UPDATED
FRANCE
Popular Front Pushes Back Far Right
Journalists in France were quickly deleting the drafts they had been preparing when the exit poll came up on their screens. All the polls had been suggesting that Le Pen’s far-right National Rally would be at least the largest party and possibly even get close to an absolute majority. In the event, the mass mobilisation of the Left with the New Popular Front helped it become the largest bloc without getting a governing majority. Thanks to the call from the left to tactically vote for the best candidate to defeat the RN, the Macron bloc also did better than expected, although losing 80 seats in the process. Le Pen had been predicted to win up to 200 seats but did far worse. However, we should not forget her group topped the vote share, and the increase in her party’s seat tally is still historic.
Formation of the New Popular Front (NFP)
Given the collapse of NUPES in 2020, the previous left coalition that had blocked Macron from getting a working majority in 2022, it was not at all inevitable that the left would come together in a broad united front in these elections. The New Popular Front (NFP) ranged from the very moderate ex-President Francois Hollande to Philippe Poutou, the former presidential candidate from the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). The action programme it put before the electorate was a clear break both with the anti-working class neoliberalism of Macron and the social liberalism of the Socialist Party. People reacted positively to the idea of dumping Macron’s raising of the pension age or an increase in the minimum wage. There was a wave of enthusiastic support in the neighbourhoods, and the unions helped build big demonstrations against the post-fascist Le Pen.
Some small ultra-left organisations in France like Lutte Ouvrière and a split from the NPA criticised the NFP, stayed out, and stood candidates in the first round. They also refused to clearly call for a vote for the best-placed candidate in the second round in order to stop Le Pen. This is not so different, for example, than refusing to vote for Biden against Trump in swing states. The British Socialist Workers Party, in an article on their site, supported this position. If the left had not voted for Macron candidates in the second round, it would have meant an overall majority for Le Pen. Just listen to the relief expressed by ethnic minority people on TV in the Republic Square last night. They were terrified at a Le Pen government moving aggressively against so-called bi-nationals. Stopping a Le Pen government makes a real difference. Counter-posing mass struggles or street mobilisations as an immediate solution to defend black or Arab people is just demagogy. In fact, there is a strong argument that the formation of the NFP actually encouraged some of the biggest anti-racist, anti-fascist mobilisations we have seen in France for some time. As the NPA has argued, the NFP was not a barrier to mobilisations. Nor did it prevent the NPA from putting a class struggle line against the moderation of the PS or the Macronists.
The road ahead for the NFP
Today in France, people feel more confident and hopeful about keeping Le Pen out of government. The idea that the results just reinforce the moderate wing of the movement is just a one-sided analysis. Indeed, despite the huge media offensive against Jean Luc Melenchon that labelled him and his party as extreme or antisemitic for standing up for Palestine, his party is still the leading one inside the NFP. Of course, the PS has recovered some of their support – they always retained a local base – but they are still facing a strong challenge to their left, which did not exist a decade or so ago. The PS was not able to resist the fairly radical action programme adopted by the NFP. Today it is important because La France Insoumise (LFI, France Unbowed, led by Melenchon) is arguing that this programme should be the basis of any new government that the NFP leads.
This week the big issue is what next. There is no working majority for any of the three political blocs in parliament. Normally, the president approaches the biggest party or coalition to nominate a new prime minister. The current Macronist prime minister has already tendered his resignation pending a new order. Clearly, the non-LFI components of the NFP are not in favour of Melenchon as prime minister, despite him being the leader of the biggest party inside the NFP. Leaders of the Ecolos, like Tondelier or Rousseau, CP leader Roussel, as well as the moderate Glucksmann who is aligned with the PS, are calling for a discussion and vote involving all the NFP MPs. Hollande will also be using his influence to stop Melenchon. Olivier Faure, PS leader, has said a name will go forward to Macron by the end of the week.
Challenges for Melenchon and the NFP
Melenchon himself is a problematic leader. He purged a number of his dissident MPs at the start of the campaign, like Alex Corbière and Danielle Simonnet, who are certainly not ‘rightists’. They defied him and stood, eventually winning their seats. Melenchon has never really allowed democratic structures inside the LFI. So a certain reluctance to put him forward as Prime Minister is understandable. Corbière used his appearance on TV after the vote to raise the issue of democratic accountability inside the LFI. François Ruffin, another LFI dissident with a big national profile, has said he will no longer sit with the LFI group in parliament. He has presidential ambitions.
