tornou o Rassemblement National (RN) em 2018 - foi um grande beneficiário.
O declínio do PCF está intimamente ligado à destruição das condições sociais e organizacionais que há muito sustentavam a participação dos trabalhadores na vida política francesa. Esta mudança deu a grupos sociais e ativistas muito afastados da classe trabalhadora a oportunidade de falar politicamente em seu nome. O Rassemblement National de Le Pen não tem nenhuma base ativista real nas áreas da classe trabalhadora ou no chão de fábrica. Mas hoje pode apresentar-se como o “partido dos trabalhadores”.
A ascensão e enfraquecimento de um partido dos trabalhadores
Os trabalhadores passaram a ser cada vez mais empregados em pequenos estabelecimentos ou em empregos isolados no setor terciário (motoristas, manipuladores, operadores de armazém) cada vez mais longe do local onde viviam. Ao mesmo tempo, o número de trabalhadores de serviços (ajudantes domiciliários, caixas, etc.) disparou. Contudo, nessas condições de emprego subalternas, a distinção entre empregados e patrões não assumia a mesma forma que no chão de fábrica – e a organização sindical era mais difícil.
Assim, as transformações na produção e nas condições da classe trabalhadora certamente funcionaram contra o PCF. Mas as políticas seguidas pelos seus líderes também alimentaram o descontentamento com o partido. Para muitas famílias da classe trabalhadora, o PCF está associado ao desmantelamento da indústria através do seu papel nos governos franceses de 1981-84 e 1997-2002. A crise na indústria siderúrgica no leste de França agravou-se quando a esquerda chegou ao poder em 1981. Em 1997, o chamado governo de “esquerda plural”, que incluía ministros do PCF, lançou uma onda de privatizações. A desilusão com o governo liderado pelo Partido Socialista também afetou o PCF, especialmente porque este tinha estado associado a este partido – uma força social-democrata moderada – na gestão das câmaras municipais a partir da década de 1970.
Houve também uma ruptura ideológica. Nas décadas de 1990 e 2000, o antigo “partido da classe trabalhadora” tendeu a perder este foco de classe. Longe de se apresentar como um partido de classe, o objetivo do PCF era simplesmente ser representativo da “sociedade” em toda a sua “diversidade”, em detrimento de um interesse específico da classe trabalhadora e da prioridade na luta contra a exploração capitalista. O desejo de construir uma imagem nova, “moderna” e “aberta” da política comunista foi acompanhado por uma rejeição explícita do stalinismo, o que também significou dispensar abordagens “obreristas” e estruturas centralistas democráticas.
Certamente, o trabalho do PCF de ordenar a sua base ativista deixou pouco espaço para a democracia interna. Mas permitiu-lhe construir um corpo de líderes oriundos da classe trabalhadora. À medida que o número de militantes partidários diminuía, a linguagem de “abertura à sociedade” encorajou uma integração ainda maior do PCF na máquina institucional da política local e nacional. Isto enfraqueceu os mecanismos do PCF para a seleção, formação e promoção de militantes da classe trabalhadora, e reorientou a sua organização nas classes médias. Os trabalhadores de colarinho azul e branco tendiam a ser marginalizados dentro do aparelho do PCF, onde predominavam as categorias com maior escolaridade – por exemplo, professores e pessoal de supervisão ou profissional.
Foi neste contexto de enfraquecimento da inserção do PCF na classe trabalhadora francesa que o partido de extrema-direita começou o seu crescimento. Embora a Frente Nacional tenha desfrutado de um apoio eleitoral significativo da classe trabalhadora a partir de meados da década de 1980, o seu lugar na estrutura de classe social não era o mesmo que o do PCF. O movimento comunista baseou-se numa aliança entre sindicalistas operários e membros da pequena burguesia cultural (professores, trabalhadores socioculturais).
O partido de Le Pen é diferente: as suas redes são muitas vezes construídas em torno de convergências entre uma pequena burguesia independente (lojistas, artesãos) e os trabalhadores da produção artesanal e dos pequenos negócios. Estes últimos estão frequentemente envolvidos em relações de proximidade e dependência pessoal com os seus chefes.
The party also draws on the support of managers and intermediate professions in the retail sector — a growing socio-professional group at the heart of recent transformations in the private sector. It would thus be simplistic to see the rise of the Rassemblement National’s ideas solely in terms of deindustrialization. For it also feeds on the reshaping of the world of work and the maintenance of industrial employment in specific forms, for instance around the agri-food industry. The Rassemblement National is not necessarily driven by declining and impoverished independent categories. Indeed, individuals’ turn toward voting for the far right may be rooted in upward professional mobility, often coupled with home ownership in rural areas.
