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WHAT THE US CAN LEARN FROM THE FRENCH LEFT  
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Harrison Stetler
July 29, 2024
The Nation
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_ The New Popular Front won the most seats in France's snap
legislative elections but fell far short of an absolute majority. The
NFP — a broad left-wing coalition — was indeed critical in denying
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally a victory. _

The New Popular Front won the most seats in France's snap legislative
elections, Photo credit: Aurelien Morissard/AP // EuroNews

 

Called “the year of the elections,” 2024 has seen a withering of
political objectives to their lowest common denominator: blocking the
far right from power. From the United States and Europe to Narendra
Modi’s India, it’s hard to deny which camp has the momentum in the
2020s. In many of the world’s democracies, a commanding
plurality—what Henrik Ibsen called the “compact majority” in his
1882 drama _An Enemy of the People_—is turning toward authoritarian
ethno-nationalism. The ideas and leaders that offered some hope only a
few years ago are in retreat. In the United Kingdom, a de-Corbynized
Labour Party may have won a majority in early July, but the best that
can be said of new Prime Minister Keir Starmer is that he’s not 14
years of Tory rule. Having strained relations with the social
movements to its left, the Democratic Party’s main case for a new
term is that it’s still not Donald Trump.

France is a stubborn exception. The New Popular Front (NFP)—a broad
left-wing coalition—was indeed critical in denying Marine Le Pen’s
far-right National Rally a victory in this summer’s snap elections.
Formed just days after President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the
National Assembly on June 9, the NFP emerged
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the largest bloc in France’s hung Parliament and is demanding the
right to govern. But the alliance did it on a comprehensive program to
turn the page on Macronism and avert the slide to the hard right,
calling for the repeal of recent immigration laws and the legislation
passed during the Macron era to constrain civil society. The alliance
is promising to invest in public services, freeze prices on daily
necessities, and reindustrialize through “ecological
planning”—the French equivalent of the Green New Deal. And the NFP
doesn’t beat around the bush about how to pay for it: Corporations
and the wealthy would have to pony up more in taxes.

This is a coherent road map for what the alliance’s legislative
contract calls “rupture.” But it’s well within the bounds of
France’s political tradition, which explains the appeal of the NFP
and the popular dismissal of claims that it’s too extreme. The New
Popular Front harks back to the original: the 1936 alliance of
liberal, socialist, and communist forces that briefly governed France
amid the first pan-European rise of fascism. The NFP’s demands
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increase in the national minimum wage, dignified retirement at 62 and
maybe even 60—recall key victories of 1936 like the 40-hour workweek
and paid vacation. This is what France’s tradition is really about:
common political and social rights. No, Léon Blum is not rolling over
in his grave.

Americans often claim that politics stops at the water’s edge. The
saying aptly describes US foreign policy’s imperviousness to
criticism, but it doesn’t mean that what happens internationally
won’t reverberate domestically. Biden’s blank check for
Netanyahu’s war on Gaza has shredded the president’s credibility
in the eyes of many progressive voters. Abroad, the claim by Western
powers that they are defending international law in the face of
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine rings hollow next to their refusal to
pressure Israel to end its wanton aggression against Palestinian lives
and rights.

What will it take to break the West’s isolation? The NFP combines
the defense of Ukrainian sovereignty with the promise to use leverage
to get Netanyahu to end his war. An NFP government would immediately
recognize Palestinian statehood and impose an embargo on arms exports
to Israel. In the French context, this too could be considered
something of a restoration: Many rightfully look back with pride at
the country’s threat to veto the 2003 UN Security Council resolution
on the invasion of Iraq. The alliance’s program falls short of the
diplomatic revolution implied by the rise of the so-called Global
South, but it points to the type of thinking that is needed.

The NFP is one beneficiary of the breakdown of the French party system
since the mid-2010s—something that has also enabled the rise of the
far right and Macron’s centrist rule since 2017. When the left-wing
veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon abandoned the Socialist Party in 2008, he
set off on a long march to rebuild French progressivism on a new
footing. Mélenchon has largely succeeded: The democratic demands of
his party, La France Insoumise, are the lead inspiration for the NFP
program. There are legitimate critiques to be made of Mélenchon,
whether it’s his occasional dogmatism or the lack of internal
democracy within his party. These flaws have destabilized past
attempts to build a progressive front, and other left-wing forces
often point to them to make the case for going it alone.

Something like the New Popular Front goes against the entire
institutional DNA of the modern Democratic Party. But for those who
are serious about wanting to prevent the return of Trumpism,
France’s left has one simple lesson: The best defense is a good
offense. There’s no substitute for unity around a detailed plan for
wealth redistribution and public investments, or for the social
movements that have emerged in the past decade. With the Supreme Court
in conservative hands for a generation, the American right is going
for its version of rupture. When will liberals?

_[HARRISON STETLER is a freelance journalist based in Paris.]_

_Copyright c 2024 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without permission
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Distributed by PARS International Corp
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* France
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* French elections
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* New Popular Front
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* NFP
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* Emmanuel Macron
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* Marine Le Pen
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* National Rally
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* Macronism
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* Jean-Luc Mélenchon
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* Trumpism
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* Donald Trump
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* Stop Trump
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* Fascism
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* Democratic Party
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* 2024 Elections
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