Silk Jackets, Fur Stoles Shown at Party Fair : French Communists Go High Style

There was a bold new look to the annual French Communist Party fair held over the weekend in this Parisian suburb.

The traditional speeches by party leaders were cut to a minimum. Instead, the several hundred thousand people who came to the giant, three-day Fete de l’Humanite were entertained with songs from popular crooner Charles Aznavour, a ballet from Hungarian choreographer Ivan Marko and a fashion show by Yves Saint Laurent.

And many of the display booths had little to do with politics or communism.

Even to the French, who have never seen much wrong with espousing revolution while enjoying the finer things in life, the dressed-up Communist fete was a little bit shocking.

The influential Paris newspaper Le Monde said that the new frills at the traditional autumn fair were part of an attempt by the Communist Party leadership “to recapture its electorate.” A columnist for the somewhat more lurid Journal du Dimanche described them as “something profoundly pathetic.”

‘The Great Return’ of the French

Party leaders defended the flashy new features of the fete, an extremely popular state-fair style event that celebrates “the great return” of the French from their annual summer vacations, as proof of the vitality and good health of their party.

Regarding the fashion show, in which slender models paraded in silk smoking jackets, multicolored fur stoles and more extreme styles, the party leaders said it was all “art.”

“The French adore high fashion,” explained Roland Leroy, director of the party newspaper, L’Humanite, which sponsors the fair. “They take pleasure in admiring it even when they can’t afford such clothes.”

Leroy is considered somewhat of a dandy in the French left, but even some of his T-shirt-clad comrades in the rank and file agreed.

“We feel that high fashion should not be the exclusive right of the high society,” said Sergeant Andre, 54, an unemployed electrician, as he grilled sausages at a Communist Party food stand.

“Besides,” he added, “the workers made those clothes.”

A more conventional view of the fashion show and other radical changes in the annual Communist showcase was that they reflected an attempt by the sagging party to attract a broader cross-section of the French population after dismal showings in recent elections.

For years, the French Communist Party, bolstered by its powerful trade union affiliate, the General Confederation of Labor, was a major factor in political life, winning as much as 28% of the popular vote. In the presidential election earlier this year, however, its percentage of the vote dropped to 6.7%, the lowest in more than 50 years.

The party recouped some of that loss in this summer’s legislative election, gaining 11.3% of the vote. But that was still far short of the 15% it had counted on in past elections.

More Electoral Tests Coming Up

Also, the party faces key local elections later this month in cantonal voting and next March in municipal balloting, where the party has traditionally shown its greatest strength.

With this in mind, Le Monde observed, the party hopes to use a jazzed-up fete as a springboard back to political respectability. Critics, however, say that such actions give the impression that the party is wounded and in danger of losing its political relevancy.

Like other Western European Communist parties with connections to the Soviet Union, the French party has not seemed to benefit from good will generated by the spirit of glasnost, Soviet leader Michael S. Gorbachev’s policy of openness.

Still, there were plenty of glasnost T-shirts on sale at booths in the sprawling French fair, along with Russian caviar. Periodically, the sun peeked through overcast skies as delicious odors of grilling sausages, frying crepes and melting cheese filled the air.