So, it looks like, come this nice Monday morning, 1 July 2024, that the fascist RN (Rassemblement National) has a lead in the French election first round, according to the polls. They beat the New Popular Front by around 33.5% to 28.1%. The polls are exit polls, mainly operated by major French media companies. Thus, not only can the ruling class influence people through their media they can also use these polls as data, they are not scientific, but they seem like they are. And who is it who has in recent years given the far right a more pleasing, media friendly, gloss? It is chiefly a billionaire who owns a lot of media industries: Vincent Bolloré, CEO of Bolloré: -
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| Vincent Bollore. Thesupermat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Jean Luc Melenchon gave a good speech after the results, quite restrained for him. What does this result mean? In a sense, many of the stated policies of the RN are filched from the left, like the opposition to the pension ‘reform’, and these are popular, so it does not mean, despite appearances, that the French people have suddenly turned far right, many just hate the ‘extreme centre’ of Macron. On the other hand, they have donated a victory de facto to the far right. Do they know this? Like Marc Bloch said in WWII, they either know, or they are hypnotized.
To their shame, none of the major republican right-wing groups, or the Macronistes, specifically endorsed the left NPF in the horse-trading for the 577 constituency seats if it came to three-way races, of which there are about 300, they just asked not to support the RN. Meanwhile although this was the ruse of the boss Macron, the sub-parties (Modem, Horizon) did not agree and were going to block both right and left 'extremes', helping the RN of course. Melenchon sensibly put forward as the policy of the NPF, that they would drop out as candidates if necessary to defeat the RN, some integrity from the man the press labels as the 'firebrand' of the 'hard left'.
It looks as though the CAC 40 is fairly happy,
perhaps surmising that the RN will probably not achieve an absolute majority.
But it is not over yet, there is the second round to go. And a National Assembly
in a cohabitation with an opposed president, balanced so it cannot get anything
done, is not good. It is possible that Macron is expecting a caretaker
government of his choice if a stalemate occurs, so he becomes an effective ‘technical dictator’.
The French political
landscape is confusing because there are so many names of groupings, old and
new, and affiliations and alliances.