In these rural areas, however, the Rassemblement National vote has such momentum that it now rallies different types of social profiles, those who share a positive view of the model of personal independence and individual success. In certain contexts, the Rassemblement National has allowed working-class individuals to join the lists it backs in local elections, thus including those who are usually excluded from political competition. From this viewpoint, the party can support the presence of working-class groups on the political scene
If the far-right party took the PCF as its model in the 1990s, it is far from being structured along the same lines as the Communists, with their activist organization in localities and workplaces. In working-class areas, the Rassemblement National remains poorly organized: its activist networks are fragile, its municipal power relatively limited and its support in local associations weak.
Following the local elections of 2020–21, the Rassemblement National claims only sixteen municipalities and twenty-six departmental councilors across France — a far cry from its strength in national elections. Its candidate, Le Pen, came in second in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. Yet this is difficult to translate to the local and activist level. It’s true that the party has been gaining strength for several years, with an increase in the number of its elected representatives, especially MPs. But cases where the Rassemblement National has built a structured presence at the local level — like in Hénin-Beaumont, a former mining town in northern France, which today has a mayor affiliated to the party — remain exceptional.
While media often paint the working classes as the Rassemblement National’s main base of support, it is worth noting that this party has so far found little legitimacy among existing workers’ organizations. It thrives only on their margins, precisely when the big companies — the focuses of social struggle and union organization — are closing and worker solidarities are disintegrating or being reconstituted outside the unions. Workers employed in large companies, particularly in the public sector, where there are still traditions of struggle, are much less supportive of the Rassemblement National.
It would be mistaken to think that the Rassemblement National has taken the place that the PCF used to have in working-class areas, particularly in the countryside, where its electoral audience is nevertheless very strong. It is still struggling to find candidates to put forward for election in many localities, even where it has won large votes. This is not to minimize its influence: momentum is indeed on its side. But its electoral growth is not necessarily accompanied by the building of a structured local presence.
Each year May Day, which sees competing mobilizations by the trade union left and the far-right party, illustrates the discrepancy between electoral power and activist roots. The Rassemblement National’s Joan of Arc festival in Paris attracts just a few thousand supporters, with no regional spread. But trade unions and left-wing parties take part in almost three hundred marches across France — in addition to the Paris demonstration, which attracts far more people than Le Pen’s event.
The Rassemblement National’s influence is essentially electoral and much less rooted in activism. Studies by political sociologists show that expressions of the party’s support at the local level are largely informal — provided by unaffiliated supporters who meet up, for example, in a fishing club or a café. Its ideas spread against the backdrop of the disintegration of the Left. It is on this side of the spectrum — the activist left — that working-class resistance can be observed. But this takes place less through the PCF than through the trade union movement alone.
In small rural towns, where the Rassemblement National racks up strong votes, left-wing activists are becoming increasingly rare. Very often, only trade union networks remain active in defending progressive values in the face of far-right ideas, whether in the workplace or at the local level. I was able to observe this on a daily basis during a field study in a rural, working-class locality in central-eastern France.
This is a type of area where the Rassemblement National vote is both significant and growing steadily. In the town of three thousand inhabitants in the heart of this area, Le Pen has come in first in all three presidential elections in which she has run — and has grown stronger each time: 22 percent in 2012, 30 percent in 2017 and 38 percent in 2022. In this last election, she scored 59 percent in the second round, clearly outstripping incumbent president, Emmanuel Macron.The leading electoral force, well ahead of the other parties, the Rassemblement National nevertheless has no locally declared militants and is unable to put together a list for municipal elections. Its candidates in the 2015 département-level elections were unknown to the vast majority of local residents and elected representatives. The pair consisted of a twenty-three-year-old woman studying nursing in Paris, who had been a party member for just one year and a twenty-seven-year-old teacher who lives and works in the département’s main town. A member of fundamentalist Christian networks, he joined the party four years previously. Neither candidate lived in the area where they were running, nor did their running mates: a student lawyer working in a Parisian business law firm and a businesswoman unknown locally.
