As some 500,000 Left-wingers marched in France’s cities yesterday,
shouting anti-Fascist slogans, never had Lenin’s phrase seemed more
apposite: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks
where decades happen.”
Upended by Emmanuel Macron’s decision last week to call a snap
election after the hard-Right National Rally won over a third of the
vote in the European elections, French politics is now in a state of
chaos. Macron deliberately chose the shortest
constitutionally-compatible timeline, with a first round to be held on
June 30, and the runoff on July 7.
Defiance, hostility and suspicion reign between adversaries, but also
among so-called allies, forced by circumstances into unnatural
coalitions. Parties that have just finished competing for voters in a
proportional representation system now face a first-past-the-post
contest, and have spent last week frantically cobbling together
alliances.
The Left-Green alliance, calling itself the New Popular Front,
coalesced under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France
Insoumise (France Unbowed). Its European election campaign focused on
Gaza in a naked bid for votes from the young and the banlieues. They
flew more Palestinian flags than French ones (and quite a few from
former French colonies like Algeria and Tunisia, with explicit
anti-French slogans), and more than one march ended in violence.
Now, in an election where local factors matter in each constituency,
the Palestinian slogans and keffiyehs have miraculously vanished: the
NPF is battling “fascism at our door”. The official party platform
published on Friday is even more extreme than ever, calling for the
suspension of EU treaties with Israel and taxes on everything.
There will be “kilometric taxes” on imported goods proportional to
distance travelled, a reinstatement of the wealth tax, an inheritance
cap, a lower pension age, higher minimum wage and more benefits paid to
all, but most of all to the migrants who must be “properly welcomed”. It
is an ideal document for the National Rally to campaign against.
Into this mess stepped former socialist president François Hollande,
who was pushed out by his economy minister, one Emmanuel Macron, in
2017. He announced yesterday that he was standing in his old Central
France constituency of Corrèze (neighbouring Jacques Chirac’s), offered
himself as a rampart against extremism, and waxed emollient about the
NPF economic platform. This was an opportunity to remember that Hollande
was long best-known in French politics for affecting to bring together
radically-opposed factions in order to win elections.
On the other side, the National Rally has embarked on its campaign
with high hopes, but few polls give it a majority in the National
Assembly. It needs electoral alliances with the moderate Right. The
current president of Les Républicains, Nicolas Sarkozy’s and Jacques
Chirac’s old party, is the southerner Eric Ciotti, who decided Les Reps
would sign non-competing accords with the Rally, with the best-placed
candidate at the end of the first round stepping down to favour the
other. This led to calls for his removal from leadership, and a decision
to do so that was then overturned by a judge. There will therefore be
two competing Les Reps candidates in some constituencies.
Mid-yesterday afternoon, at the time of writing, large cheerful
crowds converged on Place de la Nation, flying Palestinian flags and
convinced that they were at the threshold of power. Calls to avoid
violence have so far been heeded – but with tensions building, only a
single spark is required for France to ignite.
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet