An optimist is someone without enough information, remarked a French specialist on climate change. The entirely satisfactory reply is that optimism (or pessimism) relates directly to what is going on around us. We are pessimistic when we think a course of action is wrong, and will fail us. We are optimistic when we believe an undertaking will succeed.

Those on the left are understandably pessimistic about the future of the Afghanistan war, the economic outlook, Canada under the Harper tyranny, or climate change. But there is good reason to be optimistic about the prospects for change. Is not changing the world is what the left is all about? As French philosopher, and writer Albert Camus (who died on January 4, 50 years ago in a car accident) said: “We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them.”

Much hope for change can be traced through the history of French socialism and social thought. A common theme is the desire for individual liberty, which can only be attained through advancing and protecting social equality. The goal of self-realization and individual fulfillment characterize the writings of thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, and the speeches and writings of the great socialist leaders Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum.

While Karl Marx thought that socialism would inevitably follow upon the fall of capitalism, Jaurès exclaimed that socialism was the desirable way to live, and was worth fighting for, and instituting now.

The French Section of the Workers’ International (precursor to the current French Socialist Party) was created in 1905, and rallied 150,000 people. Its smaller 19th century predecessors were divided, and ineffectual. In contrast, the German Social Democratic Party was formed in 1864, and counted a million members.

Paul Brousse, leader of the French “possibilists” one of the many tendencies alive in 19th century French socialism, declared in 1881 that demanding “everything-at-once” would lead to getting “nothing-at-all.” Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), advocate of revolution and centralized state socialism, spent 36 years in prison for advancing and defending his “blanquiste” ideas. Both these tendencies are still alive today.

The French socialists opposed the First World War, Jaurès its leader and Director of the party newspaper l’Humanité, wrote that an insurrection was preferable to a war. He was assassinated days before war broke out.

After the war, in 1920, at its party congress in Tours, two-thirds of the membership voted to leave and create the French Communist Party affiliated with the Third International established by Lenin. L’Humanité became the Communist Party newspaper (it is still linked to that party today). Léon Blum carried on defending the old Socialist home as he called it, and in 1936 was rewarded as he took power at the head of the Popular Front government, in alliance with the Radicals, and supported by the Communists.

Elected after seven years of world depression, the Popular Front stood for Bread, Peace, and Liberty. It fell a year later, when the partners were unable to agree on economic policy, or what to do about the Spanish civil war. The first Socialist premier of France, Blum was called the most hated man in the country.

The French socialists defended the Republican ideal in the Dreyfus affair which went on from 1894 until 1906. Jaurès and Blum met and came together in that epic struggle revived when it was thought lost (and eventually won according to Blum) by the famous “J’accuse” letter (published, January 13, 1898 in the L’Aurore newspaper) written by Emile Zola novelist and chronicler of life under capitalism, most notably in Germinal. The 18th century mathematician Condorcet, the 19th century poet Victor Hugo, Jaurès and Blum fought capital punishment which was only ended in France after François Mitterand became the first Socialist President of the Fifth Republic in 1980.

Unfortunately, the French socialist family is very divided today, again, and to an outsider looks dysfunctional. It is worth noting however that a healthy 43 per cent of French people believe that capitalism needs to be replaced because of its flaws. This is enough to give socialists a cause for optimism.

Duncan Cameron writes from France.