Durante décadas, a esquerda francesa foi dominada pelo Partido Comunista Francês (PCF), uma organização que construiu fortes redes de apoio na classe trabalhadora francesa ao longo do século XX. No entanto, a partir da década de 1980, esta poderosa organização entrou em declínio, deixando um vazio a ser preenchido. A Frente Nacional - o partido de extrema direita, liderado por Marine Le Pen, que se tornou o Rassemblement National (RN) em 2018 - foi um grande beneficiário.
O declínio do PCF está intimamente ligado à destruição das condições sociais e organizacionais que há muito sustentavam a participação dos trabalhadores na vida política francesa. Esta mudança deu a grupos sociais e ativistas muito afastados da classe trabalhadora a oportunidade de falar politicamente em seu nome. O Rassemblement National de Le Pen não tem nenhuma base ativista real nas áreas da classe trabalhadora ou no chão de fábrica. Mas hoje pode apresentar-se como o “partido dos trabalhadores”.
A ascensão e enfraquecimento de um partido dos trabalhadores
Fundado como um partido dos trabalhadores nos anos entre guerras, de 1945 até a década de 1970, o Partido Comunista foi o principal ativista e força eleitoral da esquerda francesa. A organização do PCF estava enraizada na classe trabalhadora francesa - e era geralmente liderada por líderes oriundos dessas origens. O seu peso político foi ainda maior devido à relativa coesão social destas mesmas classes. Os metalúrgicos qualificados e os empregados em empresas públicas com estatuto protegido (nas ferrovias ou no setor do gás e da eletricidade) desempenharam um papel fundamental nas fileiras do PCF. As ligações estreitas entre os locais de trabalho e as áreas residenciais também significaram que o envolvimento político a nível do local de trabalho se estendeu facilmente ao contexto local. Os ativistas sindicais operários uniram forças com professores como os professores para desafiar o poder das elites sociais sobre os cargos municipais.
Mas a crise industrial do final da década de 1970 prejudicou as camadas superiores das classes trabalhadoras, de onde foi recrutada a maioria dos líderes comunistas. A reestruturação de grandes empresas industriais desferiu um duro golpe nas redes organizacionais do PCF entre os trabalhadores. A crescente precariedade do emprego da classe trabalhadora e os efeitos duradouros do desemprego em massa levaram a uma desaceleração das lutas sociais e minaram a transmissão de uma cultura baseada em classes.
Mas a crise industrial do final da década de 1970 prejudicou as camadas superiores das classes trabalhadoras, de onde foi recrutada a maioria dos líderes comunistas. A reestruturação de grandes empresas industriais desferiu um duro golpe nas redes organizacionais do PCF entre os trabalhadores. A crescente precariedade do emprego da classe trabalhadora e os efeitos duradouros do desemprego em massa levaram a uma desaceleração das lutas sociais e minaram a transmissão de uma cultura baseada em classes.
Os trabalhadores passaram a ser cada vez mais empregados em pequenos estabelecimentos ou em empregos isolados no setor terciário (motoristas, manipuladores, operadores de armazém) cada vez mais longe do local onde viviam. Ao mesmo tempo, o número de trabalhadores de serviços (ajudantes domiciliários, caixas, etc.) disparou. Contudo, nessas condições de emprego subalternas, a distinção entre empregados e patrões não assumia a mesma forma que no chão de fábrica – e a organização sindical era mais difícil.
Assim, as transformações na produção e nas condições da classe trabalhadora certamente funcionaram contra o PCF. Mas as políticas seguidas pelos seus líderes também alimentaram o descontentamento com o partido. Para muitas famílias da classe trabalhadora, o PCF está associado ao desmantelamento da indústria através do seu papel nos governos franceses de 1981-84 e 1997-2002. A crise na indústria siderúrgica no leste de França agravou-se quando a esquerda chegou ao poder em 1981. Em 1997, o chamado governo de “esquerda plural”, que incluía ministros do PCF, lançou uma onda de privatizações. A desilusão com o governo liderado pelo Partido Socialista também afetou o PCF, especialmente porque este tinha estado associado a este partido – uma força social-democrata moderada – na gestão das câmaras municipais a partir da década de 1970.
Houve também uma ruptura ideológica. Nas décadas de 1990 e 2000, o antigo “partido da classe trabalhadora” tendeu a perder este foco de classe. Longe de se apresentar como um partido de classe, o objetivo do PCF era simplesmente ser representativo da “sociedade” em toda a sua “diversidade”, em detrimento de um interesse específico da classe trabalhadora e da prioridade na luta contra a exploração capitalista. O desejo de construir uma imagem nova, “moderna” e “aberta” da política comunista foi acompanhado por uma rejeição explícita do stalinismo, o que também significou dispensar abordagens “obreristas” e estruturas centralistas democráticas.