Macron’s strategy will be to try and set up some sort of emergency national coalition detaching moderate components of the PS and the Ecolos. This is not straightforward as these people have opposed his reactionary social policies on pensions and the like. If they got into bed with Macron, it would be a political gift to the LFI. At the moment, the LFI are emphasising the action programme that all the NPF signed up to. It is a good basis for further mobilisation, as the statement by the NPA points out (see below).
Glucksmann and others, on the other hand, are talking idealised scenarios of giving the parliament back to the people, apparently over and above the political parties. He waffles about a new politics, inventing a new political culture. Whatever happens, it is clear there will be new fissures and debates between and within the components of the NFP.
The Rassemblement National and future prospects
Although the RN has been pushed back, their position has still been strengthened compared to the previous parliament. An unstable period with no majority and various stitch-ups means they can frame it as the caste ganging up on the true defenders of French identity. So it could still provide them with plenty of space to build their forces.
One important task for radicals and progressives in this period will be to try and keep up the mobilisation of young people that we have seen in the NFP campaign. Le Pen and its youthful leader, Bardella, have been successful in winning a lot of young people. Mobilising progressive young people can eat into that support. Maintaining the neighbourhood NFP structures developed in the campaign would be one way of doing this.
Macron’s position has been weakened. The vote against the RN is not an expression of support for his policies, which have in fact made the bed for Le Pen. It cannot be excluded that down the line he will be forced to call early Presidential elections. Although it is a few years away, the question of candidatures, including Melenchon, will not be far from the political debate. Macron cannot stand, and it is questionable whether Macronism without Macron will remain a viable option.
New Anticapitalist Party (France): The far right has been pushed back by popular mobilisation — Now we must implement the program of the New Popular Front
The main lesson of the first results of this second round is the setback suffered by the Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) and its allies. The defeat of the hundreds of fascist, racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic and ultra-racist candidates put forward by the RN is a huge relief for racial minorities, women, LGBTI+ people and workers. This victory for the united left has halted the momentum of the far right, which nonetheless won around fifty more seats. This defeat of the far right of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen is the result of the popular mobilisation that took place thanks to the unitary impetus provided by the creation of the Nouveau Front populaire (New Popular Front, NFP).
This is already a victory for the NFP, which was made possible by the rallying of the entire left — political parties, trade unions and campaigning groups — and above all by the grassroots mobilisation of large sectors of the working classes, in particular racial minorities and young people, who committed themselves everywhere to blocking the RN. This made it possible for a very large number of NFP MPs (including a relative majority for La France Insoumise [France Unbowed, LFI]) to be elected to the National Assembly on the basis of a program that breaks not only with Macronism in the service of the ultra-rich, but also with the liberal left of the François Hollande mandate, which had followed the policies of the right.
The defeat of the RN should not hide the fact that it has increased its number of MPs very significantly and remains a threat to racial minorities, social rights and democratic freedoms. Nor should it obscure the defeat of the Macronists, who lost a third of their seats. If they still have so many MPs, they owe it only to left-wing voters, who largely switched to them in the second round to block the RN. This blocking vote in no way changes the electoral results: in both the European and legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron and Gabriel Attal were clearly disowned and therefore no longer have any legitimacy to claim to lead the country. Macron now has no option but to submit to the will of the people and allow a left-wing government to implement the NFP program, which now has the legitimacy of the ballot box. Otherwise, he must leave.
This rejection is also a rejection of the Fifth Republic and its authoritarian and undemocratic institutions. The popular mobilisation, marked by a turnout unprecedented in decades, also raises the need to move towards a Constituent Assembly, for a genuine democracy of the majority. From now on, the commitments made must be honoured, and all the emergency measures set out in the NFP programme must be applied, starting with the repeal of the pension and unemployment insurance reforms.
This can only happen if popular momentum is maintained and extended. That means building NFP collectives at grassroots level, open to everyone, which can help to amplify the movement and build mobilisations and strikes over the coming months. No government of national unity can respond to the aspirations expressed in the ballot boxes today. We must remain united to act, to debate and to map out an emancipatory perspective that will push back the far right in the long term, around a left that fights and breaks from the system, a left that can radically transform this society!
