The Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) was formed in Febuary 2009 to unify the radical left and youth in France. The founding of the party was a response to the urgent need for unity in the face of vicious government attacks. President Sarkozy’s social program of privatisation and bank bailouts meant that the NPA quickly attracted 10,000 members. The NPA’s opposition to the neo-liberal policies of the government resonated with workers and youth in struggle across France, and across France’s borders.
The NPA is different from the various socialist unity projects of recent years in Britain. Instead of being a temporary coalition of self-interested factions, it has grown out of the experience of workers’ and youth struggles in 450 local and regional action committees.
These action committees were set up for people to fight back against the crisis. Before the founding of the NPA, these “committees for a new party” were involved in grassroots political activity: they spearheaded local campaigns and organised resistance to the waves of public sector cuts and job losses sweeping across the country.
As demonstrated by its loudspeaker logo, the NPA is a call to action for committed anti-capitalists in France. Its success in mobilising anti-racists, anti-fascists and socialists in the European elections ensured 5% of the popular vote for the new group.
No2EU blamed their terrible European election result on the fact that they were a ‘new electoral front’. Well the NPA was just four months old on polling day, and managed to achieve a higher percentage than all the British so-called radical left put together.
The abysmal performance of the rest of the left in Britain exposes the criminal ineffectiveness of their strategy. This ‘performance’ has spurred some groups to make tentative noises about ‘unity’ and the need to ‘fight fascism’. But their idea of unity is not the unity that drew 10,000 activists together to found a fighting, democratic organisation. Their slogan of fighting fascism is a cover for the abandonment of the principles of workers solidarity and internationalism.
The NPA has proven that a mass party does not have to surrender to nationalism to steal the limelight from the fascists. It shows that sticking to and promoting a principled stance will reap the rewards of electoral success.
Without exaggerating this success, the example of the NPA is a model for building a unified, fighting, anti-capitalist group in Britain: a group that will be able to emulate the success of the NPA in the French student movement, where dozens of universities have been crippled by months of strike action by staff and students. A group that will be committed to fighting for internationalism in the struggles of workers and youth against capitalist exploitation.
In this time of crisis, only a new party rooted in local action committees can claim any legitimacy. After the French example, we know that these committees and eventually the national party organisation are invaluable tools of resistance. The French youth were instrumental in their local and regional committees to the founding of the fledgling NPA. And the NPA in turn is playing a vital role in supporting the fight of the French students and youth against job losses, university closures, and the systematic oppression of young people by capitalism.
The NPA is different from the various socialist unity projects of recent years in Britain. Instead of being a temporary coalition of self-interested factions, it has grown out of the experience of workers’ and youth struggles in 450 local and regional action committees.
These action committees were set up for people to fight back against the crisis. Before the founding of the NPA, these “committees for a new party” were involved in grassroots political activity: they spearheaded local campaigns and organised resistance to the waves of public sector cuts and job losses sweeping across the country.
As demonstrated by its loudspeaker logo, the NPA is a call to action for committed anti-capitalists in France. Its success in mobilising anti-racists, anti-fascists and socialists in the European elections ensured 5% of the popular vote for the new group.
No2EU blamed their terrible European election result on the fact that they were a ‘new electoral front’. Well the NPA was just four months old on polling day, and managed to achieve a higher percentage than all the British so-called radical left put together.
The abysmal performance of the rest of the left in Britain exposes the criminal ineffectiveness of their strategy. This ‘performance’ has spurred some groups to make tentative noises about ‘unity’ and the need to ‘fight fascism’. But their idea of unity is not the unity that drew 10,000 activists together to found a fighting, democratic organisation. Their slogan of fighting fascism is a cover for the abandonment of the principles of workers solidarity and internationalism.
The NPA has proven that a mass party does not have to surrender to nationalism to steal the limelight from the fascists. It shows that sticking to and promoting a principled stance will reap the rewards of electoral success.
Without exaggerating this success, the example of the NPA is a model for building a unified, fighting, anti-capitalist group in Britain: a group that will be able to emulate the success of the NPA in the French student movement, where dozens of universities have been crippled by months of strike action by staff and students. A group that will be committed to fighting for internationalism in the struggles of workers and youth against capitalist exploitation.
In this time of crisis, only a new party rooted in local action committees can claim any legitimacy. After the French example, we know that these committees and eventually the national party organisation are invaluable tools of resistance. The French youth were instrumental in their local and regional committees to the founding of the fledgling NPA. And the NPA in turn is playing a vital role in supporting the fight of the French students and youth against job losses, university closures, and the systematic oppression of young people by capitalism.
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