Yesterday's New York Times had a story on the first round of the French parliamentary elections. The auther was Steven Erlanger, no Raymond Bonner or Chris Hedges, he
The story on one level reported the relative success of the Socialist Party and the likelihood that it will win a majority in the coming runoff. It made the important point that the , UMP,traditional center-right party of Sarkozy, Chirac, et al, has refused to back candidates of the "far right" national front, which gained 14 percent of the vote, which means that it will gain few seats in the coming runoff. But then things get interesting.
In Erlanger's original story, which I read on line yesterday, Jean luc Melenchon, presidential candidate of the PCF supported Left Front, who ran third in a district against Marine Le Pen, National Front leader in these elections and endorsed the socialist candidate who ran second, was referred to as a "far left rabble rouser"(treated with far more disdain then Le Pen, daughter and successor of National Front founder Jean Marie Le Pen, a "golden oldie" of traditional French fascism, street fighter, red baiter, anti-Semite, and fan since the end of WWII of Vichy Nazi collaborators). In the tradition of the Vichy French right, "Better Hitler than Blum." In the practical policy of U.S. cold warriors better any fascist, even in this case a someone with the pro Vichy pro Nazi record of the National Front, than any Communist supported candidate, even of course with the heroic role of the PCF in the anti-fascist resistance during WWII
In today's story though, the editors took that out, referring to Melenchon simply as the candidate who "fan for President on a far left ticket." Meanwhile, Erlanger's point( or hope) is that the socialists and their green party allies will be strong enough in the second round to govern "without the support of the far left parties who are more anti-European which will complicate his efforts to work with Germany to strengthen the euro and promote growth" read keep the socialists from carrying forward the anti-austerity policies which got them elected and act as the "poodle" to Merkel's German government the way Sarkozy did. Even Erlanger's reference pojnt that Le Pen "appears to have failed, however, in her aim to undermine the UMP{the center fight party) and refashion the political right in France" is both tepid and oddly respectful. If his readers were informed about what the National Front was and is, it might understand what such a "refashioning" would mean today in a country as important as France for the rest of Europe and for the U.S.
Erlanger has been around for a long time, graduating from Harvard in the 1970s and beginning a long career, first with the Boston Globe and then with the New York Times in what one might call cold war liberal journalism. After the fall of Soviet Union, has was Moscow Correspondent and later Bureau chief for the U.S. establishment's most prominent newspaper. It is hard for him to retool I guess, to look seriously at what the National Front is, has been and the dangers that it represents, especially given the general policies that he has never questioned through decades of stagflation, "Reagan revolution," "new world order," "new normal." etc.
At least the editors picked up on the slight to Melenchon, which in this context could only be of assistance to Le Pen and the National Front. Actually, the New York Times editorials on Wisconsin recently and other issues have reflected a more serious understanding of real politics today in the U.S. and Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, continues to give the NYT credibility with center left readers here and abroad. Of course, Krugman, readers are told, is dealing in opinions whereas Erlanger is merely reporting "facts" in an "objective manner."
Norman Markowitz