The French Did It, We Can Too
JULY 12, 2024
Photograph Source: Acediscovery – CC BY 4.0
Threatened with the possibility that a far-right political party, the National Rally, might come to power on its anti-immigrant platform, the French left united and created a coalition called the New Popular Front. After the first round of the election, pundits predicted that the quasi-fascist National Rally would win the election. But the fear of the right and its racism, authoritarianism, and odor of Nazism, and the rapid assembly of a coalition of leftists, pro-labor, pro-immigrant, and environmentalist parties inspired the French people who voted to defend their Republic and its historic values inherited from the French Revolution summed up in the slogan of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” And in the Place de la République they celebrated by singing the socialist anthem the Internationale, the song that recalls the French attempt at a socialist revolution in 1848, the Paris Commune of 1871, the powerful Socialist and Communist parties of the country’s past, and the Maqui, the French resistance to the Nazi occupiers during World War II.
Why did the New Popular Front win? First, they put forward a new political option, a leftist coalition created to meet the moment. Second, they engaged in a spirited campaign based on a progressive program aimed at taking wealth form the wealthy and providing resources to the working class and the poor. Third, they entered into an honest alliance with President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble coalition, showing a willingness in contested constituencies to step aside for the centrist candidate, just as the centrist candidates stood aside for the left candidate. Witnessing this new idealistic political alternative, the French people seized the opportunity to be their best selves, a population rejecting fascism and endorsing democracy.
Let Us Do What They Did
First, like the French, we need a new inspiring alternative. That means that Biden must step aside and allow the Democrats to choose a new candidate in some democratic process, through public debates and an open party convention. Whether this is Vice-President Kamala Harris or someone else, what is important is replacing Biden in whom the country no longer has confidence. Having done that, the Democrats need to put that candidate on the road in a national tour offering a progressive program and excoriating Trump’s far right, anti-democratic, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, and anti-union platform. A new candidate running on a progressive program and lashing out against Trump could inspire the American people and let us too become our best most democratic, most egalitarian, most socially responsible selves.
The Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity has made it absolutely necessary to defeat Trump who if elected will, as Justice Sotomayor has said, have the power of a king. Beating Trump is not impossible, but it requires Democratic Party politicians to show courage and creativity and it demands that if they prove capable of that, that we vote for the Democratic Party presidential candidate, whoever that may be.
Let us too be able to celebrate in our squares and plazas across the country, singing our anthems of social justice, “Solidarity Forever,” “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “De Colores,” “Bread and Roses,” “I Will Survive,” and “Won’t Give Up.” We will sing remembering the great workers’ movements of our past, the fight for the civil rights of Black Americans and of Latinos, the women’s liberation movement, Stonewall and the LFBTQ movements, and the environmental movement. We will vote for the Democrats not because we expect that party to deliver us, but because it will keep Trump from power and give us more time to organize the great movement we need and a new political alternative.
The French did it. We can and we must do it too.
Thanks to a Massive Mobilization of the Left in France, the Far Right Cannot Control the Government
What are the results of the parliamentary elections in France on 7 July 2024?
In the second round of France’s parliamentary elections on 7 July 2024, the National Rally (Rassemblement National -RN-) suffered a political defeat, even though it increased its number of MPs. The wager of the far-right party was to win a majority in the National Assembly (along with its allies who have been expelled from the right-wing party Les Républicains), which would have enabled Jordan Bardella, the party leader alongside Marine Le Pen, to become prime minister. This outcome seemed possible after the European elections on 9 June 2024 and the first round of parliamentary elections on 30 June when the far-right RN had excellent scores and the political bloc behind President Macron was in complete disarray.
Their objective was not achieved because on 7 July voters of the Left mobilized in favor of candidates of the Nouveau Front Populaire that came together in four days after 9 June when Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly following his rout in the European elections. Indeed his bloc had obtained only half of the votes garnered by the Rassemblement National and half of the votes that had gone to the various parties of the Left, who had competed in scattered fashion.
How can the setback of the Rassemblement national and its allies be explained?
The main reason for the far Right’s setback can be found in the decision made by Left-wing forces after the 9 June European elections to build a united bloc under the name Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front – NFP). This new front of the Left brought together La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), the Ecologists (LE), the Communist Party (PCF) and NPA-L’Anticapitaliste, with LFI as the driving force. The Socialist Party and others soon understood that they had to join even if a number of senior executives were reluctant and some even refused to join. Unity of the Left was of the essence since the French parliamentary election is a majority election with two rounds. Unlike a proportional election in which alliances could be negotiated later, it was important to propose only one candidate of the Left in each constituency to secure the best possible chance of going through to the second round, and winning.
