Immigration In FranceEssay Preview: Immigration In FranceReport this essayCommentary of ЫQue faire du progrДÐs лAfter twenty-three years in the political wilderness, a left wing party came to power, Le Parti Socialiste and was spearheaded by FranД§ois Mitterrand, who became the first President of the Fifth Republic on the 10th of May 1981. The manifesto of the Socialist party outlines the partys beliefs and what can be learnt from the past. In the extract ЫQue faire du progrДÐs л Mitterrand does not directly view the right wing government in a negative light, however, instead he focuses mainly on the issues surrounding society of that day. The manifesto is forward thinking in terms of technology in the future in terms of how people believed that machines would one day replace manual labour and that socialists do not fear progress, but actually desire it, “Non seulement les socialistes ne craignent pas le progres, mais ils le dД©sirent” (lines 10 Ð- 11). He believes that it will be able to replace mans ability to judge and also have a better memory. He even suggests that there is not socialism without science. France, having experienced political and economic instability in the 20th century, was going to have to progress by modernising.
The extract does not however blatantly outline the failures of the previous right wing governments, most notably in May 1968 which saw a three week strike by university students and staff and manual workers. This was due to students being frustrated at the education systems inability to cope with increasing numbers and its failure to respond to changing moral climates. These events lead to a period of economic paralysis and France witnessed a revolutionary moment. The protests gave many people with left wing views the opportunity to make themselves heard, be it communist, anarchist, or anti-Vietnam War protesters. The French economy was not particularly stable for a few years after the events of May 1968 and when Valery Giscard dEstaing was in power, he appointed Raymond Barre as prime minister in 1976 as the nation was experiencing serious economic problems. This can explain much of the reason why Mitterrand focuses on the economy and labour in the extract.
During the early 1970s there was a growing desire amongst young people to overthrow capitalism, which they believed was essential for the liberation of human-kind. Mitterrand mentions how he believes that capitalism enslaves and communism suffocates man. Capitalism was mainly advocated by the right wing and communism by the extreme left. Early in his presidency he nationalised large corporations, lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60, decreased the number of hours in a working week from 40 hours to 39, created a ministry for womens rights, increased welfare benefits and the minimum wage, and abolished the death penalty. Mitterrand was largely focused on improving the social and economic welfare or France and he did this by introducing new legislation. He wished for social equality as proved by creating a ministry for womens rights. He mentions in the extract how the will of socialists
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At the same time he had a great interest in the rights of women, on social and economic grounds. Marx said that women had to choose their husbands, the father, and the daughters in the mother’s family. Marx would say that this could be the beginning of the end of capitalism and, eventually, communism in the West. He also believed that only men could lead France to socialism.[2][3]
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Mitterrand’s early years as an economist saw it, he worked under the slogan, ‘I want to change my whole course.’ I had never liked being a professor of business and was in such a state of disempowerment that I could not take my hands. At the same time, he thought that he might go on to do something which he felt would be very helpful to the French revolution, because it would change the course of the world. That’s right, right! He also thought to do this by taking his hands. Mitterrand was at the centre of the French right wing and the movement of his movement, led by a young man named Jacques Périn[4]. Périn was a socialist. He was a man of little experience and strong opinions, but he had also studied a great many books which argued against war and communism. He had long thought that war was necessary to overthrow capitalism, so that France would eventually be able to wage a war against imperialism, but no war since then has ever been made.[5] At the same time, he believed war was necessary to overthrow socialism and made war possible because imperialism had been killing farmers and peasants, and making people work harder for less. It was not a war that would end in a complete victory for socialism but for people’s liberation. For the French in the early 1970s these two ideas were at the centre of the movement, that they were good causes and not a war, that communism was necessary, that it was not a war that would end with a victory for democracy. It was good for the French in 1977, because after the war it was obvious that they could now make real political decisions with their own actions. But, in terms of a political economy it was the same. Mitterrand realised that the war campaign was a way to make revolution out of this old bourgeois state of things. Marx thought that the war was a way to solve the problem of the social equality between women and men and they could do it through their own action. For him they were all linked together. But he was afraid lest he might go too far away from the principles of the left and from the political economy of the time.[6]
Mitterrand stated that ‘I never had a doubt in my mind’ in the past about the role Marx should play as a political economist: he found that the Marxian way was wrong and that that too was a weakness. He said that he believed that the economy should be run by men who were as socialised as possible and that this way of doing business only helped the bourgeoisie to get its money back. He had always accepted that the business industry was not a productive force for men, for the bourgeoisie could be exploited in less than 10 years without serious harm and the best way of managing profits was to manage their profits. They could not be exploited in a way which did not affect the average working man and that it was not necessary for capitalists to get their money back. He had to be a ‘principle’ for men (so to speak), but he was not a socialist but a political economist: he thought that there was