Certamente, o trabalho do PCF de ordenar a sua base ativista deixou pouco espaço para a democracia interna. Mas permitiu-lhe construir um corpo de líderes oriundos da classe trabalhadora. À medida que o número de militantes partidários diminuía, a linguagem de “abertura à sociedade” encorajou uma integração ainda maior do PCF na máquina institucional da política local e nacional. Isto enfraqueceu os mecanismos do PCF para a seleção, formação e promoção de militantes da classe trabalhadora, e reorientou a sua organização nas classes médias. Os trabalhadores de colarinho azul e branco tendiam a ser marginalizados dentro do aparelho do PCF, onde predominavam as categorias com maior escolaridade – por exemplo, professores e pessoal de supervisão ou profissional.
O movimento sindical perdeu importância na formação da direção do PCF. Mas os detentores de cargos políticos ganharam maior influência: a proporção de representantes eleitos, gestores de projetos, adidos parlamentares e outras figuras das autoridades locais na liderança do PCF cresceu. A relação entre o PCF e as populações locais dependia cada vez mais do papel dos gestores, dos representantes eleitos locais ou dos funcionários públicos, e cada vez menos da atividade dos militantes do partido. A manutenção de bases no governo local tornou-se um foco central, e a posse de recursos educacionais ou competências de gestão passou a ser vista como uma vantagem para ingressar no PCF e subir na sua hierarquia interna.
A extrema direita e a estrutura de classes sociais
Foi neste contexto de enfraquecimento da inserção do PCF na classe trabalhadora francesa que o partido de extrema-direita começou o seu crescimento. Embora a Frente Nacional tenha desfrutado de um apoio eleitoral significativo da classe trabalhadora a partir de meados da década de 1980, o seu lugar na estrutura de classe social não era o mesmo que o do PCF. O movimento comunista baseou-se numa aliança entre sindicalistas operários e membros da pequena burguesia cultural (professores, trabalhadores socioculturais).
O partido de Le Pen é diferente: as suas redes são muitas vezes construídas em torno de convergências entre uma pequena burguesia independente (lojistas, artesãos) e os trabalhadores da produção artesanal e dos pequenos negócios. Estes últimos estão frequentemente envolvidos em relações de proximidade e dependência pessoal com os seus chefes.
The party also draws on the support of managers and intermediate professions in the retail sector — a growing socio-professional group at the heart of recent transformations in the private sector. It would thus be simplistic to see the rise of the Rassemblement National’s ideas solely in terms of deindustrialization. For it also feeds on the reshaping of the world of work and the maintenance of industrial employment in specific forms, for instance around the agri-food industry. The Rassemblement National is not necessarily driven by declining and impoverished independent categories. Indeed, individuals’ turn toward voting for the far right may be rooted in upward professional mobility, often coupled with home ownership in rural areas.
In these rural areas, however, the Rassemblement National vote has such momentum that it now rallies different types of social profiles, those who share a positive view of the model of personal independence and individual success. In certain contexts, the Rassemblement National has allowed working-class individuals to join the lists it backs in local elections, thus including those who are usually excluded from political competition. From this viewpoint, the party can support the presence of working-class groups on the political scene
But unlike the PCF of previous decades, this does not reflect a deliberate strategy. Rassemblement National leaders are more interested in putting forward candidates with a combination of economic and cultural capital, like self-employed professionals, but it has to contend with the weakness of its activist forces and the social composition of its electoral support base.
Influência eleitoral sem base ativista
If the far-right party took the PCF as its model in the 1990s, it is far from being structured along the same lines as the Communists, with their activist organization in localities and workplaces. In working-class areas, the Rassemblement National remains poorly organized: its activist networks are fragile, its municipal power relatively limited and its support in local associations weak.
Following the local elections of 2020–21, the Rassemblement National claims only sixteen municipalities and twenty-six departmental councilors across France — a far cry from its strength in national elections. Its candidate, Le Pen, came in second in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. Yet this is difficult to translate to the local and activist level. It’s true that the party has been gaining strength for several years, with an increase in the number of its elected representatives, especially MPs. But cases where the Rassemblement National has built a structured presence at the local level — like in Hénin-Beaumont, a former mining town in northern France, which today has a mayor affiliated to the party — remain exceptional.