The Right and the major media, including public service media that are more and more closely monitored by the government and are favorable to big capital, harshly criticized the Nouveau Front Populaire, claiming that it included parties – namely the LFI and the NPA – that support “terrorism.” Many commentators even pointed to the alleged anti-Semitism of LFI and NPA. The slurs were extremely violent and outright mendacious. Despite this hateful campaign, the NFP managed to agree on a program and put forward candidates everywhere. The violence was not only verbal, but included physical attacks by the far Right.
Many of the Left’s voters were convinced that on this occasion it was necessary to pull together and go into the neighborhoods, public squares, weekly markets and all places of debate. The awareness of the danger represented by a possible victory for the far Right made it possible for the Left to mobilize in large numbers.
What can be said about the NFP’s program?
The programme on which the Nouveau Font Populaire stood for election is not anti-capitalist, but it is resolutely anti-neoliberal and pro-working class. It is unambiguously opposed to Macron’s policies. It clearly counters the expectations of corporations and the richest 10% of the population. A few of its key measures are: a minimum wage at €1,600 NET, reinstatement of the wealth tax (ISF) cancelled by Macron in 2018, taxes on superprofits, repeal of Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform with the aim of reducing the retirement age to 60, repeal of unemployment insurance reforms, automatic indexation of wages to inflation, cancellation of the recent rise in the price of gas on 1 July, a freeze on certain prices, a 32-hour working week “in arduous or night jobs”, a more progressive income tax scale (in concrete terms, this would mean a return to a scale with 14 brackets as opposed to the current 5), a moratorium on unnecessary major projects, a move towards completely free schooling and recognition of the State of Palestine.
The NFP’s programme is a step back from the program of the Union de la Gauche (Union of the Left) in France in the early 1980s, but 40 years of the neoliberal offensive have had a profoundly regressive effect.
What were the results of the European elections on 9 June 2024?
The Rassemblement National came in far ahead of any other party, with 31.4% of the vote (over 7.7 million votes), more than double the votes for Emmanuel Macron’s list, which obtained just 14.6% (3.6 million votes). In addition, there was another far-Right list featuring Marine Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal Le Pen and Éric Zemmour. Their list got 5.5% of the vote. There was also a list from the traditional Right, “La droite pour faire entendre la voix de la France en Europe” (the Right to make France’s voice heard in Europe), which obtained 7.25% of the vote.
The Left was dispersed during the EU parliamentary elections. The list supported by the Socialist Party (PS) obtained 13.8% of the vote, that of La France Insoumise (LFI) 9.9% and that of the Ecologists (LE) 5.5%. In all, the Left won less than 30%. Voter turnout was low: 51.5%.
In light of the resounding defeat of the presidential camp’s list, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called early elections. The constitution allows the president to continue in office until his term expires in 2027, even if he has to cohabit with a government that opposes him.
What were the results of the first round of the snap legislative elections on 30 June 2024?
The Rassemblement National, which after the EU elections had succeeded in splitting the traditional right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) by forming an alliance with its president, Éric Ciotti, scored 33.22%, better than its score on 9 June. It won 10.6 million votes. The presidential camp obtained only 23% of the vote. The Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front – NFP), which formed immediately in the wake of the European elections, united the majority of the Left and obtained 28% of the vote, not counting the votes won by various left-wing candidates sidelined by the LFI’s leadership, as well as PS dissidents and others. The LR, which had expelled its president Éric Ciotti, obtained 6.6%. Voter turnout was very high: 66.7%.
The huge success of the Rassemblement National list and its allies came as a shock. There was a real risk of the far Right running the government (in cohabitation with President Macron). Young people and activists of the Left who began mobilizing on the evening of the European elections on 9 June stepped up their level of activity to avoid the worst happening. Not only is the program promoted by the Rassemblement National inherently racist, but if the party came to power there would have been an increase in racist acts and attacks by far-right activists and the police, a majority of whom vote for the far Right.
In the minutes following the results of the first round on 30 June, the leadership of La France Insoumise, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon as their spokesperson, followed very quickly by the whole of the Nouveau Front Populaire, announced that in order to beat the far Right in the second round, it would withdraw its NFP candidate in every constituency where the NFP came third and the Rassemblement National came first.
The same was not true of the presidential camp, as a series of Macron allies, and even ministers like Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, said that they would never withdraw in favor of an LFI candidate to beat the far-right RN. The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, finally took the initiative of calling for a “republican front” to beat the far Right, but it did not lead to unanimity in the presidential camp or in the rest of the traditional Right.
Only seven days remained in which to avoid a takeover by the far Right. Many intellectuals of the Left, and the overwhelming majority of its social movements and citizens, issued numerous statements and held rallies calling for a “roadblock” against the extreme Right. The CGT labor federation union was very active, as was Sud Solidaires. The leadership of the moderate CFDT federation also got involved.
