Political developments in France are of great significance for all of Europe - and for everyone concerned with developing effective progressive strategies. Cathie Lloyd and Paddy Farrington develop our online discussion about what's happening and what's possible.
‘I’m angry. I’m sick of it. I’m fed up. I’m exhausted. Our hope has turned to anger, our joy to shame.’ Marine Tondelier, leader of the Green party, did not mince her words when she appeared on TV the day before the National Assembly was due to elect its president. Having burst upon the political stage in the past few weeks, she used her new profile to vent her frustration at the New Popular Front (NPF)’s failure to agree on joint candidacies for key positions including the premiership. Hours later, a joint NPF candidate for the presidency of the National Assembly was announced. A veteran Communist with a proven track record of alliance building, André Chassaigne (pictured) came within just 13 votes of winning, only to be defeated by an unholy alliance of Macron’s centre parties and those remnants of the traditional Right who had not defected to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN).
A defeat for the NFP, certainly. But only a few weeks ago, the notion that a Communist would get so close to France’s fourth-ranking office of state would have seemed utterly fanciful.
The NPF [1] emerged after the shock of the European elections, which put the RN and another far right party on 37%, precipitating President Macron’s ill-judged dissolution of the National Assembly. Macron’s strategy was to present himself as the sole credible rampart against the far-right, forcing the then hopelessly divided Left to back him to block the RN, thus reasserting the hegemony of his neoliberal agenda. He did not count on the four parties of the Left – La France Insoumise (France unbowed), the Communists, the Greens, and the Socialists – coming together and, within days, formulating a progressive programme of government charting a radically different course. In response, Macron – greatly aided by media largely controlled by the Right – resorted to attacking both the NPF (and particularly its Insoumis component) and the RN as ‘extremist’, thus seeking to tar them with the same brush. This failed dismally: in the first round of the elections, Macron’s parties came third with 20%, behind the RN and its allies (33%) and the NPF (28%). In the new National Assembly, the NPF has 193 seats to Macron’s 166, with the RN and its allies on 142.
The NPF’s success in averting a RN majority and in challenging Macron’s agenda was due in no small part to grassroots mobilisation and support from civil society. The CGT and CFDT trade unions came out explicitly in support of the NPF (see also https://www.democratic-left.scot/post/lessons-from-france, May 2024). Ebullient mass demonstrations were held to warn of the fascist threat. Teams of leafletters and canvassers – often young, inexperienced, and brimming with enthusiasm – were assembled and sent into streets, estates, and markets. The NPF succeeded in turning one of its weaknesses – its lack of central coherence – into an asset by presenting a diverse and fresh take on political action: think of the Anti-Nazi League, May ‘68, and the 2014 Indyref campaign all rolled into one.
So where next? So far, the NPF has consolidated its position in the National Assembly. But it remains unlikely that the NPF will find the necessary support to lead a minority government, and fraught discussions among the NPF parties continue in order to agree on a candidate for the post of prime minister. Two names have been suggested: Huguette Bello, from France’s overseas territory of La Réunion, and Laurence Tubiana, a prominent economist who played the key role at the COP21 negotiations. These discussions are overshadowed by competition between the Insoumis and the Socialists, the two largest parties that make up the NPF, not aided by personality clashes and political calculation. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who founded La France Insoumise, has his eye on running for the Presidency in 2027. But he is a divisive figure, and has alienated many potential allies, not least by describing levels of anti-semitism in France as merely ‘residual’ – a profoundly problematic assessment given the deep roots of antisemitism in France and continuing anti-semitic outrages. However, new younger political figures have acquired a national political profile through the NPF mobilisation, including as previously mentioned Marine Tondelier, with her now emblematic green jacket, along with several other women politicians with an activist track record.
Two contrasting political strategies are currently in contention: stick to the NPF programme even if it means an early defeat of the government, so as to keep the left’s political capital intact for the 2027 presidential elections; or seek to implement as much as the programme as possible even if it means some compromise. However, beyond such calculations, there is no escaping the fact that the NPF only commands minority support within France. More broadly, the experience of the NPF raises the issue of how a dynamic social movement can sustain itself and counter establishment stasis and a reactionary media that seeks to exploit every weakness while promoting caricatures of flawed leaders it loves to hate.
The role of wider civil society actors in charting a way forward may prove decisive, as it was for the original popular front of 1936. Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT trade union, has stated ‘We don’t need a government of martyrs that just lasts three weeks, we need a government that can lead the country over time, put in place an industrial policy, revitalise public services, legislate against sexual violence.’ Binet has situated the current struggle in France against the far right in a wider historical context stretching back to the popular front of 1936 and the Resistance, emphasizing the need to unite around a hegemonic, transformative, progressive social project. Only time will tell whether the New Popular Front lives up to its early promise in countering the latest resurgence of the scourge of fascism in France.
Published 21 July 2024.
Endnote [1] The original Popular Front was an alliance of movements and parties of the Left formally constituted in 1936, in opposition to the rise of fascist organisations in France. Subsequent to the election of a leftwing government, a general strike culminated in the Matignon Agreements. These established social rights such as a 40-hour working week, 2 weeks’ paid holidays, the right to collective bargaining, pensions, an increase in the compulsory school age to 14, public works and nationalisation of some industries.