While media often paint the working classes as the Rassemblement National’s main base of support, it is worth noting that this party has so far found little legitimacy among existing workers’ organizations. It thrives only on their margins, precisely when the big companies — the focuses of social struggle and union organization — are closing and worker solidarities are disintegrating or being reconstituted outside the unions. Workers employed in large companies, particularly in the public sector, where there are still traditions of struggle, are much less supportive of the Rassemblement National.
It would be mistaken to think that the Rassemblement National has taken the place that the PCF used to have in working-class areas, particularly in the countryside, where its electoral audience is nevertheless very strong. It is still struggling to find candidates to put forward for election in many localities, even where it has won large votes. This is not to minimize its influence: momentum is indeed on its side. But its electoral growth is not necessarily accompanied by the building of a structured local presence.
Each year May Day, which sees competing mobilizations by the trade union left and the far-right party, illustrates the discrepancy between electoral power and activist roots. The Rassemblement National’s Joan of Arc festival in Paris attracts just a few thousand supporters, with no regional spread. But trade unions and left-wing parties take part in almost three hundred marches across France — in addition to the Paris demonstration, which attracts far more people than Le Pen’s event.
The Rassemblement National’s influence is essentially electoral and much less rooted in activism. Studies by political sociologists show that expressions of the party’s support at the local level are largely informal — provided by unaffiliated supporters who meet up, for example, in a fishing club or a café. Its ideas spread against the backdrop of the disintegration of the Left. It is on this side of the spectrum — the activist left — that working-class resistance can be observed. But this takes place less through the PCF than through the trade union movement alone.
A força rural do Rassemblement National
In small rural towns, where the Rassemblement National racks up strong votes, left-wing activists are becoming increasingly rare. Very often, only trade union networks remain active in defending progressive values in the face of far-right ideas, whether in the workplace or at the local level. I was able to observe this on a daily basis during a field study in a rural, working-class locality in central-eastern France.
This is a type of area where the Rassemblement National vote is both significant and growing steadily. In the town of three thousand inhabitants in the heart of this area, Le Pen has come in first in all three presidential elections in which she has run — and has grown stronger each time: 22 percent in 2012, 30 percent in 2017 and 38 percent in 2022. In this last election, she scored 59 percent in the second round, clearly outstripping incumbent president, Emmanuel Macron.The leading electoral force, well ahead of the other parties, the Rassemblement National nevertheless has no locally declared militants and is unable to put together a list for municipal elections. Its candidates in the 2015 département-level elections were unknown to the vast majority of local residents and elected representatives. The pair consisted of a twenty-three-year-old woman studying nursing in Paris, who had been a party member for just one year and a twenty-seven-year-old teacher who lives and works in the département’s main town. A member of fundamentalist Christian networks, he joined the party four years previously. Neither candidate lived in the area where they were running, nor did their running mates: a student lawyer working in a Parisian business law firm and a businesswoman unknown locally.
The party was unable to put up candidates for the subsequent département-level election in 2021 — illustrating the constant turnover and weak standing of its local candidates, even in areas that are highly favorable to the party electorally. The candidate for the 2017 parliamentary elections was sidelined for some time after the election, before finally leaving the region. In 2022, a new candidate for the legislative elections — a lawyer from the Paris Bar — scored a strong vote and reached the runoff.
This situation is far from exceptional. The Rassemblement National’s activist presence is weak, even in those exceptional cases where it does manage to win municipal elections. In one of the few mayoralties won in 2014, in the south of France, the far-right list was led by people little-known to the population, with little active record in the party — and who were themselves surprised to be elected.
Each time that the village in central-eastern France that I studied goes to the polls, local councilors and residents responsible for vote counting are left bewildered. The vast majority of figures involved in the local public arena (elected representatives, members of associations, trade unionists, candidates, etc.) express their incomprehension at these votes, which seem out of step with the campaign on the ground, where the Rassemblement National is absent.
Residents involved in activist organizations, associations, and the municipal scene mainly come from the upper layers of the local social space, drawn from the middle classes: teachers, middle managers, shopkeepers, supervisors, office workers, engineers, etc. Working-class figures — albeit a majority in the general population — have less of a role. Yet there is also an exception: rail company employees.