But at the same time, the majority of commentators with access to the major private and public media continued their attacks on La France Insoumise and the NFP, which included the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste), led by Philippe Poutou, which they accused of being “pro-terrorist” and “anti-police”. Moreover, the RN continued to be invited on all the media platforms, and many prominent journalists displayed empathy with them, whether actual or prompted by circumstances. The polls predicted victory for the RN. And admittedly, a significant proportion of the popular classes and the traditional working class had voted for the RN and were going to do so again. Nor was there any guarantee that, in order to block the far Right, left-wing voters would be prepared to vote for a candidate from the presidential camp or from the rest of the Right, whose actions had in fact encouraged the rise of the RN and who had passed anti-immigrant laws with the RN’s support. Similarly, there was no guarantee that voters on the Right would vote for an LFI or far-left candidate to prevent the election of a candidate from the RN. In the working class camp, the desire to inflict another defeat on Macron’s camp might well continue to take the form of a vote for the RN and not only for the NFP.
What were the results of the second round of legislative elections on 7 July?
+ The big winner of the second round was the Nouveau Front Populaire, which won 182 legislative seats, plus 14 other MPs from various parties of the Left, for a total of 196 seats. In the interest of simplicity we can round the figure up to 200.
+ The minority presidential camp was second with 168 MPs, a loss of 95 seats.
+ In the end, the far-right camp won 143 seats (126 for the Rassemblement National and 17 for its allies, including Éric Ciotti and the other LR members who followed him and who were also expelled from the party). The RN gained 37 seats compared to 2022.
+ Les Républicains (LR), the traditional right-wing party which is in fact closer to the rhetoric of the far Right, won 45 seats (a loss of around twenty seats compared to 2022).
Within the New Popular Front bloc, how is the weight of the different political forces distributed?
La France Insoumise was first with 74 seats (compared with 75 in 2022), followed by the Socialist Party with 59 seats (up sharply compared to its poor result in 2022, when it won just 31 seats), the Ecologists with 28 seats (compared with 23 in 2022) and the Communists (PCF) with 9 parliamentary seats (whereas with its allies in 2022 it had 22). [1] A further 12 NFP MPs are not members of any of the parties mentioned above. The NPA, whose candidate was Philippe Poutou in the Aude department, won no seats.
Within the NFP, the LFI members are clearly the farthest on the left. There are also a few MPs of the Left who had been excluded from the official NFP lists by the LFI leadership and who were still elected on 7 July.
But within the NFP, even though the LFI is the leading force, the PS has made significant gains. What effect will that have?
It is important to consider what is ahead in the light of the gains made by the PS, because that party bears heavy responsibility for the social disaster and the disillusionment of the past ten years (and also the period that preceded it). One of the new PS MPs is former president François Hollande, who personifies those heavy negative responsibilities. Recall that he was elected president in 2012 against the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on the promise to put an end to neoliberal policies. He had said that “his enemy was Finance.” But in fact his action was only a continuation of those of the presidents of the Right who preceded him and of their neoliberal policies. He made gift after gift to the major banks, to “Finance” and to the wealthiest segment of the population. It was Hollande who recruited Emmanuel Macron into his government from the Rothschild bank. In 2015, when the Greek people voted Syriza (a coalition of the radical Left) to power, François Hollande and his government joined with Angela Merkel’s rightist government and with the Troika [2] to make sure that austerity policies were kept in place, against the will of Greece’s people.
In the end, in the 2017 elections that brought Macron to the presidency, the PS suffered a crushing political defeat. The party lost 286 legislative seats and was left with only 45 MPs. In terms of votes, in the second round of the 2017 legislative elections the PS took only 7.5% of the vote, whereas the Macron bloc won 49.1% of the vote and 349 seats. In the 2022 legislative election the PS lost even more seats and was left with only 31. At that time it was part of the NUPES coalition, formed at the initiative of LFI, which won a total of 151 seats, 75 of which were for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s LFI itself.
By comparison the 2024 results are a comeback for the PS, since it now has 59 seats.
Regarding the appointment of the prime minister, there is talk of an “unwritten rule” in the constitution of the Fifth Republic. What is it?
Normally, according to unwritten rule and customary practice under the Fifth Republic, the president appoints a prime minister from among the members of the bloc who came in first in the legislative elections. In this case the Nouveau Front Populaire came in first, and within the NFP coalition La France Insoumise was by far the leading political group. Therefore a member of LFI should become prime minister.
