Last Sunday, French right-wing president Sarkozy became the latest "victim" of the capitalist crisis. Not only is he the first incumbent president in 54 years who has failed to top the poll in the first round of a presidential election, but he now looks set to be kicked out in the second round, due on May 6th.
Imagine a combination of Cameron and Osborne, with a touch racist demagogy - that's Sarkozy, a millionaire who preaches the "virtues" of austerity and "hard work" to the working class.
Having been elected with the slogan "work more to earn more" and the pledge to make overtime tax-free, Sarkozy has presided over the biggest rise in unemployment since WWII and a drastic fall in real wages. French workers - that is, those still in a job - ended up working more, but earning less!
Meanwhile, jobs were cut left, right and centre in education and health, while benefits to the aged and the disabled were reduced - all this, of course, in the name of plugging the "budget deficit" and "reassuring the markets".
Seems familiar? Sure, it is. There's nothing that looks more like an anti-working class government than another anti-working class government, whether in pounds or in euros!
The British media horrified
Ironically, here in Britain, commentators have been throwing their arms up in horror at the large number of candidates in the French presidential election. With ten candidates, they said, how could this be "serious" politics?
Yes, because here, politics has degenerated so much that it is only considered "serious" when it is confined to a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee - between the ConDems' austerity and Labour's version of the same! Britain is not a "democracy", but a one-party system masquerading as a "democracy"!
In fact, if something wasn't "serious" about this French election, it was not the number of candidates, but rather the fact that beyond the different language they used, most of them actually represented the same interests - those of the capitalists and big business.
And this included the likely "left-wing" winner of the second round, François Hollande from the Socialist Party - a kind of French version of Labour which, like Labour, has long ditched its working class roots in order to enjoy the perks offered by the state institutions of the rich.
Nevertheless, Hollande caused an uproar in the British media when he promised to tax all earnings over and above £1m a year, at a 75% rate. Not that anyone believes he will, not even among British commentators. But as far as they are concerned, no "responsible" politician should even hint at the possibility that the wealthy might really be made to pay for their crisis. You never know, some hot heads in the working class might take the suggestion seriously! Perish the thought!
Making the capitalists pay, the only way!
Yet, what other way is there for the working class to protect its material interests against the relentless war that the bosses are waging against us, than to make them pay for their crisis - and to do it using our own collective strength?
In France, if Hollande is elected, he will implement the same policy as Sarkozy, just as here, Cameron continued Blair's and Brown's policy and just as Miliband will carry on with Cameron's attacks, if and when Labour gets in again.
The capitalist class is incapable of controlling the financial crisis and even less the impact that this crisis has on the real economy. This is why it has launched an all-out offensive aimed at squeezing as much profit as possible out of the working class - so much so, that the dividends paid by British companies to their shareholders are at an all-time high today, right in the middle of the crisis!
The Camerons, Sarkozys, Milibands and Hollandes of this world, are just auxiliaries - at the service of the handful of giant companies and banks which control most of the economy. They are enemies of the working class, as dangerous for workers as the masters they serve.
Against the bosses' offensive in the crisis, the ballot box is of no use whatsoever - not even to express one's aspiration for real change. The last thing politicians want is change. Because, in this crisis, when the capitalist system is proving too decrepit to be workable, the only meaningful change would require us to get rid of it.
But what cannot be achieved through the ballot box can be achieved, whether in France or here, through the conscious mobilisation of the working class, fighting collectively for its class interests. This, for us, is the only way forward.