Railworkers Faced with Far-Right Ideas
Iconducted my field survey mainly among railway workers, in particular members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), a left-wing union that represents most workers in the national rail firm. Factors that explain railworkers’ continued union involvement in this small town include a long history dating back to the nineteenth century, and indeed the continued sociability owing to the presence of a maintenance workshop that employs almost three hundred people.
Railworkers benefit from a certain professional stability that makes it easier for them to be involved. They have resources and employment continuity that other, more precariously positioned local working-class figures are lacking (metalworkers, slaughterhouse workers, woodworkers, home helps, childminders, supermarket employees, leatherworkers, etc.). Nevertheless, railworkers are not isolated from these weaker-positioned elements of the working classes.
Their spouses, like their children, often find it difficult to find stable employment, and many have worked for other companies where their status was precarious and their working conditions trying. In the private sector, they have generally not encountered trade unions, but their experience of menial work has gradually fueled a feeling of social injustice: a distrust of employer authority that can fuel a vote for the far right. It’s only when these workers have achieved a degree of stability within the rail company that the question of union membership really arises.
The far-right vote is fueled by a rejection of the fantasized figures of “foreigners,” “Muslims” and “welfare recipients” — all images transmitted by media debates and political leaders on the Right, but also increasingly on the Left. However, socialization in certain unions — such as the CGT railworkers — is geared toward progressive values, toward uncovering the social and political causes of each individual’s situation.
This politicization takes place particularly at union meetings, where the presence of “old hands” and retirees can help transmit left-wing values to younger members. While a racialized reading of social divides may hold sway among the local working class, it hardly appears within the union itself. Among the union’s leaders, proximity to the Rassemblement National and its values is explicitly condemned, a bar to taking on responsibility.
During an internal discussion, for example, a thirty-five-year-old trade unionist expressed reservations about the value of “recruiting members for the sake of it.” She uses the example of a young railworker who is a union member, but does not, in her opinion, have the “open-mindedness” expected of a CGT member. She explicitly associates trade union values with moral attitudes such as tolerance toward immigrants or gays. Some forms of racism and machismo may be expressed among CGT railworkers. But such views cannot legitimately be expressed within the union collective itself. They come at the margins — from the railworkers furthest from the union — and are bound to lead to calls to order.
Distance from the far-right party is the result of political socialization within the union. But it can also be a driving force behind CGT membership. Such is the case of Stéphane, CGT’s youth officer. In an interview, this railworker said he was “sensitive to the union’s discourse” from the moment he joined, “in relation to everything that was [his] original ideology” and “the fight for social justice.” His “revolt against injustice” stems in part from his cultural practices as a teenager, listening to left-wing punk rock bands.
Strongly aware of anti-racism, when he started at the workshop in the early 2000s, he had several “spats” with those who “said racist things” in his assignment room. When Stéphane arrived, another union dominated the room, whose representative joined in with these racist remarks. “Then he calmed down about it. He calmed down the day a guy, Mehdi, who was . . . French but of North African origin, came in.” The presence of Stéphane, who joins the CGT, and of Mehdi in the room, makes the openly pro–Le Pen atmosphere recede.
Stéphane continued his fight in the local political arena, where he joined opposition against the mayor elected in 2008 in his town (population four thousand). The mayor, a self-employed general insurance agent, had been a candidate for the Rassemblement National in the Paris region in the early 1990s. The social mobilization of municipal employees and the protests by anti-fascist activists were closely intertwined with the networks of trade unions, employees with protected status (such as railworkers and local civil servants), and teachers. They contributed to ending the mayor’s spell in office in 2014.
Each time that the village in central-eastern France that I studied goes to the polls, local councilors and residents responsible for vote counting are left bewildered. The vast majority of figures involved in the local public arena (elected representatives, members of associations, trade unionists, candidates, etc.) express their incomprehension at these votes, which seem out of step with the campaign on the ground, where the Rassemblement National is absent.
Residents involved in activist organizations, associations, and the municipal scene mainly come from the upper layers of the local social space, drawn from the middle classes: teachers, middle managers, shopkeepers, supervisors, office workers, engineers, etc. Working-class figures — albeit a majority in the general population — have less of a role. Yet there is also an exception: rail company employees.
Railworkers Faced with Far-Right Ideas
Iconducted my field survey mainly among railway workers, in particular members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), a left-wing union that represents most workers in the national rail firm. Factors that explain railworkers’ continued union involvement in this small town include a long history dating back to the nineteenth century, and indeed the continued sociability owing to the presence of a maintenance workshop that employs almost three hundred people.