But that is precisely where all kinds of manœuvres can take place.
Big capital wants to avoid having a member of LFI lead the government and determine the agenda. From their point of view, the lesser evil would be for a member of the Socialists to be appointed PM, which would provide more guarantees that the privileges of the wealthiest 1% and the major private corporations would be preserved. So it is more than obvious that the leaders of the Macron bloc want to split off the NFP and seek a compromise with the political forces that are closer to them and more “responsible” – meaning the PS and perhaps certain Ecologists.
Other possible developments from other quarters will also need to be taken into account.
Under these conditions, since the NFP did not win an absolute majority in the Assemblée, it would be well advised not to take on governmental responsibilities, since the situation will not allow it to apply its programme. Their entering the government could cause new divisions and disappointments which could contribute further to abstention or to more votes for the RN. It is better to make a priority of building a social and political front on a foundation of unity in the popular neighbourhoods, in workplaces, etc. A social and political front capable of empowering mobilizations to build a favourable balance of power and use it to win victories, and in any case to push back against the offensive of the Right and Far Right.
Has the fact that France has already seen major social mobilizations in recent years, in particular against the (counter-) reform of retirement in 2022–2023, but also against police violence against racialized persons, played a role in the failure of the Rassemblement National?
There’s no doubt that the fact that in recent years hundreds of thousands and even millions of people have mobilized against Macron’s anti-social, anti-immigrant and repressive policies has helped to create a climate conducive to fighting back against the danger of the far Right.
During the major social mobilizations that have lasted over time without achieving victory, there has not only been frustration and disillusionment; an ability to debate, to organize protests collectively and to develop a collective spirit has also developed. This did not affect the whole population, which explains the real success of the RN, which won votes in some sections of the working classes, particularly in rural areas and in urban areas most affected by deindustrialization, as is the case in Northern France. In most urban areas, there is greater resistance to the penetration of the ideas of the RN, the far Right and the Right in general. This is also clearly the case in urban areas with a high proportion of racialized persons. The fact that LFI and other social forces were not afraid to express their deep solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rejection of racist and anti-immigrant policies convinced sectors of the population to vote for the NFP and against the RN as well as against Macron and the traditional Right.
Is the issue of public debt returning to the center of the debate?
In all the statements from the Right and the Macronist camp, in a multitude of comments in the media, the argument of the unsustainable level reached by the public debt and the need for new budgetary austerity is constantly recurring. They stress the need to comply with the European Commission’s injunctions to reduce the public deficit. The supposed threat posed by the arrival of the Left in government and the supposed dangers in the NFP’s program is constantly being brandished, along with the idea that any implementation of that program would cause markets to panic, the cost of debt to soar and capital to flee. In other words, the same refrain we hear every time the Left is on the doorstep of government; and the aim is not only to frighten public opinion but also to convince the Left’s representatives to abandon any desire not to continue bowing to the dictatorship of the markets and therefore of big business.
In the battle of ideas, it will be important to explain that governments, the Commission and the ECB were willing to increase public debt in order to finance expenditures in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic and the economic and social crisis that it exacerbated. The Macron government and European leaders have been unwilling to tax the super-profits of the big pharmaceutical companies – in particular vaccines producers – which have made scandalous profits at the expense of society. The same goes for retail companies – particularly those specializing in online sales and IT services – which have also made huge profits. Then, when gas prices rocketed in the wake of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, Macron’s government and those of other countries were unwilling to control energy prices and freeze them, allowing fossil fuel and energy companies to also make huge profits at the expense of society. Lastly, when food prices soared as a result of the war in Ukraine and speculation on cereals, cereal companies made super-profits. Just like the major retail chains, which have increased retail food prices disproportionately and abusively, causing a sharp rise in inflation and a loss of purchasing power for the working classes. The Macron government has refused to impose extraordinary taxes on their profits. Arms production companies are also reaping yet more profits from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, with the full support of leaders of the NATO member countries.
Conclusion
In this situation, and with this refusal to levy taxes on the companies that benefited from the crisis and on the richest segment of the population, the States have increasingly resorted to debt financing instead of financing themselves via tax revenues, except for those from indirect taxes on consumption (Value Added Tax – VAT), which are extremely damaging for the vast majority of the population and in particular for the lowest income sectors.
In the battle of ideas, we need to show that for these reasons, a large part of the public debt is illegitimate and must be audited and cancelled.
