The NFP victory came with the exceptional mobilization of political, trade union, associative and citizen forces; it came from a left that managed to enter the battle and in a united way and without delay, on the basis of a common minimum program. It drew on intellectual, cultural and entertainment professionals, on a large number of young people, on those from popular neighborhoods, all eager to keep the New Popular Front alive and the extreme right out of power.
In the European elections of 9 June, the National Rally (RN) had won the highest score: almost 32% and 30 seats in the European Parliament. These results had hardly been published that Macron was already yielding to RN’s demands and announcing the dissolution of the national Assembly. A very risky political move that caused general consternation in Macron’s own movement, endangering 250 of his parliamentary seats, threatening the jobs of parliamentary assistants, ministries no longer functioning. Far from producing any unanimity, this decision (taken without consulting the political class) triggered only incomprehension, anger, the feeling of a leap into the void that would permit RN access to government and generate chaos.
With the announcement of a snap legislative election, Macron had looked for a political ‘clarification’. But contrary to his aim and instead of unity behind him, the result was a bitter policy failure as he lost his majority and arrived in 3rd position. This situation caused important divisions in the forces of the right. It caused ruptures in a bourgeoisie already greatly weakened by the internal conflicts and dissensions born from successive reforms that had been imposed without real delays for discussions. There was the breakup of Reconquête[3], the far-right movement of Éric Zemmour which cut itself off from Marion Maréchal-Le Pen[4], who had been vice president and supporter of Reconquête since the 2022 Presidential campaign; Zemmour accuses Reconquête of “betrayal” since Marechal announced her intention to make an alliance with RN and return to this party she had abandoned.
Then it was the turn of the right-wing party called Les Républicains. Without consulting his political office, its president Eric Ciotti suddenly decided to join the RN in the expectation of a 40 to 45% electoral result. This clearly came to pass, confirming how close a sector of the bourgeoisie has drawn to the positions of the extreme right. Previous signs of this were given when “a national preference” had become accepted in the Housing Reform project[5].
The fascist forces are the last card of financial capital
In the hands of billionaires and multinationals, the bourgeois medias have normalized the National Rally as a party that defends republican values. They have sought to decriminalize the extreme right by every means, presenting it as fit to lead the country. The fascist forces are the last card of financial capital to maintain the capitalist system, not only to repress the working class and the forces of social transformation, but to prepare for war also.
The bourgeois medias launched an all-out offensive between the two rounds of voting. They shamelessly announced that Jordan Bardella[6] Prime Minister was the inevitable coming reality. They invented insolent lies. In their attempt at shattering the union (NPF), they created fake websites against the left, against La France Insoumise(LFI)[7] in particular.
In the view of the large employers, the investors and high finance as relayed by the medias, if the so-called “violent, anti-Semitic and anti-republican” extreme-left wins the elections, it will impose on the country an ultra-leftist leader like Jean-Luc Mélenchon – the devil incarnate. For Bardella himself, the New Popular Front (NPF) represents “the alliance of the very worst, to bring disorder, insurrection and the ruin of our economy”. They all denounced the NFP’s program as if it were that of La France Insoumise (LFI and Mélanchon). But the NFP’s program is only a legislative contract with an ecological and social dimension which makes consensus among the leftist groups; very far from the more radical LFI program, some of its transformative measures are for incremental implementation over time.
In the second round of the election, the voters swept away all the lies and all the attempts at division. They imposed their will for the sake of another society; a society more humane, more united, respectful of democratic freedoms, everyone to live better with rising wages, a fair distribution of the wealth, the right to housing, retirement age back at 60, the return of all the liberal measures reversed in recent years, the end of the repressive and discriminatory policies that gnaw at the social conquests won through so much effort.
Macron did not call to block the RN, unlike in the past
In the second round, the tactical withdrawal of candidates other than RN made it possible to significantly reduce the number of the triangular contests[8] that had arisen in 306 constituencies in the first round. Macron did not call to block the RN, unlike in previous elections where he had maintained himself and his position thanks to this particular instruction. This time, he declared that the Republican Front was no longer appropriate[9]. Now that the left was emerging victorious, Macron showed that – like the bourgeoisie, big business and high finance – he preferred victory for the extreme right rather than for a Popular Front to reach government and develop an anti-capitalist program.
On 2 July (the day after the 1st round), 224 candidates had already tactically withdrawn, of whom 213 were clearly intended to block the RN, leaving now only 91 ‘triangulars’. The transfer leftwards of votes from Renaissance[10] – a Macronist movement that is partly to the left – has increased the internal political crisis of that movement; but the transfer of left votes towards Renaissance has allowed a certain number of Renaissance candidates to be maintained. This raises the question of the continued appropriateness of the Republican Front, and the political danger that it represents for the left in a society where the violent confrontation between two antagonistic political systems is accentuated, along with the porosity between the right and the extreme right.
The contingent ‘Culture’ held this banner in the huge 15 June 2024 demonstration in Paris, ahead of the July Legislative Elections, against the far-right, the Rassemblement National and the anti-immigration policies of the Macron government. Labour Unions, students and Human Rights groups were prominent.
The left has won these Legislative elections
The very high participation of the electorate was decisive in the victory of the left, even if it is still 90 seats away from absolute majority. But this influx of votes has also allowed a strong growth in the [representation of the] electorate favourable to the RN.