Railworkers benefit from a certain professional stability that makes it easier for them to be involved. They have resources and employment continuity that other, more precariously positioned local working-class figures are lacking (metalworkers, slaughterhouse workers, woodworkers, home helps, childminders, supermarket employees, leatherworkers, etc.). Nevertheless, railworkers are not isolated from these weaker-positioned elements of the working classes.
Their spouses, like their children, often find it difficult to find stable employment, and many have worked for other companies where their status was precarious and their working conditions trying. In the private sector, they have generally not encountered trade unions, but their experience of menial work has gradually fueled a feeling of social injustice: a distrust of employer authority that can fuel a vote for the far right. It’s only when these workers have achieved a degree of stability within the rail company that the question of union membership really arises.
The far-right vote is fueled by a rejection of the fantasized figures of “foreigners,” “Muslims” and “welfare recipients” — all images transmitted by media debates and political leaders on the Right, but also increasingly on the Left. However, socialization in certain unions — such as the CGT railworkers — is geared toward progressive values, toward uncovering the social and political causes of each individual’s situation.
This politicization takes place particularly at union meetings, where the presence of “old hands” and retirees can help transmit left-wing values to younger members. While a racialized reading of social divides may hold sway among the local working class, it hardly appears within the union itself. Among the union’s leaders, proximity to the Rassemblement National and its values is explicitly condemned, a bar to taking on responsibility.
During an internal discussion, for example, a thirty-five-year-old trade unionist expressed reservations about the value of “recruiting members for the sake of it.” She uses the example of a young railworker who is a union member, but does not, in her opinion, have the “open-mindedness” expected of a CGT member. She explicitly associates trade union values with moral attitudes such as tolerance toward immigrants or gays. Some forms of racism and machismo may be expressed among CGT railworkers. But such views cannot legitimately be expressed within the union collective itself. They come at the margins — from the railworkers furthest from the union — and are bound to lead to calls to order.
Distance from the far-right party is the result of political socialization within the union. But it can also be a driving force behind CGT membership. Such is the case of Stéphane, CGT’s youth officer. In an interview, this railworker said he was “sensitive to the union’s discourse” from the moment he joined, “in relation to everything that was [his] original ideology” and “the fight for social justice.” His “revolt against injustice” stems in part from his cultural practices as a teenager, listening to left-wing punk rock bands.
Strongly aware of anti-racism, when he started at the workshop in the early 2000s, he had several “spats” with those who “said racist things” in his assignment room. When Stéphane arrived, another union dominated the room, whose representative joined in with these racist remarks. “Then he calmed down about it. He calmed down the day a guy, Mehdi, who was . . . French but of North African origin, came in.” The presence of Stéphane, who joins the CGT, and of Mehdi in the room, makes the openly pro–Le Pen atmosphere recede.
Stéphane continued his fight in the local political arena, where he joined opposition against the mayor elected in 2008 in his town (population four thousand). The mayor, a self-employed general insurance agent, had been a candidate for the Rassemblement National in the Paris region in the early 1990s. The social mobilization of municipal employees and the protests by anti-fascist activists were closely intertwined with the networks of trade unions, employees with protected status (such as railworkers and local civil servants), and teachers. They contributed to ending the mayor’s spell in office in 2014.
Ausente à esquerda
Como podemos ver neste caso, os sindicalistas desempenham um papel fundamental no combate à influência da extrema direita nas áreas da classe trabalhadora. As alianças sindicais locais permitem que os ativistas se reúnam fora do local de trabalho. No entanto, nestes tempos de intensa repressão anti-sindical, os ativistas trabalhistas são muitas vezes forçados a se concentrar apenas nos seus locais de trabalho. Acima de tudo, o apoio político ao qual podem recorrer é fraco.
Longe de procurar fortalecer o sindicalismo - o que seria uma forma de combater a extrema direita - os sucessivos governos franceses, incluindo a presidência do socialista François Hollande (2012-2017) e depois a do seu ministro da Economia, Emmanuel Macron, enfraqueceram ainda mais os contra-poderes dos trabalhadores no local de trabalho, num contexto de crescente desestabilização da condição da classe trabalhadora.
Além do mais, a forma como os partidos de esquerda operam tende a marginalizar as classes trabalhadoras e os seus representantes sindicais. A principal força de esquerda, La France Insoumise, está organizada em torno da figura de Jean-Luc Mélenchon e das suas candidaturas às eleições presidenciais de França. Por enquanto, a equipe de liderança da France Insoumise rejeitou qualquer estruturação da organização com membros reais, congressos, desenvolvimento de agrupamentos locais, etc.
