By Abayomi Azikiwe
A broad-based coalition of leftist and centrist parties staved off the potential ascendancy of the neo-fascist Assemblee nationale (National Rally) which made significant gains in the European Parliamentary elections and the first round of the French legislative contest.
Absent the leftist and centrist parties, the political situation would be quite different with the National Rally poised to have the largest bloc within the French parliament.
Marine Le Pen, the former president of the National Rally, served as the leader of their bloc within the French National Assembly over the last two years. French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament in June calling for snap elections.
The recent run-off elections held on July 7 created the conditions for the emergence of the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front) composed of an alliance of leftist parties which received the largest bloc of parliamentary seats. Yet, none of the three major coalitions gained enough votes to constitute a government.
Since the aftermath of the elections there have been intense debates within the NFP over the selection of a prime minister. Eventually, Lucie Castets, 37, who is the finance director at Paris City Hall, was selected and recommended to Macron.
Nonetheless, Macron declared that he would not appoint a new prime minister until after the conclusion of the Olympics which were scheduled to begin on July 26. The games held every four years are a major international event with representation from countries throughout the globe. The Olympics will not end until mid-August giving Macron more time to stall the inevitable.
A July 23 report published by Le Monde stated:
“The four parties in the NFP alliance – La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left), the Socialists, the Greens and Communists – had been arguing over the name of a candidate for over 2 weeks. In a joint statement, they said Castets is a ‘leader of associative struggles for the defense and promotion of public services (…) with a background in ‘fighting tax evasion and financial crime.’ They highlighted she was actively engaged in the battle of ideas against setting the retirement age at 64, referring to an issue that led to widespread protests in France in 2023. The parties asserted their ‘full commitment at her side in the government she will lead.’”
Unrest in 2023 Set the Stage for the Anti-fascist Alliance
France was the scene in 2023 of widespread strikes and rebellions. During the early months of the year, trade unions and student organizations held a series of strikes demanding the repeal of the proposed pension reform bill put forward by Macron.
This piece of legislation was designed to erode the concessions won by the French working class over decades of struggle. In recent years, these advances have been undermined by successive French administrations which have followed a neo-liberal approach to economic policy.
The pension reform legislation was so controversial that Macron by-passed a National Assembly vote and imposed the cuts through executive action. The new law raised the age of retirement to 64 while extending the number of years of employment in order to receive full retirement benefits.
Later in 2023, the police killing of a youth of North African descent set off weeks of rebellions not only in Paris and its suburbs, unrest spread throughout various regions of the country. The death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk at the hands of agents of the state further exposed the inherent institutional racism in France.
Moreover, the burgeoning electoral base of the neo-fascist National Rally of Le Pen has fomented anti-migrant sentiments inside the country. Although many communities inhabited by people of color whose ancestry is in Africa and Asia have resided in France for several generations, they are often treated as second-class citizens and outsiders.
This racism promoted by the far right and other centrist forces is designed to keep the working class and oppressed divided. These problems must be overcome if the majority of people in France are to mount a successful struggle against capitalist exploitation and imperialist interventions.
Consequently, the NFP is attacking Macron for not appointing a new prime minister. The same above-mentioned article noted that:
“Left-wing leaders were quick to denounce Macron’s position. The president ‘wants to impose his republican front on us by force,’ said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, figurehead of LFI, referring to a decades-old strategy of France’s mainstream parties coming together to box out the far right. Parties made temporary alliances for the second round to do just that on July 7, stopping the RN from achieving an overall majority. Macron ‘is attempting a shameful misappropriation’ of the election result, said Olivier Faure, head of the Socialist Party. ‘When you call elections at the risk of causing chaos, you respect the result. Denial is the worst policy that leads to the worst kind of politics,’ he said. “
France and the International Situation
Undoubtedly the domestic crisis of the workers, oppressed and youth in France will be an important issue which the new government must address. However, the plight of migrants cannot be ignored if a progressive agenda is to be realized.
The hostility towards migrants requires special attention in the French body politic. With the eyes of the world being on France during the Olympic Games, the efforts to conceal the crisis of displacement by Macron has captured the attention of the international press.
Many migrants who are in France as a direct outcome of the imperialist wars conducted by Paris and its allies in Washington, London and other industrial centers, are the responsibility of the NATO states. For decades the wars of aggression and occupation have only weakened the capacity of the oppressed and post-colonial nations to achieve genuine economic growth and social stability.
The New York Times observed in an article leading up to the opening of the Olympics:
“The French government has put thousands of homeless immigrants on buses and sent them out of Paris ahead of the Olympics. The immigrants said they were promised housing elsewhere, only to end up living on unfamiliar streets far from home or flagged for deportation. President Emmanuel Macron of France has promised that the Olympic Games will showcase the country’s grandeur. But the Olympic Village was built in one of Paris’s poorest suburbs, where thousands of people live in street encampments, shelters or abandoned buildings. Around the city over the past year, the police and courts have evicted roughly 5,000 people, most of them single men, according to Christophe Noël du Payrat, a senior government official in Paris. City officials encourage them to board buses to cities like Lyon or Marseille.”
In a number of former French colonies in Africa and the South Pacific, the masses have demanded the withdrawal of Paris militarily and politically. Three West African states, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, have broken with the so-called “G5” and “Operation Barkhane” and established their Alliance of Sahel States.
In New Caledonia, which remains a French “Overseas Territory”, the people rose up in rebellion after efforts aimed at gaining national independence are continuing to be undermined by Paris. France violently repressed the rebellion in New Caledonia in May and June by deploying police and military units. At least seven people were killed during the uprising.
France has been a major supporter of zionist israel in its repression of the Palestinian people. Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, Macron and the security state apparatus sought to ban any form of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Nonetheless, this ban was broken by the activist community.
Among the NFP there are elements which support the liberation struggle of the Palestinians. At the same time others do not voice any sympathy for the people suffering under the worst genocidal onslaught taking place in the world today.
The Palestinian question has been a source of debate inside the United States as well. The Democratic Party under President Joe Biden has lost considerable support among the Arab and Muslim American populations due to its unconditional assistance to the zionist settler regime. The alienation of sectors of the electorate is not limited to the Arab and Muslim communities. Hundreds of thousands of young people have turned their focus to the demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the complete disinvestment of financial resources from the zionist state.
Over 100 campuses experienced mass demonstrations and solidarity encampments from California to New York. The response of the Biden administration was to coordinate a wave of repression against the Palestinian solidarity movement arresting over 3,000 students, staff and faculty members charging many with misdemeanors and felonies along with expulsions from higher educational institutions and the termination of academics.
There is much to learn regarding the formation of the NFP in France. In the U.S., the threat of neo-fascism as represented by the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency, will surely take on added significance as the November 5 national elections approach.
Nevertheless, the workers and oppressed in the U.S. cannot rely on the Democratic Party to lead the type of struggle necessary to defeat fascism. It will take the masses organized independently to defend the people against a disastrous wave of austerity, state repression and the threat of a neo-fascist instigated civil war.
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