Paris jihad posted by Richard Seymour

I can't resist a title that is sure to enrage the assorted neocons that have been piling into the comments in the post below. Hard-right Sarkozyite blogger ¡No Pasarán! (no, irony isn't his strong point) has some video clips and reports from the protests against Sarkozy last night. The Times reported that protesters were dispersed in Paris with tear gas:

Noemie Capart, 24, a psychology student and supporter of Ms Royal, said: “There weren’t very many demonstrators, but all of a sudden the police charged out with extreme violence.

“I really don’t think it was justified. They used an incredible amount of teargas and I was caught in the middle of it. I was choking and very, very frightened. I think the police wanted to put on a show of force and I hope this isn’t an indication of what Sarkozy’s presidency is going to be like.”

Olivier Besancenot writes on Sarkozy's victory:

The populist demagogy used in this campaign will lead to anti-social, repressive and antidemocratic measures, which will undoubtedly provoke very broad resistance and struggles.

The LCR will now concentrate all its strength on building these mobilisations. It proposes a united front of all the social and democratic forces is immediately built to organise a response faced to the extreme neoliberal and repressive programme of Sarkozy. The LCR will take all the initiatives possible in this direction in the next days.

It has also been shown that a social-liberal left, which tried up to the very end to make an alliance with the UDF of Bayrou, is not a very effective protection against a hard and authoritarian right.

I hope the mass mobilisations begin swiftly, because a few isolated riots and protests on their own don't stand a chance against the armed might a Sarkozyite national security state. Sarkozy still has to win control of parliament, and is flattering Bayrou to accomplish this end. According to some interesting polls, it seems that Sarkozy has won strong support among blue collar workers, a substantial layer of voters among the poor and 15% of the far left vote. Sarkozy's peculiar popularity among some layers of people who would tend toward the left is not necessarily going to translate into support for the UMP. But PS leaders are already responding by inisting they move their agenda further to the right, and there will be an inevitable tendency among some on the left, and in the labour movement, to be pulled along by that trend. The LCR did well despite the tragedy of the radical left's disunity, and are well-placed to take a leading role in a united front against Sarkozy's policies. And the French working class is by no means resigned to accepting a more aggressive version of the CPE or a renewed EU Treaty.

Labels: france, french elections, jihad, neocons, neoliberalism, paris, racism, sarkozy, socialism