Como resultado, uma força explicitamente concebida como um movimento e não como um partido está lutando para existir fora das épocas de campanha eleitoral e para ganhar uma posição na vida da classe trabalhadora. O movimento depende principalmente dos seus deputados e da mobilização das categorias sociais instruídas, sem poder recorrer a estruturas ativistas nos bairros da classe trabalhadora e nas zonas rurais.
O modelo passado do PCF, tal como o do Partido Socialista com as suas diversas correntes internas, é hoje aquele que a França Insoumise rejeita expressamente. E com razão, no que diz respeito à falta de democracia interna do PCF. Mas pode muito bem haver lições políticas a se retirar da história centenária do PCF em termos de mobilização das classes trabalhadoras. Isto foi assegurado por vários acordos coletivos que atribuíam grande importância às origens sociais dos ativistas e valorizavam o papel dos sindicalistas.
Hoje, a organização formal é rejeitada em favor de um movimento frouxo de simpatizantes que valorizam a “horizontalidade” a todo custo e as estratégias individuais de personalidades ou deputados da “sociedade civil”. No entanto, isto parece inadequado para garantir que uma alternativa política ao capitalismo, ou mesmo a luta contra a extrema direita, se enraíze na França da classe trabalhadora. Esta luta acontece não só nas urnas, mas também no terreno, nos locais quotidianos onde as pessoas vivem e trabalham.
Colaborador
Julian Mischi é diretor de pesquisa em sociologia do INRA.
Como podemos ver neste caso, os sindicalistas desempenham um papel fundamental no combate à influência da extrema direita nas áreas da classe trabalhadora. As alianças sindicais locais permitem que os ativistas se reúnam fora do local de trabalho. No entanto, nestes tempos de intensa repressão anti-sindical, os ativistas trabalhistas são muitas vezes forçados a se concentrar apenas nos seus locais de trabalho. Acima de tudo, o apoio político ao qual podem recorrer é fraco.
Longe de procurar fortalecer o sindicalismo - o que seria uma forma de combater a extrema direita - os sucessivos governos franceses, incluindo a presidência do socialista François Hollande (2012-2017) e depois a do seu ministro da Economia, Emmanuel Macron, enfraqueceram ainda mais os contra-poderes dos trabalhadores no local de trabalho, num contexto de crescente desestabilização da condição da classe trabalhadora.
Além do mais, a forma como os partidos de esquerda operam tende a marginalizar as classes trabalhadoras e os seus representantes sindicais. A principal força de esquerda, La France Insoumise, está organizada em torno da figura de Jean-Luc Mélenchon e das suas candidaturas às eleições presidenciais de França. Por enquanto, a equipe de liderança da France Insoumise rejeitou qualquer estruturação da organização com membros reais, congressos, desenvolvimento de agrupamentos locais, etc.
Como resultado, uma força explicitamente concebida como um movimento e não como um partido está lutando para existir fora das épocas de campanha eleitoral e para ganhar uma posição na vida da classe trabalhadora. O movimento depende principalmente dos seus deputados e da mobilização das categorias sociais instruídas, sem poder recorrer a estruturas ativistas nos bairros da classe trabalhadora e nas zonas rurais.
O modelo passado do PCF, tal como o do Partido Socialista com as suas diversas correntes internas, é hoje aquele que a França Insoumise rejeita expressamente. E com razão, no que diz respeito à falta de democracia interna do PCF. Mas pode muito bem haver lições políticas a se retirar da história centenária do PCF em termos de mobilização das classes trabalhadoras. Isto foi assegurado por vários acordos coletivos que atribuíam grande importância às origens sociais dos ativistas e valorizavam o papel dos sindicalistas.
Hoje, a organização formal é rejeitada em favor de um movimento frouxo de simpatizantes que valorizam a “horizontalidade” a todo custo e as estratégias individuais de personalidades ou deputados da “sociedade civil”. No entanto, isto parece inadequado para garantir que uma alternativa política ao capitalismo, ou mesmo a luta contra a extrema direita, se enraíze na França da classe trabalhadora. Esta luta acontece não só nas urnas, mas também no terreno, nos locais quotidianos onde as pessoas vivem e trabalham.
Colaborador
Julian Mischi é diretor de pesquisa em sociologia do INRA.
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