Politics happens in
time, not in space. So, politics can be either progressive or reactionary. But
like most other capitalist western democracies, politics is framed in the bourgeois
media as a Left, Centre, Right array, and in practice this has become a political
cartel that prevents any genuine democratic progress.
The French regularly get
the far-right thrust at them as a threat in the media, and in European
elections the electorate have now vented their anger at the incumbent politicians
and voted for the most anti-EU seeming party, which is the far-right of Marine
Le Pen, now called National Rally (Rassemblement national, RN, the old National
Front or le Front national). They obviously don’t care that much about Europe
and just want any party that defends their interests, which are suffering under
the exorbitant cost of living. Not that the far-right have said anything serious
about defending the interests of, for instance, the farmers, who have a lot of
gripes, and what they do say is all very vague, and they have no manifesto. But
despite this, they won a big victory in the European elections, gaining 31% of
the vote, pushing president Macron’s party into relative insignificance. - Many
media pundits abroad were now certain of further far-right success and enthusiastically
projected the Euro voting figures immediately onto the national French vote, so
that Le Pen’s party became the leaders of France, with young Jordan Bardella as
PM, who was previously only known for robotically railing against ‘rapist immigrants’
and having a sort of blank expression. He has suddenly become the telegenic,
nice fascist.
Reacting to this, the
centrist pro-business president Macron, in a fit of hubris, suddenly called an
election for July 7, conveniently just before the Olympic games were due to
start in Paris. We are sure he sees this a masterful move, but it appears to be
vanity. The election that this move entails would only be about the National Assembly,
called the ‘elections législatives’, and the post of prime minister, but not
the presidency; Macron’s position was safe for another couple of years. However,
whoever won the election, if they were not in his party, would have to deal
with him as president, unless the result was so opposed to him that he would
have to step down. He was obviously gambling with the fate of the country, and
for some reason, unconcerned about the far-right.
The biggest response throughout
France, according to the media, was surprised bemusement, but tinged with trepidation
that this could allow the far right to get a real political foothold. What could
be the president’s tactics here, they wondered? The suppositions were that he
wanted to ‘clarify things’, because currently his centrist party, Renaissance
as it was now called, had no real majority in the assembly and he could not push
through his unpopular ‘reforms’, such as making people work longer for their
pensions. Maybe he had been lying in wait for just this moment, hoping to get
his revenge, seething in silence.
The French CAC 40
stock market started to fall. Then cue a big round of transparently selfish and
panicky manoeuvrings on the part of all varieties of politicians, left, right,
and centre, which quickly descended into farce. Probably because of the short
time to the election date everything political was happening like a speeded-up film,
which gave it a highly comedic aspect and threw into sharp relief all the opportunism.
Eric Ciotti, president
of the rightist The Republicans party (Les Républicains, LR) suddenly sought an
alliance with the now apparently to be taken seriously fascists, the RN. He appeared
smiling like a naughty little goblin looking out of the party’s HQ window, or
some window or other. Apparently, he had locked himself in when he heard about
the uproar in his party that his proposal had caused. They wanted to oust him, but
they could not open the door and had to go away sheepishly. They got in
eventually, finding a spare key, but he was nowhere to be found. Maybe he hid
up the chimney? Later, a legal decision over whether he could be ejected was
won by Ciotti. He was stuck there, perhaps president of not much anymore. This man
wanted to ally his party, formerly normal conservatives, with the RN, but Marine
Le Pen and Jordan Bardella have not yet published a manifesto (did I say that?).
They are probably hoping to get away with this slight omission by just voicing
some blurry statements. Curiously, they want to nationalize the motorways of
France, perhaps seeking to emulate German autobahns - ‘invented by the Nazis’? But
at the same time to privatise national media outlets. Nationalise! Privatise! – that makes sense. They
obsess most over immigration, with tacked on concern about the cost of living
and security, but also linking these things to immigration, both legal and
illegal. In the recent past they wanted to give French nationals preference in
jobs, benefits and social housing, which would probably involve trying to
change the constitution and would be contrary to European rules, and, yes, to throw
out immigrants who were unemployed for more than a year, and to protect the police
against complaints against them when they commit violence - probably against immigrants,
again. Immigrants! Immigrants! If
you have any doubts about what a vote for the far-right really entails this
article quote explains it clearly:
“…in the European parliament, where Bardella has held a seat since 2019.
