Progress, Pain and People

In parliamentary elections held on July 8, French voters surprised the world: After a hasty campaign triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap elections, dominated by the expectation that the far-right National Rally would prevail, the largest share of seats in the National Assembly was won by the left—specifically, a coalition of left parties called the New Popular Front. Macron’s coalition came in second, the National Rally third.

The implications of this quasi-victory for the left—the coalition won a plurality but not an outright majority—are complex. But these results raise an obvious question: What does “the left” mean in 2024? More than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the wake of the recentering of left-leaning parties in many Western countries in the 1990s, and at a time when national-populist parties (like the National Rally) claim to represent populations that once supported socialist parties, does the term “left” have any coherence?

The Left in France

France has long been the homeland of the left. Not only did the French Revolution and its aftershocks give birth to the distinction between “left” and “right” as the structural principle of modern politics, but France has been a breeding ground of leftist politics: the revolutionary tradition, socialism and trade unions, the idea of the “leftist intellectual” and street protests as a political tactic.

Of course, the widespread assumption (in the United States, at least) that everyone in France is a socialist does not hold water. France is a remarkably conservative country, a fact that explains many instincts that are often mistakenly attributed to its alleged leftism. Since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, France has had only two socialist presidents, and the National Assembly (Parliament’s lower house) has had outright socialist majorities for a mere 15 years. Over the same period, the U.S. has arguably had more genuinely leftist governments than France.

What makes France an interesting laboratory for studying the left is the fact that there is currently no single political party containing all the various competing strands of leftism. Though France has long had a multiparty system, it has effectively operated on a bipolar basis. For much of the Fifth Republic, the norm was a dominant left-wing party and a major right-wing party (or at least a formal alliance of parties), with smaller parties eking out places for themselves along the margins.

Then 2017 happened. The elections that year threw a fragmentation bomb at the political spectrum. Emmanuel Macron came out of nowhere, preaching the transcendence of the left-right divide and poaching centrists from the left (the Socialist Party) and the right (the Republicans), even as he created a new party ex nihilo. Having cleared the center, nothing stood in the way of the country’s national-populist party (frequently also described as far right), the National Front—since renamed the National Rally—from emerging as Macron’s main opponent.

The recent elections suggest that the traditional left-right spectrum has been replaced by a kind of “tripartism” consisting of three blocs: Macron’s liberal-centrist-internationalist bloc, a national-populist bloc on the right, and a left bloc. Yet the fact remains that the left, its recent victory notwithstanding, has not coalesced into a new party with a coherent agenda (like Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, for instance). The eradication of a single mainstream left party in France has allowed the modern left’s various tendencies to come into sharper focus.

The Progress-Oriented Left

When it comes to understanding the nature of the left, the current French political situation provides ample food for thought—as well as lessons for the United States. The contemporary left is notable for its divisions. At present, I believe the left is split into three major tendencies or constituencies. The first remains committed to the idea of progress. The second seeks to call attention to the pain experienced by particular social groups. The third identifies with what used to be called the people, in the general sense of the “common people” and in the specific sense of the “working class.” In short, progress, pain and people define the main factions within the present-day left, both in France and elsewhere.

The first of these ideas, progress, emerged with the intellectual and political revolutions of 18th-century Europe. The mathematician and philosopher Condorcet, a moderate supporter of the French Revolution, famously penned a panoramic account of the “progress of the human spirit”—at the very moment when he was hiding from the Reign of Terror’s agents. “From these observations,” he wrote, “on what man has heretofore been, and what he is at present, we shall be led to the means of securing and of accelerating the still further progress of which, from his nature, we may indulge the hope.” In other words, progress has always occurred. Because it is hardwired into human nature, it can and should continue.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this idea of progress gave rise to “progressivism,” an ideology committed to social and political reform. Though more explicitly aligned with the left than its Enlightenment predecessors, progressivism shared the 18th-century view that politics should be a midwife to the new world that is struggling to be born.

Though much has been written about the disenchantment with the idea of progress in 20th-century culture, it nonetheless remains the cornerstone of a strand of leftist politics. The fact that this strand’s politics are ultimately optimistic does not prevent it from having a sober appraisal of the present. For the progress-oriented left, the world has become a dangerous place, not least because many contemporary forces reject the progressive outlook of the Enlightenment, notably xenophobic and nationalist movements. In France, the progress-oriented left embraces the European Union and European construction.

Not only does the European project’s original task of avoiding war through economic and political integration seem more relevant than ever, but a range of contemporary problems—immigration, the climate crisis and the Russian threat in Ukraine—appear resolvable only at the European-wide level. The idea that Europe is a better version of the nation is crucial to the progress-oriented left.

