Where do you get that the anonymous farmer was a right winger?
http://www.marxist.com/jean-luc-melenchon-and-the-question-of-the-sixth-republic.htm
08 May 2013
On 5 May, more than 100 000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Paris in answer to a call from the Left Front, around the demand for a “Sixth Republic”. The Left Front is essentially an alliance between the Communist Party (PCF) and the Left Party (Parti de Gauche), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The attendance shows the capacity of the Left Front to mobilise massive support, as it did on an even more impressive scale during the presidential elections one year ago. . . .
The present Republic was founded in 1958, following the attempted military coup of that year and the coming to power of General de Gaulle. The institutions of the Fifth Republic are – and were from the very outset – riddled with corruption. Sarkozy and his ministers were corrupt, and two leading members of the Socialist Party have been exposed in corruption scandals over the last two years, namely Dominique Strauss Kahn and Jérôme Cahuzec, who was in charge of state finances until he was forced to resign for tax evasion. In this respect, the Fifth Republic is no different to previous capitalist republics. The only honest government France ever knew was that of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune was a democratic workers’ Republic, which abolished privileges for state officials, although its authority was limited to the confines of Paris.
In the minds of those on the 5 May demonstration, the struggle against mass unemployment – now at the highest level ever, in the history of France – and the constant attacks of the capitalists and the “socialist” government against the rights and living conditions of the working people is linked to the need for an overall change in the social order. They want to sweep away the present republic – which they correctly see as being an instrument for the defence of capitalist interests – and replace it with a new one, which they hope would be more democratic and therefore more responsive to their demands.
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