The Political Situation in France and the Municipal Elections.
For the last three months the political life of the Socialist party has been absorbed by the municipal campaign which has just ended with the election of mayors throughout the French municipalities. I must first inform our American comrades briefly regarding the electoral system enjoyed by the cities and villages of France. To begin with, Paris must be distinguished from the rest of the country. The capital of the French republic, on account of its revolutionary record and especially the recent events of the commune, has been presented by our rulers with a special government. In all other towns, the largest and the smallest alike, the municipal council, chosen by universal suffrage, selects its mayor, who administers under its control, and directs the police. The city of Paris on the other hand does indeed elect municipal councilmen, but these are not empowered to choose a mayor, and the police is placed under the orders of the prefect of police, an officer named by the central government. Moreover, a part of the ordinary duties of a mayor is at Paris entrusted to a government official, the prefect of the Seine. While speaking of the difference between the municipal system of Paris and of the provinces, I should add that while most of the municipal councils in the provinces are elected on a general ticket for the whole city, Paris, on the contrary, is divided into eighty very unequal districts, each of which chooses a municipal councilman. The rich districts of the center and the west with an average population of fifteen to twenty thousand thus have a representation equal to that of the vast swarms of the east, the north and the southeast, like "La Riquette," "Clignancourt," "Belleville" or "La Gare," where the population reaches seventy, eighty or a hundred thousand.
In a very interesting article which Comrade A. M. Simons wrote for the new French Socialist review, "La Movement Socialists," he explains very clearly that in America you do not have to deal with those survivals of feudal, aristocratic and clerical reactionaries against which the organized proletariat must direct its best efforts in France, Germany and Italy. It is in a bitter struggle against this reaction, which in France is called "Nationalism," that at the present hour the French militant Socialists are obliged to direct their efforts. In truth you have even in America, as well as in England, an analogous movement, namely, imperialism. But your Anglo-Saxon imperialism, while it may
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