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The Pompidou Regime André Gorz

The eventual consequences of the May–June revolt are perhaps onlynow starting to become visible in France. The months since the greatexplosion have been marked by swift changes in both the economyand polity of French capitalism: the monetary crisis of November lastyear, the April referendum that led to De Gaulle’s resignation, theelection of Pompidou in June, and the devaluation in August. Whatis the significance of this succession of events for the pattern ofbourgeois power, and what are the present perspectives for classstruggle in France?

The original vocation of Gaullism had a certain resemblance to that ofMendèsism. French capitalism needed in both cases to end a disastrouscolonial war and to implement rationalizing and modernizing reformsat home. Mendès terminated the expeditionary adventure in Indochina;De Gaulle disengaged the Army from Algeria. But neither were able toachieve substantial or comparable successes in France itself. Thefundamental reason for this is that there does not exist in France anadequate social base for a coherent modernizing programme, nor ahegemonic group within the capitalist class capable of winning thewhole bourgeoisie to acceptance of such a programme. Capitalistrationalization thus had to be imposed on the bourgeoisie itself. Forthis, a central State at once authoritarian, liberal and technocratic wasnecessary. Yet constituted by an ‘outsider’, it then lacked a stablesocial foundation. This phenomenon is, indeed, a constant of Frenchhistory: there is no other advanced capitalist country where centralState power assumes such a directly techno-bureaucratic and adminis-trative form, and in which its political mediations are so fragile. It wasthis tradition that produced the advent of the Fifth Republic.

Nevertheless, despite every effort of its own propaganda machine toclaim major changes, the striking fact is that the reformist ‘perform-ance’ of Gaullism was very limited. Even at the zenith of the régime,the French State never had sufficient political strength to impose in-

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dispensable reforms on the employers. For paradoxically, the pervasivecharacter of its bureaucracy was accompanied by a very restrictedpower of influence over industry. The State apparatus was not genuine-ly attuned to the economy; it could control but not stimulate, decidebut not implement. Conscious of the abstract nature of its own power,the Gaullist régime constantly sought to secure or purchase the sup-port of the petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, including even its mostparasitic and retrogressive sectors, at the expense of the working class.The result was that it never got beyond a series of half-measures in itsrationalization programme. Even a few anti-malthusian reforms advo-cated by the extreme reactionary Rueff after 1958 were never attained.

The fragile social equilibrium of Gaullism was thus badly shaken by themain economic result of the May/June revolt—the Grenelle agree-ments between employers and unions. Ironically, the 15 per cent wageincreases of 1968 functioned as a very effective substitute for the capitalistrationalization policies which the régime had never dared to introduce.For this 15 per cent increase in no way affected capitalist accumulationin industry: the result was just the opposite. The state cleverly accom-panied the wage increases (which reached 30 per cent in some sectorssuch as textiles and shoes) with fiscal and financial subventions in sucha way that the employers, panicking because of the wage pressures, atlast found the will and means for a rationalization of their concerns.The balance-sheet of the Grenelle agreements is eloquent: 8 per centincrease in productivity; 12 per cent increase in industrial production;19 per cent increase in capital investment. Profits for 1968 rose, oftensubstantially, in the majority of enterprises with a ‘scientific’ manage-ment, despite the two or three weeks lost in strikes in May–June.

The industrial and financial bourgeoisie thus lost nothing and gainedmuch by the consequences of Grenelle. But this only meant that othergroups had to pay the price of the concessions it had made—above allpetty-bourgeois commerce and the small peasantry, in other wordspre-capitalist sectors, and elements of the liberal professions andtechnicians. Pompidou was thus able to play on the discontent of thesegroups with polished cynicism, allowing it to be understood that hewould save the pre-capitalist sectors, reduce taxes and avoid a recession,which the employers feared De Gaulle’s credit restrictions mightprovoke. He thereby succeeded in separating the majority of the em-ployers and of the petty-bourgeoisie from classical Gaullism. For in thelast months of Couve’s Premiership, the régime had abandoned itstraditional conciliation of different interests, and was sacrificing thepetty-bourgeoisie to big capital, while proclaiming verbal concessions(‘participation’) to the trade-unions. This course broke the unity of the‘conservative bloc’. Economically, it was the only rational capitalistpolicy in the present conjuncture. Politically, however, it was unaccept-able to the bourgeoisie once another ‘strong man’—Pompidou—promised to maintain the political unity of all the possessing classeswith a different strategy, which he was careful to leave somewhat vague.

This new alternative on the Right had all the greater impact because themonetary crisis detonated by the Grenelle agreements had underminedthe whole foundation of Gaullist economic policy: the gold reserves of

the Bank of France. De Gaulle’s guerilla campaign against the suprem-acy of the dollar had always been unpopular with French business,which considered the General’s resistance to the ‘political integration ofEurope’ within an Atlantic system to be a dangerous and unrealisticfoible. It was not completely wrong in this, of course, to the extent thatthe Gaullist State never succeeded in defining, still less imposing, anindustrial policy within France consonant with its international policyof diplomatic independence. The fundamental fact, however, is that theFrench bourgeoisie has no ambition to play a leading world role anddoes not believe in the ability of the French economy to compete withWest Germany or the USA. It does not even believe in the industrialfuture of France: it would willingly settle for a secondary role in aninternational system under German-American tutelage, provided thatits privileges within the country were assured. This ‘conservativedefeatism’ is not new. The French bourgeoisie has shown it again andagain in critical phases of its history: one has only to think of 1830, 1871and 1940 to comprehend the logic of the Pompidou régime. Theelimination of the French gold reserves has now provided the oppor-tunity for an official adoption of that Atlanticism which was for yearsinvoked by Giscard d’Estaing and others in their attacks on De Gaulle’s‘megalomania’. The transition can be summed up by saying that DeGaulle externally produced the régime that was objectively necessary tothe French bourgeoisie, and that this régime then internally producedPompidou, a representative of the bourgeoisie apparently capable ofeliminating De Gaulle and his idiosyncrasies, while preserving theGaullist State.

Class Strugglein the Arab Gulf Fred Halliday

Since the 18th century, British imperialism has maintained control overthe principalities of the eastern and southern coasts of the ArabianPeninsula; but this imperialist hegemony is now dissolving. As Britishforces retreat from the Gulf,1 new contradictions are exploding whichthreaten the position of world imperialism and the local ruling classes.

The present centre of these contradictions is Oman,with its population of750,000. The Sultan of Muscat, on the coast below the Omani moun-tains, entered into treaty relations with Britain in 1798 and since thenhas accepted British control while formally remaining an independentstate. The British have helped him to consolidate his realm. In theOmani mountains, a purist Shi’a Muslim sect, the Ibadhis, held atraditional tribal autonomy, centred on the town of Nizwa and the

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1 The dispute about whether to call it the Arab or Persian Gulf is a chauvinistirrelevancy. The régimes on both sides have used this issue, and others like theBahrein problem, to channel nationalist sentiment; but the internationalist positionof the Persian students organization CIS is the only possible one—that the Gulf isnow an imperialist Gulf, neither Arab nor Persian, and the task is to turn it into asocialist Gulf. It is called Arab here because the test refers to the Arabs areas aroundthe Gulf.