The migration policies of European leaders and national governments will also be hardened, and human-rights abuses will increase. Human-rights violations will increase, despite denunciations by the European Court of Human Rights and human rights associations. We will need to mobilize. If a powerful social and political front can be put in place from the base to the summit, resistance is possible and victories can be won.
The climate inaction of President Macron and the European institutions will also worsen. A powerful social movement is indispensable for the adoption of genuine measures to combat the environmental crisis.
Rearmament will accelerate. We must also succeed in launching a movement to oppose it.
We must also mobilize in defence of the rights of women and LGBTQIA+ persons.
The rhetoric of the far Right and policies that support it are likely to continue to spread.
As a result, the antifascist struggle and protest actions against the rise of the Far Right will become increasingly important.
Post script:
In the EU parliament, a new legislative group has just been formed, called “Patriots for Europe,” and will be headed by Jordan Bardella. It includes, on the one hand, MEPs from the party of Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and of the two far-right Czech parties Ano and Oath and Motorists, who number 20, and the former EU Parliament group led by Marine Le Pen, Identity and Democracy, which had 58 MEPs, plus the 6 members from Spain’s Vox, who have left the other far-right parliamentary group ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists), led by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. The new “Patriots for Europe” group will total 84 MEPs. The ECR group led by Meloni has been reduced with the exit of the Vox members and now totals 78 seats. The updated breakdown of legislative groups can be seen on the EU Parliament’s Web site at: https://results.elections.europa.eu/en/tools/comparative-tool/
During the parliamentary term that has just ended, the two far-right groups in the European Parliament totalled 118, whereas in the new EP, the two parliamentary groups have 162 members, to which should be added the 15 members of the German AfD, who are not currently part of any group. Breakdown of the Patriots for Europe EP group in order of importance:
— Rassemblement national: 30;
— Fidesz-KDNP: 11;
— Lega: 8;
— ANO: 7
— FPÖ: 6;
— Vox: 6;
— PVV: 6;
— Vlaams Belang: 3;
— Oath and Motorists: 2;
— Chega: 2;
— Danish People’s Party: 1;
— Latvia First: 1;
— Voice of Reason: 1
The author thanks Maxime Perriot for proofreading.
Translated by Snake Arbusto and Christine Pagnoulle.
Footnotes
[1] It remains to be seen how the number of MPs allied with or affiliated with the PCF will evolve.
[2] The “Troika” is the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
French Elections: What the Global Left
Should Learn About Defeating the
Far-Right
A united left is a formidable opponent that cannot only halt the surge of neo-fascism, but can also offer a positive and inspiring vision for the future.
Far-right forces have gained ground across Europe, particularly in Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In fact, the Netherlands has a new government, a coalition between far right and right, and the far right came first in the first-round of France’s snap election. But fearful of the prospect of a neo-fascist and xenophobic party in government, French voters came out in record numbers and rallied not behind Ensemble—the centrist coalition led by President Emmanuel Macron—but behind the coalition of left forces calling themselves the New Popular Front (NFP), delivering in the end a blow to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) which had made historic gains in the first round and topped the poll with 33.15 percent of the votes cast. NFP came in first in the run-off election, with 188 seats, but falling short of majority.
France’s snap parliamentary election results help us to make sense of the surge of the far right and offer valuable lessons for the left all over the world, including the U.S. where a centrist democrat and a wannabe dictator face off in November.
First, it is crystal clear that the main reason for the rise of Europe’s far right, authoritarian, and ethnonationalist forces is the status quo of neoliberal capitalism. The neoliberal counterrevolution that begun in the early 1980s and undermined every aspect of the social democracy model that had characterized European political economy since the end of the Second World War has unleashed utterly dangerous political forces that envision a return to a golden era of traditional values built around the idea of the nation by fomenting incessant and socially destructive change.
France’s snap parliamentary election results help us to make sense of the surge of the far right and offer valuable lessons for the left all over the world.
True to its actual aims and intent, neoliberalism has exacerbated capitalism’s tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer, reduced the well-being of the population through mass privatization and commercialization of public services, hijacked democracy, decreased the overall functionality of state agencies, and created a condition of permanent insecurity. Moreover, powerful global economic governance institutions—namely, the unholy trinity of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization—took control of the world economy and became instrumental in the spreading of neoliberalism by shaping and influencing the policies of national governments. It is under these conditions that ethnonationalism, racism, and neofascism resurfaced in Europe, and in fact all over the world.