He and fellow RN MEPs voted against
the recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity, opposed resolutions on
the rescue of
migrants at sea and on reducing the wage gap between men and women.
They did
not support proposals to allocate a budget to combat violence against
women or in favour of the EU becoming
a zone of LGBTQIA+ freedom. In the French parliament many
of them have opposed a constitutional amendment to guarantee free and
legal access to abortion.
They pretend to care
about social justice and the wellbeing of the poorest, but their votes
demonstrate their lack of interest in addressing economic inequality. They
have voted
against increasing the minimum wage, against indexing
salaries to inflation and against increasing
student grants. They also opposed freezing
prices on rent and essential goods.”
From <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/19/macron-gamble-fate-french-people-far-right>
Marine Le Pen recently welcomed the fact that
the historian and lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, defender of Jewish deportees from
France, who declared that in the event of a choice between France Unbowed and
RN he would vote for the RN, which he decided had now reformed and supported
the Jews and Israel, banishing any thought of the fascists possible trickery,
given the far right’s unblemished history in this regard (not). The accusation was
of the left’s anti-Semitism of course. So, both the far-right and Macron’s centrists
at least agreed on this lowest stooping of principles, attack those you
disagree with for anti-Semitism whenever you can, whether it is true or not,
and regardless of how it degrades the meaning of this term (in this sense, the
boot is on the other foot and they are being the anti-Semites); Macron ally Gabriel
Attal, the French PM, interviewed on France 2 TV, had also made similar accusations
about the left. Meanwhile, Marion Marechal, whose auntie is Marine Le Pen, and of
whose party Reconquest she is vice president, and which apparently hates
immigrants even more, suggested on TV that they might join with Le Pen, but
then the even more right-wing Eric Zemmour, its leader, the next day chucked
her out of the party.
On the left there was
almost as much ridiculousness, but not quite. NUPES and France Unbowed (La
France insoumise, LFI), the Greens, the Socialist Party (PS), and the French
Communist Party (PCF) etc, all got together to form the New Popular Front (NPF)
against the fascists; they buried their many hatchets, sort of, but Jean Luc
Melenchon was not very good at keeping quiet, and the media so wanted to see a
fight to balance the rightists one, as was their duty to their class. They
found the notoriously ginger left politician, Adrien Quatennens, who had been charged
a while ago for domestic violence, lurking around, and a couple of old comrades
of Melenchon who he now disliked. Quatennens had to withdraw as a candidate of France
Unbowed in Le Nord, to be replaced by Aurélien Le Coq, national co-leader of
the LFI youth organization, but also apparently Amy Bah, a feminist, maintained her candidacy after the withdrawal, also
under the banner of NPF (?). By now the French electorate was probably fed up
with all the name changes of parties, and wise to the fact that they had in
them all the same old politicians. Then who should pop up but Francoise
Hollande, the ex-president, who was going to also throw his hat into the ring,
no longer content with almost destroying his Socialist Party, due to its lack
of socialism, he now wanted to attach his obvious abilities to the new alliance
at this crucial moment.
In this situation, as
a PCF member, I agree with the forming of an alliance, but I cannot help but be
wary of the wisdom of forming left popular fronts from the point of view of the
communists joining. It seems to me that such an amalgamation waters down and
renders invisible the specific truths that the communists can give to the
political debate, so that the PCF is in danger of seeming to have the same
positions as the socialists, for instance, given that for some time now the Socialist
Party has been exposed for what they are, bourgeois, pseudo socialists. On the
other hand, to join against the populist fascists is necessary and urgent. The
question is, therefore, how can the communists keep their identity but still
support the left? If this left succeeds in winning against RN, they will
inevitably soon be seen like Macron’s centrists, to be eventually rejected,
including the communists, this time leaving only the RN fascists as seeming to
be the most radical option. On the other hand, if the left loses with the
communists aboard, the communists also lose with them, and for the same
reasons.
It of course all
depends on what will happen, but for the communists it seems to be a no-win
situation whichever scenario of these. Not joining NPF would probably not harm
the NPF’s popularity in the future election and retain the uniqueness of the
communist argument, keeping its powder dry, so to speak. If RN were to win
against NPF, then would this be the fault of the communist’s non-participation,
splitting the vote of the left? Possibly. To avoid this the communists could
have called for their votes to go to the NPF, but without joining it, keeping
an arm’s length so to speak. This, however, has not happened.
