A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #373 - Politics - Opinion: With Jospin, the Death of Sincere Reformism (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Jospin is dead. What remains of him? As one of the last representatives 
of an "old-school" Socialist Party, revisiting his career and legacy can 
enrich our reflections and libertarian critiques of reformism, both past 
and present. ---- The death of Lionel Jospin on March 22nd went largely 
unnoticed. This is not surprising in the anarchist press, but it raises 
more questions in the mainstream media. For a figure who was Prime 
Minister for nearly five years and First Secretary of the Socialist 
Party (PS) for almost ten, one might have expected a greater response.

Taking Stock, Calmly
Perhaps Jospin's image seems out of step with the world of 2026. 
Firstly, because in a world where we are constantly told that any 
improvement in social rights is impossible, Jospin's record gives pause 
for thought. For while we will not forget the darker aspects of his 
actions, such as the countless privatizations carried out under his 
governments - CIC, Air France, Thales (Thomson CSF at the time), France 
Telecom (now Orange)... - he also boasts the best government social 
record in decades. The implementation of the 35-hour workweek, the 
creation of universal health coverage (CMU) which guarantees access to 
health insurance for everyone, and of State Medical Aid (AME) which 
provides medical care for undocumented immigrants, the creation of the 
PACS (Civil Solidarity Pact) which paved the way for marriage 
equality... These are measures that are now, for the most part, heavily 
attacked by the right and far right.

The other point that probably bothers television commentators is 
Jospin's background. Having been involved with the Internationalist 
Communist Organization (OCI), a Trotskyist organization led by Pierre 
Lambert, Jospin initially joined the Socialist Party with the aim of 
infiltrating it. Trained in the OCI for several years, Jospin thus 
started with a political background that included a solid understanding 
of revolutionary frameworks. It was clearly his contact with power that 
led him to switch sides. When, in 1982, while serving as a member of 
parliament, a Paris city councilor, and First Secretary of the Socialist 
Party, Lambert asked him to denounce the Mitterrand government's 
"austerity turn," Jospin refused. Lambert would later say that "Jospin 
had acquired a taste for the delights of power"[1].

That Jospin had acquired a taste for power is not impossible, but the 
question can be framed differently. It seems more likely that exercising 
power within the state apparatus itself simply influenced his 
perspectives. During the austerity turn, revolutionaries of all stripes 
saw only the perverse effects of a capitalist system to be dismantled, a 
system that imposed false solutions favorable to capital. But from the 
perspective of a state whose power was entirely intertwined with that of 
capital, the situation offered no alternative.

Is Trotskyism compatible with the state? To understand Mitterrand's 
liberal shift, its context must be analyzed. This reversal was not due 
to a sudden change of mood, but to the economic pressure generated by a 
complex global context, in the wake of the second oil crisis. Between 
1978 and 1981, the price of oil increased 2.7 times as a result of 
several events: the Iranian Revolution in 1978, and the start of the 
Iran-Iraq War in 1980, in particular. Amid the global economic slump, 
and at a time when the single European currency did not yet exist, 
France began to suffer the economic consequences of the crisis, in a 
Europe where neoliberalism was gaining momentum. The austerity measures 
taken in 1982 and 1983 were initially presented as a temporary measure, 
"necessary" due to the circumstances.

It is worth remembering here that governments are not filled with 
demonic figures intent on oppressing the population while laughing 
maliciously: no, our "leaders" generally try to do their best, according 
to their own frameworks. It is simply these frameworks that are often 
biased by the influence of capitalist and state forces, leading them to 
prioritize particular interests. In Jospin's case, it is safe to assume 
that while his Trotskyist training may have fostered a sincere 
conviction in the need to fight for human emancipation, his years 
immersed in the most entrenched structures of the state-from the ENA 
(National School of Administration) to the National Assembly, by way of 
the Socialist Party-could not have left his worldview untouched, 
inevitably influenced by liberal and capitalist perspectives. This leads 
to a conviction that is probably also sincere: improving the human 
condition will require negotiation with capitalism and sound economic 
management, which will allow for the implementation of reforms, duly 
financed by a "healthy" economy, thus ensuring the well-being of the 
state through taxation.

At a time when Mitterrand was campaigning by proclaiming, "Anyone who 
does not accept a break with[...]capitalist society[...]cannot be a 
member of the Socialist Party," one can understand the idea that a 
gradual exit from capitalism might exist, driven by a series of reforms 
that would slowly erode the power of capital. This is what this article 
calls "sincere reformism": the genuine belief in the possibility of 
ending capitalism step by step, without revolutionary upheaval.

If Jospin's figure is often unfamiliar to younger activists, it's 
because of his withdrawal from political life in 2002, after failing to 
qualify for the second round of the presidential election, thus opening 
the door to the far right for the first time.

