Hoping for nothing from Sunday’s election, believing that the third round will be in the streets, the NPA and Lutte Ouvrière agree on the need to “refound a political tool”.
At first, it always feels a little weird. To hear Philippe Poutou or Nathalie Arthaud say that, in any case, they do not wish “not really winning” is surprising. When the candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) is asked what his first days at the Elysée would look like, he answers straight: “We are not going to pretend, I will not be elected.” In his camp, we assume not to be “electoralists”. Never mind “which president will come out of the hat”, also says Nathalie Arthaud, the candidate of Lutte Ouvrière (LO).
To the left of the left, and among Trotskyists in particular, it is a great classic: the third round will be “social”. And will be played in the street. With a particularity for this presidential 2022. At LO as at the NPA, we recognize the need to “refounding a political tool”. Sunday, at the Zénith de Paris, Nathalie Arthaud asked the undecided and the abstainers to join her. “And not just in voting, she clarified, but also for the aftermath, in the party we need to build.” “We are sorely lacking a communist and revolutionary party which would be that of the workers and not of a few notables”explains to Release Jean-Pierre Mercier, party spokesperson. The one who is also a worker at PSA calls for the construction of a party “from the bottom”, far from all “alliances or negotiations” between devices.
Philippe Poutou is on the same line. Ex-Ford worker talks about political space at “reinvent”. Saturday, at the Cirque d’hiver in Paris, he took as witness “trade unionists, association activists”, relatives of “NPA, of La France insoumise, and even greens or socialists”. “We lack a political force, we lack a party”, he threw at them. The strategy is the same as at LO: go through the bottom by exonerating “great leaders”. The NPA was born in 2009 on the ruins of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), founded in 1974 after the dissolution of the Sixty-eight Communist League. Alain Krivine and Olivier Besancenot’s bet was then to widen the ranks of the traditional far left. Without the mayonnaise really setting.
The first round of 2002, where Arlette Laguiller and Olivier Besancenot totaled nearly 10% of the votes, seems a long way off. Philippe Poutou is stagnating today at more than 1%, when Arthaud is half as much. “We have to draw the balance sheets”, recognizes Pauline Salingue, spokesperson for the Poutou campaign. She speaks “burst” and “of failure” collective of the left. Goal : “Rebuilding an anti-capitalist left by discussing and debating on a large scale.” On the other hand, the question of the dissolution of the NPA does not arise, she assures. In the same way, one cannot imagine LO scuttling itself one day to make common cause with other parties, even if they claim to be Leon Trotsky.