Second, this left, consistent with its Enlightenment origins, adheres to cosmopolitan values. A good society, in its view, is one that resists the urge to retreat to traditional social values and ascribed identities and espouses the inherent dignity of individuals, regardless of their background. Consequently, it strongly emphasizes tolerance and multiculturalism as ideals toward which society should strive. Finally, while not exactly enthusiastic about capitalism, this current of the left believes that capitalism’s most irrational and unfair tendencies can be corrected through carefully calibrated state intervention. Each of these goals is premised on the idea that politics should nudge society further down the road to progress.

The problem with the progress-oriented left is that, after having long been hegemonic, it finds itself squeezed out by other, often more radical currents. Part of Macron’s success in 2017 lay in his ability to attract voters who usually supported the progress-oriented, center-left Socialist Party. Macron seemed the very embodiment of an optimistic, progress-oriented politician. Yet as he increasingly catered to the right, Macron lost much of his center-left appeal. Now that many leftists are gravitating toward what I call the “pain” current, progress-oriented leftists have struggled. Many remain affiliated with the rump Socialist Party.

In the recent European Parliament elections, the socialists teamed up with Place Publique, a party founded by Raphaël Glucksmann. Glucksmann ran a credible campaign, focused on European construction, defending Ukraine, supporting democracy against authoritarianism, and social justice. Yet at present, this type of politics strikes many on the left as tepid—and suspiciously close to the center or the right. Moreover, because the progress-oriented left is diminished (though it experienced a notable comeback in the July 8 elections, with the Socialists winning 59 of the 182 seats claimed by the left coalition), it must form electoral alliances with other sectors of the left, with which it has an uneasy relationship (an alliance formed in 2022, for instance, collapsed over the Israel-Hamas war).

The Pain-Focused Left

The main adversary of the progress-oriented left is the pain-focused left. French sociologist Émile Durkheim famously argued that socialism is not a science, as Marxists would have it, but “a cry of pain and often of anger by men who feel our collective malaise most vividly.” What Durkheim said about socialism also applies to a contemporary constituency of the left, though it no longer explicitly identifies with socialism. Just as 19th-century socialism was a “cry of pain” against the unsettling impact of the Industrial Revolution on workers, a new form of leftism highlights the precarious lives that many people face under neoliberalism. This left’s priority is not to usher in a more rational future, but to make visible the suffering and indignities experienced by ordinary people.

In France, this sentiment was expressed in 2018 during the “yellow vest” movement, when working-class and lower-middle-class people living in exurban areas protested environmental measures they believed would make their lives more difficult. The same feelings surfaced in 2023 in opposition to Macron’s move to raise the retirement age, which many French people regarded as symptomatic of technocratic elites’ disregard for the work conditions that ordinary people face. It is significant, in both cases, that “pain” was pitted against “progress”: environmental and economic reforms were denounced for contributing to the “collective malaise.”

In France, the party that now embodies the pain-focused left is La France Insoumise (LFI), or Unbowed France. Founded in 2016 by socialist dissident Jean-Luc Mélenchon, LFI embraces a kind of left populism, carving out a space for itself to the left of the dwindling Socialist Party without embracing old-fashioned Marxism. Many of its leaders and supporters might be described as belonging to the struggling middle classes: teachers, culture workers and activists who have degrees but feel that their living standards in an increasingly free-market system are slipping.

LFI has also embraced a distinct political style. Its underlying premise is: “It’s OK to be angry.” Consider the case of François Ruffin, one of LFI’s most outspoken figures. In 2015, he made a much-discussed film entitled “Merci, patron!” (“Thanks, Boss!”), a Michael Moore-style documentary about Ruffin’s efforts to help a couple that worked for a subsidiary of the luxury goods company LVMH but who were laid off when plants were outsourced to Poland, specifically by holding the company’s CEO, Bernard Arnault, accountable.

Similarly, in 2017, Ruffin, now a member of Parliament, denounced Macron’s sports minister for speaking about athletics like a “trader,” before donning the jersey of his local soccer club in the parliamentary chamber and praising the common people who engage in sports for the love of the game and with no desire for remuneration. Ruffin was sanctioned for violating Parliament’s dress code. While this political style has breathed new life into the left, it has also alienated some voters: In the recent parliamentary elections campaign, Macron’s supporters and even members of the progress-oriented left argued that LFI represents a “far left” that is just as dangerous and anti-democratic as the “far right.”

At present, the pain-focused left must wrestle with a problem that, given the emotional character of its politics, is both inevitable and difficult to resolve: Whose pain matters? Specifically, should one prioritize the economic challenges faced by working classes and the struggling middle class, or should one emphasize the plight of marginalized groups, such as racial minorities and immigrants? In France, the trajectory of LFI could, very roughly, be described as a gradual shift from the former to the latter. In this vein, LFI has been accused, often demagogically, of promoting islamo-gauchisme—“Islamo-Leftism.” Though the pain of immigrant communities might seem like a natural concern for the left, this focus exposes it to a charge that, for a leftist, can sting: that the pain-focused left has neglected the “people.”

