Jean-Laurent-Frederick Longuet

“ 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. ”

“ 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 the provinces socialism has only had to struggle against the bourgeois reaction properly so-called.
The Socialist party, perhaps for the first time, offered itself united, at least as far as voting is concerned, to the suffrages of the whole people. With some rare exceptions there was in each district of Paris only one Socialist candidate, and in each of the other cities of France only one Socialist ticket.
At Paris, among all the parties which struggled against nationalism, the Socialist was the only one which sustained no losses ”

“ 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 imply militarism and chauvinism, seems to me more evidently economic at its root, while it does not like the French nationalism involve a medieval anti-semitism. ”

“ Of twenty outgoing Socialist municipal councilmen, sixteen were re-elected and four defeated. But on the other hand four seats were gained by Comrades Ranvier, Weber, Poiry and Paris. Of the four newly elected, three are manual laborers; on the contrary, of the four Socialists who were defeated only one was a laborer and represented a laborers' district, the other three were professional men and represented middle-class districts. ”

“ As to the figures of the election, the Socialist party had 98,000 votes at Paris in 1896, while in 1900 they had 126,000.
All the bourgeois democratic parties have at Paris been crushed by nationalism. In the old municipal council there were 30 radicals, twenty Socialists, eighteen republican-opportunists and twenty-two reactionaries and nationalists. In the new one there are forty-four nationalists and reactionaries, twenty Socialists, fourteen radicals and two opportunists. ”

“ Augagneur, professor in the University of Lyons, one of the most learned physiologists of Europe, leads the victorious ticket of the Socialist party at Lyons, the second city of France, where thirty-three Socialists and radicals have been elected as against twenty-three reactionaries. ”

“ The radicals, who for a long time assumed the direction of the liberal element, and whose tendencies correspond exactly with those of the American Democrats and Populists, have offered a very ineffective resistance to the assault of the nationalists. ”

“ Etienne, a manufacturing city of more than 150,000 population, the Socialist party is victorious as a result of the great strike of last winter, which the Socialist party conducted the striking workers to a victory, especial credit being due to the admirable work of Comrade Jaures. ”

“ Under these conditions the results of the municipal elections in Paris May 6th and 13th are not surprising. Nationalism such as we have described it is especially strong at Paris, where the reaction finds in the petty bourgeois demagogy the element required to enable it to present itself under a new mask. ”