by ANTHONY TORRES
On May 28, after two months of discussion, the French Socialist Party (PS) unanimously adopted a program to serve as a common platform for all PS candidates in the 2012 presidential elections. The PS indicates that it is ready to take over from Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, whilst continuing to carry out essentially the same policies as Sarkozy.
In a May 29 article by Sylvain Courage in the Nouvel Observateur, titled “PS project for 2012 : [PS First Secretary] Martine Aubry’s big show,” the author writes, “Aubry employs the royal ‘we’ to say ‘we are ready to straighten out France as in 1981 and in 1997 in a grand democratic advance.’” The PS’s 2012 project serves notice that this party is ready to take office in order to lead the attacks against the working class that are indispensable for the French bourgeoisie.
According to opinion polls, if the presidential elections were held today, the PS would be elected. Following the pension reforms, President Sarkozy has become highly unpopular. Right-wing personalities like Jean-Louis Borloo and Dominique De Villepin are thinking of standing in the presidential elections. The neo-fascist National Front (FN) has registered an increase in support, thanks to the racist ban on the burqa and the “national identity” debate launched by Nicolas Sarkozy, which received the support of the PS and its satellite parties.
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