The People

A final constituency of the left is far more traditional: It sees itself as taking its cues from the “people.” Of course, the left has long been concerned with the “people.” During the French Revolution, le peuple asserted their rights and ability to govern themselves, as both a solution to their suffering (pain) and a path to a fairer society (progress). What the “people”-oriented left prioritizes are the merits and even wisdom of common folk. George Orwell aligned himself with this conception of the left when he described socialism as “common decency.”

While this idea is deeply rooted in the left’s history—particularly in 19th-century socialist and labor movements—it is now politically ambiguous. When William F. Buckley stated that he would rather “live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University,” he was claiming for conservatism an idea that has often been invoked by the left (by implying that the left had opted for “progress” rather than “people”).

While in current French politics, the people-based left lacks the visibility—or, more precisely, the audibility—of the progress-oriented and pain-focused lefts, it still has a pulse. Most notably, it is the line adopted by the French Communist Party. While in the United States, “communism” still implies over-the-top radicalism, in France, communism has acquired an almost nostalgic quality. Not only is the French Communist Party over a hundred years old (and nothing remotely resembling a political threat), but it has, its alignment with Marxism notwithstanding, frequently embraced a kind of populist patriotism. It was closely associated with the French Resistance during the Second World War. The current Communist Party barely registers electorally, winning only 9 seats in the recent parliamentary elections. But it distinguishes itself from other left parties by perpetuating this left patriotic tradition.

Of course, in many countries, discourses celebrating the people also call attention to their oppression—i.e., to their pain. Without question, the pain-focused and people-oriented lefts overlap. But at present, the people-oriented left has a different emphasis and style. It prioritizes the common sense and practicality of ordinary people, in contrast to the highfalutin jargon and conceits of intellectuals—including those who gravitate toward the pain-focused left. There is a “silent majority” quality to the people-oriented left, even a degree of conservatism. And while it champions the needs of ordinary people, it typically eschews the emotional rhetoric and theatrics deployed by the pain-focused left.

Consider the interesting example of Fabien Roussel, the current Communist Party leader. Several years ago, he observed: “A good wine, a good meat, a good cheese: that’s French gastronomy. The best way to defend it is to permit the French people to have access to it.” Roussel was presenting the communists as the party with common tastes. Indeed, their recent election posters proclaimed communism as “the choice of common sense.” Yet Roussel’s opinions about French cuisine were promptly attacked by others on the left as being nationalist and potentially anti-Muslim dog whistles. Hence the danger of embracing people-based leftism in the present context. To some, it evokes an intolerant and somewhat tacky nostalgia—a refusal, in short, to embrace progress. To others, it represents a failure to consider the pain of minority populations.

The Three Lefts

It is not hard to see how these three lefts might ally with and reinforce one another. The idea that ending certain forms of suffering constitutes social progress is the assumption of many welfare policies. The validity of the people’s perspective is justified on the grounds that they are more vulnerable to social risks and the pains that accompany them than elites.

Yet more often than not, these three lefts find themselves at loggerheads. Debates on the contemporary left can often feel like a game of “paper, rock, scissors.” I say “Europe” or “internationalism” (progress), you say “outsourcing” (pain). I say “welcome immigrants” (progress), you say “lower wages” (people). I say “structural racism” (pain), you say “woke elites” (people).

The French situation is interesting because these three lefts have split off into several different parties, each roughly corresponding to one of the trends we have discussed. Yet these same three trends also shape the American left. Much of the Democratic Party’s establishment consists of the progress-oriented left. Its mantra is an aphorism of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, which Barack Obama was fond of quoting: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”—a comment that Condorcet would have readily endorsed. Bernie Sanders and the Squad embody the pain-focused left, as evidenced in their concern with the way in which many Americans fail to achieve a middle-class standard of living in today’s economy.

Though it was long the Democratic Party’s bedrock, the people-based left seems to be the weakest constituency of the present-day American left. Invocations of the people are suspected of being backward-looking and conservative. Still, it is interesting to see some movement on this front. By distancing himself from “progressivism,” John Fetterman seems to be reconnecting with the idea of the “people”—or, at minimum, to be connecting it to the concerns of the pain-focused left.

A similar impulse drives Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign, while others have argued that the Democrats should become the “pro-normal” party and reject ideas such as “intersectionality.” Yet in the United States, unlike in France, there seems to be no way out of the two-party system. The different lefts must situate themselves in relation to the major parties. Considering the fragmented state of the French left, however, can shed light on the tensions afflicting its American counterpart.