Regarding "the left of the left", or the variety of "little" candidates to the left of Segolene Royal now looking silly with just one-point-something percent each, it's probably interesting to note that for some time, the idea had been to establish a common campaign, and a common "anti-liberal" candidate.
In hindsight, that would have definitely been wise. After all, even now after their collective humiliating defeat, the various candidates to the left of Royal still pooled over 10% of the vote - unified in one vote, that would have left Jean-Marie Le Pen in
fifth place.
Blame the bonanza of 2002, when the "left of the left" pooled no less than 27% in all, and each of the far-left candidates was individually showered with four, five percent - whether it was the Trotskyites Laguiller and Besancenot, the Green Mamere, or the dissident socialist Chevenement (in addition to the Communist Hue). In light of such results, the temptation to again each try by oneself proved too big (with the exception of Chevenement, who went on to bigger things as the intellectual patron of Segolene Royal's campaign).
There was also the issue of the Communist Party's insistence to be, more or less, in charge of the enterprise. Historically, this might have been defensible, but considering that Hue had actually done worse than either of the Trots in '02, it was not appreciated.
Apart from vanities, however, there was another reason behind the failure of the project. This was the Communist Party's simultaneous inability to really choose between two competing concepts. On the one hand, the proposed, unified, leftist antiliberal camp, which would by definition profile itself as the "true" left in opposition to the Socialist Party; on the other, that of "la gauche plurielle", the "pluralistic left", which had previously brought Socialists, Communists and Greens into shared government responsibility in Lionel Jospin's coalition, before 2002. The Communists did not want to definitely close the door to co-operation with the Socialists and possible future government responsibility. That potential for "betrayal" was too much for the more doctrinary Trots of Besancenot, who in return played their role in scuppering the deal.
Now the dust has settled, we find the entire "left of the left" camp in tatters, the Communist Party most of all. With one exception: Besancenot, who almost kept his score in percentage terms (4,1%) and actually received more votes than last time round - netting a total of almost 1,5 million. No other candidate to the left of Royal got even half that. His sectarian Revolutionary Communist League now
congratulates itself on its "clear policy of independence vis-vis the Socialist Party" and the way the results "confirm that there is an anticapitalist Left" and that roles and relations in respect to it are "being cleared up". It derides the line of Communist Marie-George Buffet as having been "impossible to make out". No longer will it bother to appeal for an anti-liberal coalition, when it is now so clearly left best placed to capture that electorate by itself.
So who are those one and a half million Besancenot voters?
The candidate, a young man still earning his money as mailman, is associated with the antiglobalism of the leftist youth. On election night, he again insisted that "une autre monde est possible", "another world is possible", echoing the slogan of the ideologically diffuse, European antiglobalist youth movement. As noted above (:wink:), he lists his favourite music as Manu Chao, the mainstay of any alternative cafe's CD player the last ten years, and NTM, the French hip hop crew whose initials stand for F*ck Your Mother.
All this suggests a core support of "revolutionary chic", in contrast with the stodgy traditionalist remaining voters of the Communist Party and the workerist, unionist, low-income voters who propelled rival Trot Arlette Laguiller to over 5% in 2002. But the electoral map does not bear this out.
For example, in trendy, intellectual, middle-class Paris proper (which, unlike the fiercely left Berlin and Amsterdam or the postcommunist mainstay Budapest, but like the overwhelmingly rightwing, pro-market city of Prague, leans right rather than left), Segolene Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Bayrou all did clearly better than average. All the other candidates, both far right and far left, did noticeably worse. Le Pen got less than 5%, and Besancenot just 2,1% - and the other far-left candidates less. So thats not where his voters were.
Neither were they, particularly, in university cities. It's true that Besancenot's support is much more evenly spread around the country than the Communist Party's support ever was - urban, suburban or rural, North, South, West or East, it is almost always between 3-7% The Communists had their bulwarks; Besancenot doesnt seem to have them much. Which pleads for the "youth subculture" explanation.
But when you look at the few districts where he did get 7-8%, they appear to be all in depressed, (post)industrial areas, with little trendiness in sight. All in the North, most of them at the sea (harbour towns?) To list them:
- Departement Seine-Maritime; Circonscription Sotteville-les-Rouen
- Departement Pas-de-Calais; Circonscription Bruay-la-Buissiere
- Departement Pas-de-Calais; Circonscription Lievin
- Departement Nord; Circonscription Dunkerque-Ouest
- Departement Moselle; Circonscription Moyeuvre-Grande
... and page 7
