[The following statement appeared in the May 13-19 issue of Rouge, the weekly newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), the French section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.J
Today everyone is asking themselves: is a new May 1968 from the right, in reverse, in the offing? Certainly not. But, on the other hand, an offensive by the right or the far right? Undoubtedly.
For three months now, France's main cities have been the scene of demonstrations by people not usually involved in this type of initiative. Large and middle-size bosses, archbishops and bishops, little Nazi-types. This whole high society, which has not digested the May 10 victory, is going into the streets.
Despite their official denials, the hardliners in the RPR [Assembly for the Republic] and the UDF [Union for French Democracy] are trying to draw in the student mobilizations and to orient those of the small merchants against the workers. There is an increase in racist proclamations while the small fascist groups parade in the streets of Paris.
And in the meantime, the government is applying an austerity plan that disheartens and demobilizes the workers. The workers movement seems paralyzed. How do we get out of this situation, how do we fight the austerity, how do we impose another policy without playing the game of an increasingly arrogant right wing? This is the question that thousands of workers are asking themselves today.
The answer is twofold. Only a vast united mobilization of the working class will be capable of finishing with the diktats of the bosses that the government yields to. But at the same time, it seems obvious that this mobilization must also take the form of a massive response to the offensive by the right and of the apprentice Pinochets.
In the present climate of disarray, it is important above all that the working class make its voice heard and show its strength, that it retake the streets, that it pass onto the offensive, thereby showing that the only way you play the right's game is by passively leaving it a clear field.
Let no one be fooled. The fascist and racist provocations are first and foremost directed against the workers. They require an immediate response.
Since May 6 we have publicly addressed all the workers organizations, calling on them to retake the streets. A meeting finally took place at the League of the Rights of Man on May 10, with all the left parties in attendance. But nothing concrete came of it. Another meeting will be held in a week. We will continue to increase our efforts to end up with the most united response possible. But it is no longer possible to wait and equivocate. That is why the LCR, while regretting that it finds itself alone, decided to call a demonstration for Wednesday, May 18, as a first step in what we hope will be a larger counteroffensive.
We address ourselves to all the workers, to the members of the left parties and the unions: today, a wait-and-see attitude strengthens the right and paralyzes us. Whatever our political differences, let's go into the streets together to say loud and clear that enough is enough, that we will not accept fascist parades and insults against our immigrant brothers. Let's clearly show that the hopes of May 10 are still more alive than ever.