These legislative elections show the need to compose again the political landscape differently in France. On the part of the left, this re-composition will not be possible on the basis of unnatural alliances. The forces that have brought the NFP to where it is today are not going to allow this. You see this in the calls coming from many areas, in search of the concrete actions of resistance-building, for the setting up of popular assemblies and the strengthening of solidarity networks to organize, shore up and control the measures taken by the left, by the political forces as a whole, at the local and national level.
The majority of the country is not favourable to RN, its retrograde policy on culture, education, immigration; its restriction of freedoms, its ‘security’ policies. The experiences made in cities that elected RN mayors suffice to give an idea of what to expect in the country should RN reach power – as in the matter of rights for the popular associations, trade unions, civil organizations and cultural events, while public spending shrinks, along with the local services and the rights for immigrants.
Although the left has gained a respite in its fight against the extreme right, the danger is still present. Firstly, one must take into account that the dissensions within the left have not been resolved, and secondly because the RN garnered over 10.6 million votes in the second round, a score it never reached before.
In his “Letter to the French”, Macron makes clear his intention not to respect the result of the election. He keeps the previous government in place for the time being, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal whose resignation he rejected. Macron may maintain this status quo for a while, if only to oversee as he wishes the forthcoming Olympic Games in Paris.
The left is still discussing a choice of Prime Minister to be acceptable and accepted. In this situation where none of the parliamentary blocs has an absolute majority, the New Popular Front will need a skillful political strategy to make headway in the matter of the application of its program, against the motions of censure and the right-wing alliances that are going to form to stop it governing.
Nothing is going to be easy. It is Macron who is responsible for a chaotic political situation, a country that may become ungovernable. Because everything is going to be tried to fracture the NPF, the organisation of the population in all the territories, and at the local levels, will be important as a counter-power to impose the projects of economic, social and ecological transformations that respond to the needs of the population and that respect the electoral choice.
Les Posadistes – 13 July 2024
Feature picture: The Paris population celebrates the NPF’s victory on the evening of the 7 July 2024, Place de la République
[1] The New Popular Front (NFP) is a broad left-wing electoral alliance in France. It was launched on 10 June 2024 to contest the 2024 French legislative election following the gains of far-right parties in the 2024 European Parliament election in France (Wikipedia).
The NFP is an alliance of La France Insoumise (Jean-Luc Melanchon), the Socialist Party (Olivier Faure, ex-president Francois Hollande), the Ecologists (Marie Toussaint, Europe Ecology EELV), the French Communist Party (Fabien Roussell, who just lost his parliamentary seat to the RN, in the ‘circonscription du Nord’!) and Génération.
Generation must not be confused with the far-right ‘Generation Identité’. Génération contested the 2019 European Parliament elections as part of DieM25, winning no seats and 3.27% of the popular vote. It was part of NUPES for the 2022 French legislative election, and now, part of the New Popular Front electoral alliance for this 2024 French legislative election.
Historically, Génération was created on 1 July 2017 by Benoit Hamon. Its declared aim was “to re-found and gather the left”. It had previously been called ‘Mouvement du 1er Juillet’, Its foundation had followed the sharp decline of the Socialist Party in the 2017 presidential elections, in which Hamon had been the Socialist nominee, and the legislative elections that year in which Hamon had lost his seat. Today, Generation sees itself as ‘an initiative to assemble the forces of the left in France’ (extracts from Wikipedia).
[2] The National Rally (NR), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018, is a French nationalist and right-wing ‘populist’ party. Its candidate Marine Le Pen – MP from the Pas-de-Calais constituency – was defeated in the second rounds in the 2002, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. The NR is now co-led with Jordan Bardella. It lost again in the second round of these 2024 legislative elections.
[3] Reconquête can be known as R!. It is a far-right nationalist political party founded in late 2021 by Eric Zemmour, a far-right candidate in the 2022 presidential election, in which he placed fourth with just over 7% of the vote. Marine Le Pen once referred to him as ‘fascist’ .
[4] Marion Marechal-Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen, fights for ‘France First’ and “against the Islamisation of Europe”. Zemmour (himself convicted several times for inciting hatred and racism) attacks her and the RN for having become “too soft on issues including Islam in French society”.
[5] https://www.union-habitat.org/projet-de-loi-immigration-la-preference-nationale-gagne-le-droit-au-logement.
[6] In these Legislative Elections, Jordan Bardella was the candidate for the Rassemblement National (RN), the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.
[7] La France Insoumise (LFI), or France Unbowed, is an Eco-Socialist political party in France. It was launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament and former co-president of the Parti de Gauche. It aims to implement its democratic socialist programme “L’Avenir en commun”. Wikipedia extract.
[8] Triangulation (in the first round) was when the winners in a constituency were roughly 1/3 Macron, 1/3 RN and 1/3 New Popular Front.
[9] The Republican Front is so named because the RN is seen as “anti-republican”, on the grounds that its ‘French-first’ plans for a “national preference” in jobs and benefits, and some of its anti-immigration proposals, run contrary to constitutional principles of equality. (Wikipedia, extract).
[10] Renaissance (RE) is a liberal and centrist political party in France. It was originally known as En Marche ! and later La République En Marche ! before adopting its current name in September 2022.