Fondapol
Revolutionary graduate of the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA)
In 2026, it might be easy for us to harshly judge this analysis, as 
history has shown us that the austerity turn was anything but temporary, 
and that the social gains of the Socialist Party (PS), almost all of 
which are now threatened, had to be financed by privatizations. But we 
must have the humility to remember that in the 1980s, when it had become 
clear that the Russian Revolution had given birth to an authoritarian 
and imperialist monster, and when Trotskyist currents were groping for 
the right path forward, the idea of an anti-capitalist reformist path 
could make sense to a revolutionary graduate of the ENA. However, it 
must also be emphasized that around Jospin, revolutionary organizations 
kept a cool head and were already well-versed in the dead end of 
reformism: it is surely too idealistic to think that one can cozy up to 
the institutions of power without adopting their codes and analytical 
frameworks.

How are the reformists faring in 2026? For now, at the start of this 
presidential election year, the electoral barometer shows them in rather 
good shape. LFI, EELV, and the PCF are currently their main 
representatives. We will no longer discuss the Socialist Party (PS) and 
its satellites, which abandoned any promise of real social progress long 
ago, with the electoral and popular success we know. And within this 
trio, as we discussed last month[2], it is LFI that, by far, has built a 
hegemonic position in the landscape of the electoral left. Can we expect 
anything other than Jospin's PS from them?

If we believe that convictions are the product of the personal journeys 
of those who hold them, then Mélenchon's trajectory might lead us to 
doubt that he can conduct better policies than Jospin. After a childhood 
in a Pied-Noir family, like Jospin, he received his political training 
among the Trotskyists of the OCI, before quickly and early integration 
into the workings of the Socialist Party (PS) and the state, which led 
him, as early as 1986, to become the youngest senator in France at the 
age of 35. This continued until his time in government in 2000, where he 
served as Minister Delegate for Vocational Education under... Jospin. It 
wasn't until 2009 that, finding himself in a significant minority within 
the PS, he left to found the Left Party (PG), then La France Insoumise 
in 2016, a transformation never truly explained by the candidate, but 
which some PG activists interpreted at the time as a desire to dismantle 
the party's democratic structure.

Anti-capitalists?

What does that amount to in terms of ideas? Reading the LFI (La France 
Insoumise) platform, while there aren't many mentions of capitalism, we 
do find that "the new France must set itself the objective of breaking 
with capitalism" to overcome the ecological crisis. Not bad, even if 
Mitterrand's past lyrical pronouncements should already give us pause. 
To delve deeper, it's interesting to examine some recent exchanges the 
LFI candidate had with various interlocutors, including with Frédéric 
Lordon on the program Hors-Série[3], and with PCF (French Communist 
Party) elected official Stéphane Peu and LFI MP Aurélie Trouvé[4], on 
the topic of capitalism. While Mélenchon once again demonstrates his 
oratorical skills, he consistently sidesteps the question of the end of 
capitalism. But when Stéphane Peu asked him if he wanted to fight the 
capitalists, Mélenchon finally answered in the negative, indicating that 
for him, the real issue was the "oligarchy".

These substantive exchanges have the merit of, albeit laboriously, 
clarifying matters: within LFI, the "anti" in "anti-capitalist" should 
be understood as the "anti" in "antibiotic": just as antibiotics 
thankfully do not seek to kill all living things-the "organic"-LFI 
unfortunately does not seek to destroy capitalism as a whole, but only 
to smooth its rough edges by attacking its most visibly anti-social 
elements. Just as antibiotics actually seek to preserve life by 
eliminating pathogens from the organism, LFI ultimately seeks to 
maintain capitalism by trying to calm its most harmful outgrowths. Given 
such a political landscape, we can only warn friends and comrades who 
might be tempted by the siren call of reformism in 2027: if you were 
critical and disappointed by the Socialist Party of Mitterrand and 
Jospin, everything suggests that it will be similar with La France 
Insoumise (LFI) under Mélenchon. And while we will remain critical of 
the majority of Jospin's record, we can at least acknowledge his fight 
for gains that are still relevant today, and, despite our disagreements, 
salute one of the last representatives of a reformism that was, perhaps, 
genuinely anti-capitalist.

N. Bartosek (UCL Alsace)

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[1]"Jospin's 'entryism' as seen by Lambert," Le Monde, November 22, 2002.

[2]"Presidential Election 2027: Elections, traps for fools, and what 
next?"[3]"La France insoumise face au capitalisme" (France Unbowed vs. 
Capitalism), Special Edition, April 10, 2026, 1 hour 30 minutes 
available on YouTube, out of a 2-hour 38-minute broadcast.

[4]"Can Capitalism Have an End?", Jean-Luc Mélenchon's YouTube channel, 
April 9, 2026, 2 hours 25 minutes.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Point-de-vue-Avec-Jospin-la-mort-du-reformisme-sincere
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