In France, the rise of the far right coincided with President François Mitterand’s turn to austerity in the 1980s as his government fell prey to the monetarist-neoliberal ideology of the Anglo-Saxon world. Once Mitterand made his infamous neoliberal turn, the rest of the social democratic regimes in southern Europe (Greece under Andreas Papandreou, Italy under Bettino Craxi, Spain under Felipe Gonzalez, and Portugal under Mario Soares) tagged along, and the eclipse of progressivism was underway.
Less than two decades later, reactionary political forces had emerged throughout Europe as extreme neoliberal economic policies had paved the way for the emergence of political tendencies with an eye to exploiting the catastrophic social and economic impacts of neoliberalism by tapping into a huge reservoir of public anger and discontent with the establishment. Indeed, as neoliberalism tightened its grip on domestic society, far right forces gained more ground. The surge of Marine Le Pen’s RN occurs against the backdrop of Macron’s obsession with converting France into a full-fledged neoliberal society.
A crucial lesson offered by the results of France’s snap election (as well as by Labour’s victory in UK) is that economics remains the rule of the day. Political forces that seek to promote multiculturalism and social rights while pushing at the same time the neoliberal economic agenda will, in the end, get the short end of the stick.
Initially, Macronism was a strategy of trying to appeal to a wide range of center-left and center-right voters by defending secular social rights and even making gestures to LGBTQ people but always with an eye to transforming the social contract and freeing up the “energy of the workforce.” Macron’s “progressive liberalism” philosophy worked up to a point. It backfired in a big way along the way when workers, farmers, and minority groups realized that their economic future was at stake by Macron’s pro-market policies—and that was clearly far more important to them than concerns over social issues and even the environment itself. The “yellow vest” movement that rocked Macron’s presidency in 2018 and left an “indelible mark” on French politics was the first indication that any set of government reforms that carried a disproportionate impact on the working and middle classes was going to be severely challenged.
In the end, Macronism even lost the support it initially had from women’s and LGBTQ organizations, and not simply because Macron’s stance on social policies hardened along the way as part of an opportunistic and desperate attempt on his part to stir conservative voters away from the arms of the far right. It is worth pointing out here that, unlike most social movements which are male-dominated, the “yellow vest” movement was distinguished by the “high proportion of women” that took part in the protests. It was economics that drove French women out into the streets, demonstrating against Macron government’s unjust tax reform measures.
Again, the lesson here is that voters are unlikely to be deceived by the sort of political rhetoric that emphasizes diversity, multiculturalism, and environmental concerns while policies are being pursued in favor of a brutal neoliberal economic setting. Social rights under neoliberalism is a mirage. This is a critical lesson for all left forces in an age in which multiculturalism and the politics of identity play such a prominent ideological role. We see the counter effects of this ultimately “pro-capitalist-stratagem” in the U.S. where voters without college degrees, which amount to over 60 percent of the population, are overwhelmingly on Trump’s camp. A similar tendency can be seen in the Latino community as a growing segment of Hispanic voters are joining Trump’s GOP party.
Voters are unlikely to be deceived by the sort of political rhetoric that emphasizes diversity, multiculturalism, and environmental concerns while policies are being pursued in favor of a brutal neoliberal economic setting.
For the benefit of political expediency and ideological integrity alike, the left should stick to its universalist traditions while remaining of course sensitive to diversity and particularism. But it has no business playing the game of identity politics that has become the hallmark of corporate capitalism and of the liberal political establishment. Last thing we need is a cultural and post-material left morphed into a movement vying for space in a capitalist dominated universe.
More important, as the unique experience of the formation of a coalition of leftist parties in France for the snap parliamentary election attests, the left’s best hope for making major inroads in today’s western societies, which are unquestionably highly complex and diversified, is by introducing and promoting an attractive yet realistic economic agenda that addresses the immediate concerns of average people but without losing sight of the broader objective of the leftist vision which is none other than social transformation.
The “shocking” success of the New Popular Front in the run-off election in France did not materialize simply because French voters wanted to halt the rise of the far right to power, which is the mainstream interpretation. French voters backed NFP for two key reasons: first, because they finally saw the left leaving behind factionalism and, second, because they were lured by its radical manifesto.
For the first time since the 1930s, not only has an anti-fascist alliance been revived in France but there is now hope for the future of the left because of its economic vision, assuming of course that the left can stay united beyond the election. And this is perhaps the greatest lesson leftist forces should draw from the French snap elections: a united left is a formidable opponent that cannot only halt the surge of neo-fascism but can also offer real hope for a humane and sustainable future.
CJ Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He has published scores of books and over one thousand articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).
