They could win seats in the Euro-parliament. They could even, conceivably, get more votes than the Communist Party, thus opening the possibility of a radical transformation in the direction that rebellious French workers look to for political representation. An English translation of the joint draft platform has already been published. Here we print an article from Lutte Ouvriere's minority faction, L'Etincelle, on prospects for revolutionary unity. Neither of the two Trotskyist leaders had, however, announced anything more than the desire of the two organisations to seek such agreement and to start discussions to try to reach it.
T hat makes the reaction all the more significant.
By running ahead of reality, or, rather, by using the opportunity to declare their opinion openly, those workers, sometimes political or trade union activists, most often just sympathisers of the left, reveal the feelings of a section of the world of labour. They declare that they look to the far left for something. It had the good luck to arrive at the same time as a small economic upturn. For over a year it has also had the good luck of social calm. Its apologists credit the cleverness of the prime minister for dispelling the threat of movements which were taking shape but remained formless or very limited.