Even in Defeat, the French Far Right Is in Its Strongest Position Yet

No, centrists - this was not a victory for Macron.

by Olly Haynes

8 July 2024

People in Paris celebrate the defeat of the far right at the legislative election. Edouard Monfrais-Albertini / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
People in Paris celebrate the defeat of the far right at the legislative election. Edouard Monfrais-Albertini/Reuters

In a stunning turn of events, the united French left defied the polls and what at times throughout the campaign felt like the weight of history swinging behind the far right. The New Popular Front, a coalition of left of centre parties formed just one month ago came out of the 2024 legislative election as the largest party with 178 seats in the national assembly, though they fell considerably short of the 289 seats required for a majority. In upsets of their own, Ensemble, Macron’s coalition came second with 150 seats and the far-right Rassemblement National third with 125 seats.

What this means for the moment is that of the three blocs struggling for hegemony in France, the left is currently the strongest, and may be able to form some kind of minority government to implement the NFP’s program as Jean-Luc Mélenchon the leader of the populist left party La France Insoumise called for last night.

The French left is elated with the outcome, celebrating in street parties and rallies across the country. Contrary to the copium some British and American centrists are currently huffing, this was a defeat for Macron. He gambled, lost and now faces a possible cohabitation government with the left he despises.

However, there are several contradictions in last night’s results that should caution leftists against overoptimism.

Macron has spent his two terms testing the French constitution to its limits, to the point that he has been rebuked by the constitutional counsel. His Neo-Bonapartist instincts have repeatedly shown disdain for procedure and democratic expressions that exist outside his own electoral victories. He may attempt to appoint a prime minister not from the New Popular Front.

Far from a united bloc, the New Popular front is beset by personal and ideological disagreement and is the site of a power struggle on the French left. The three broad factions include the left populists in La France Insoumise, who are the largest individual party in the alliance, a softer left made up of LFI dissidents who recently broke with the party, Les Ecologistes, the Parti Communiste Français and parts of the Parti Socialiste who want a less populist and more internally democratic left, and the right of the PS and Place Publique, represented by figures like former president Francois Hollande and Raphael Glucksmann who already appear keen to abandon lots of the radical program.

Glucksmann insists that the balance of power has shifted away from Mélenchon and LFI. This faction may attempt to steer the left away from the politics of “rupture” represented by the radical manifesto. Gabriel Attal, the prime minister whose resignation Macron has refused, has attempted to open the door to a coalition of parts of the centre and soft left, the Macronists and the dissidents of Les Republicains who did not throw their lot in with the far right. While the soft left surely knows this would be political suicide in the long term, it’s not yet obvious if the right of the Socialist Party, the group who started Macron’s political career, would reject such a proposal and resist the collapsing of the front.

On the other side of the aisle, the far right, while defeated for now, are in their strongest position to date. They increased their vote share massively. This did not count for much in the legislative system of two round constituency votes, but stands them in very good stead for 2027 if they can make it to the second round of the presidential election. They also have more MPs than at any other point in their history.

This election has completed their normalisation process, they have drawn voters from across classes and regions and done very well with the rural and periurban working class which the left has lost. They also finally broke down the cordon sanitaire in this election as Eric Ciotti, the far-right leader of the previously centre right Republican Party, decided to ally with them out of ideological affinity, and to prevent his own party’s death. The alliance has helped ingratiate the RN with business leaders.

If the left does manage to govern together, they will have to be incredibly careful. They are managing a precarious alliance in an incredibly hostile environment. The French media has swung radically to the right in recent years, with key organs supporting the RN in this election. Fascist telegram channels are abuzz with calls for mobilisation and violence, and hedge funds and bond traders have warned that they will act to discipline a government of the New Popular Front.

If the left cannot improve people’s lives and give them a sense that they have a stake in the politics of the French republic, then next time the far-right may be impossible to stop – by that point France will have only one of the three blocs left to try.

Conversely if they can carry out enough of their radical program of price controls, public investment and democratic renewal, they may start to win back the rural workers that the left has progressively lost since the 80s. The situation remains up in the air.

Negotiations over who governs are under way. But for now, antifascist France can breathe. We don’t yet know how long the respite will last.

Olly Haynes is a freelance journalist covering politics, culture and social movements.

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