WE DO NOT PRETEND that life or In addition, since Gaullism came to society can be changed by a city govern- power, the tutelage of the central state over The political rights and material resources of the municipal administrations ened. The budgetary strangling of most are narrowly limited by the bourgeois state, cies ocars lesumony lo lIs. Only in which the municipal administration is a thinking" cities receive significant cog surrounded by a genuine strait-jacket. subsidies from the regime. The hmited The city governments possess no autonomy political independence the cities could have to speak of. Even in the administration of commanded thus tends purely and simply to municipal affairs, the state apparatus sub- disappear. jects the city governments to a control much Our participation in the municipal elecmore powerful than that of the citizens: tions therefore does not aim at sustaining the illusion that a city can be transformed manoa rnancial control over une buager spending, and possibilities of borrowing; into an 'island of socialism' in a state that remains fundamentally bourgeois. Even nus une cuy bueget made up or ine crumbs the state feels like leaving to the with revolutionaries at their head, city governments in the context of the present cues. ne unior acmocracv m une cine thus requires a fight against the bourgeois society and institutions would have no greater resources with which to profoundly only by replacing the bourgeois state with a alter the conditions oi ine workers. Inus. simply managing the city institutions, even "democratically", a logic which aims solely integral part of an allegedly 'democratised" DOur-COIs slalc That said, in our programme we do propose increasing the budgetary resources of the cities in the framework of our general struggle for:
- elimination of the sales tax (VAT);
- a liscal system essentially directed against the capitalists and those with large incomes.
We will participate in all mobilisations to demand that the state subsidise all the urgent projects which the cities are unable to carry out because of lack of funds. Likewise we support extending me comperence of the municipal councils, against the tutelage or ine pretectures and LEC central function of the mayor as agent of both the state and the city. The mayor's powers must be reduced to those of a simple executive of the municipal council But we know that such changes can be acnieved only trough an overal suruggl by the entire toiling population against the bourgeois stare. Moreover, this is true evel of the limited demand that the cities be reimbursed for the VAT, the battle cry of the parties of the Union de la Gauche Nevertheless. it is in the context ot the city that the toiling population finds itself confronted by the thousand and one prob lems that flow from the capitalist organisation of socieiv. it is thus in the context ol the city that revolutionaries can demonstrate, deal with, and link together many aspects of capitalist society's inability to assure a life worthy of men and women
latforin for the ipal Elections WE INTEND TO CONDUCT THE CAMPAIGN AROUND THE FOLLOWING THEMES: