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FRENCH CENTRISTS MUST DECIDE: SUPPORT THE LEFT – OR HAND THE KEYS
OF POWER TO THE FAR RIGHT?  
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Cole Stangler
July 1, 2024
The Guardian
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_ French voters face a stark choice when they head back to the polls
on 7 July: do they want some type of coalition government with a
centre of gravity to the left of the current one, or do they want to
give the far right the keys to state power.... _

Rassemblement National supporters react to a speech by Marine Le Pen
in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, last Sunday, June 30., Photograph:
François Lo Presti/Agence France-Presse(AFP) // The Guardian

 

It was an impressive score for a coalition frantically cobbled
together only three weeks ago. On Sunday, France’s broad leftwing
electoral alliance, the New Popular Front, won about 9m votes, behind
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN
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but comfortably ahead of Emmanuel Macron and his allies.

As a result, French voters face a stark choice when they head back to
the polls on 7 July: do they want some type of coalition government
with a centre of gravity to the left of the current one, or do they
want to give the far right the keys to state power for the first time
since the second world war?

Whatever Macron was hoping for when he called the snap elections, this
couldn’t have been it. His wild gamble relied on the assumption that
leftwing parties wouldn’t unite – and they quickly proved him
wrong [[link removed]]. They agreed
on a simple economic programme
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more popular than what his floundering presidency has to offer: a rise
in the minimum wage to €1,600 (£1,400) a month after social
security contributions, more investment in public services and the
return of the wealth tax. And they positioned themselves as defenders
of France’s core democratic values, more effective opponents of the
RN’s immigrant-bashing and race-baiting than the president and his
allies.

Much will be made of the far right’s domination of rural France. The
trend is real and shouldn’t be ignored. From the shores of Normandy
to the Mediterranean coast, the brown-coloured wave
[[link removed]] rippling across the
French heartland looks like something out of a US election, where the
Republican party now sweeps county after county in much of the
country.

But if you look more closely at the map, another France is there, too:
cities such as Paris, Lyon and Toulouse, where the New Popular Front
triumphed; working-class suburbs inhabited by large proportions of
immigrants and their descendants who turned out to defend the promise
of a diverse social democracy that guarantees their full rights as
French citizens; pockets of rural France that still lean leftward,
especially in Brittany and in the south-west, despite the RN’s
historic gains. Young people also clearly turned out for the left:
according to an Ipsos study, nearly half of those aged 18-24
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ballots for the New Popular Front.

Given the painfully short campaign, the obvious internal tensions and
the sheer level of hostility it faced from its foes, it’s remarkable
that the New Popular Front even did this well. When compared with the
first round of the last legislative elections in 2022, the left
coalition actually increased its share of the vote by about 2.5
percentage points.

But it’s no mystery why the coalition didn’t do better. Over the
past several months its parties were subject to vicious attacks from
high-ranking Macronists including the president himself, who mocked a
proposal
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the New Popular Front to make it easier for citizens to change their
gender. He also accused it of being “immigrationist
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an adjective used by the founder of the National Rally, Jean-Marie Le
Pen, and which is still not in the French dictionary. Macron
also warned against voting for “the extremes
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in effect equating the alliance with the National Rally. Although the
president remains broadly unpopular, lines like these may have
discouraged more moderate voters from casting ballots for the New
Popular Front.

Meanwhile, under the control of the ultra-conservative billionaire
Vincent Bolloré, media outlets such as CNews, Europe 1 and the
Journal du Dimanche have drummed up support for the farright, bashing
left-wing parties
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identity-obsessed, police-hating and antisemitic. The New Popular
Front needed three years to get its act together, not three weeks.

But its leaders know they’re not going to be able to win enough of
the National Assembly’s 577 seats to form an absolute majority of
their own. And when it comes to blocking the RN from doing just that,
the ball is in the hands of the Macronists.

The president’s coalition is now grappling with a simple question:
is it willing to support leftwing candidates to prevent the far right
from governing or not? Under France’s legislative election rules, if
no candidate wins a first-round majority, then all candidates who win
support from at least 12.5% of registered voters qualify for the
second round. Thanks to the exceptionally high turnout, several
candidates could theoretically be on the ballot in more than 300
districts next Sunday. Such division would benefit the far right in
the current balance of forces.

So far, the line from the left coalition has been clear: to defeat the
RN, it is planning to withdraw candidates who place third behind Le
Pen’s party, which translates into a boost for the president’s
coalition. This line has been embraced by everyone from the socialist
Raphaël Glucksmann to the firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the left
populist La France Insoumise.

Unfortunately, the reply from Macronists has been more vague. Some
have admirably withdrawn from races or called to vote against RN
candidates without condition, such as the minister of industry and
energy [[link removed]], a
leader of Macron’s youth movement
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the minister of cities
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Others, such as the former prime minister Édouard Philippe and the
economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, have decided they’re ready to
stand down in favour of candidates who accept France’s basic
democratic values – but apparently that does not include La France
Insoumise, the largest single force within the New Popular Front. The
line from the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, and Macron himself, who
issued a short statement on Sunday, appears to lie somewhere in the
middle. They’ve called for broad unity against the RN, but their
wording is open to interpretation about whether the pledge extends to
La France Insoumise.

Any pledge that doesn’t unequivocally call to defeat the National
Rally is a terrible mistake, but they still have time to correct it.
Candidates have until Tuesday night to withdraw their presence from
the second round.

On multiple occasions, France’s leftwing parties and voters have
stepped up and defended French democracy from the dangers of Le
Pen’s party. Macron owes his presidency to millions of French people
who voted for him because they rightfully feared what a country
governed by the RN would look like. Now it’s time for the centrists
to return the favour – the very future of French democracy may well
hang in the balance.

_[COLE STANGLER is a journalist based in Marseille and the author
of Paris Isn’t Dead Yet
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* France
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* French elections
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* French voters
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* France elections 2024
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* New Popular Front
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* National Rally
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* Rassemblement National
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* Emmanuel Macron
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* Marine Le Pen
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* Fascism
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* united front
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* United Front Against Fascism
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