Left-wing Forces Allied in French Election

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Following the first round of the French elections to the National Assembly June 30, most commentators highlighted the significant gains by the Rassemblement National, which came in first in the popular vote, gaining some 34 per cent. This has led to the prospect of Marine Le Pen’s party gaining control of the government, with Jordan Bardella as prime minister.

Less noticed was the tally of the Nouveau Front Populaire, which also gained an astonishing measure of support, at close to 29 percent. In other words, the two groups on the far sides of the political spectrum dominated the contest, with President Emmanuel Macron’s own centrist Ensemble alliance, at about 20 percent, coming in a distant third.

Whatever the final seat count, which will be determined in the coming July 7 second round, in constituencies where no one reached a majority of 50 per cent, the new French prime minister will not be an ally of the president. This will result in what the French call cohabitation and make it even more difficult to govern the country.

So just what are the parties of this far-left Nouveau Front Populaire coalition? On June 14, the party leaders of La France Insoumise, the Parti Socialiste, the Parti Communiste, and Les Écologistes met to lay out in greater detail the 150-measure “legislative contract” that makes up the alliance’s policy platform. Its leader is Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

In the first-round vote on June 30, France Insoumise candidates ran in 229 seats, followed by 175 candidacies for the Parti Socialiste, 92 for the Écologistes and 50 for the Parti Communiste.

They laid out the major points of a governing program that includes an increase in the minimum wage, investments in public services, a repeal of Macron’s 2023 retirement reform, a restoration of taxes on the wealthiest fortunes, and a move toward “ecological planning.”

Given the potential formation of a Rassemblement National government, this Nouveau Front Populaire is more than just a survival pact between parties. Its leaders are promising to work closely with social movements and associations to build a durable coalition against the right.

After the statements from party top brass, a Confédération Générale du Travail trade unionist from a recently shuttered Stellantis automobile factory in the Paris suburbs took to the podium to offer his “full support” of the alliance. He was followed by the director of Greenpeace France, who praised the Front’s program as “rising to the challenge of transforming society.”

There were points of tension that the coalition faced, including France Insoumise’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which the party refused to term a terrorist attack. This put it at odds with the Parti Socialiste.

But these divisions merely papered over an obvious fact: without unity, France’s left-wing parties would have stood no chance in these snap elections, in all likelihood increasing the odds of a victory for the Rassemblement National.

Though unlikely, if it managed to be elected on July 7, this Popular Front would enact the biggest policy shift by a Western power on the Israel-Palestine conflict since the Gaza war began.

It calls for an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza, alongside the liberation of all Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails, along with an arms embargo and the suspension of the EU’s association agreement with Israel.

While defining the Hamas attacks as terrorist, a left-alliance government would seek sanctions against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and work to enforce potential International Criminal Court warrants against Israeli officials. The left-wing alliance also calls for “immediate recognition” of Palestinian statehood.

Also on international policy, the alliance’s agreement says it “unconditionally supports the sovereignty and liberty of the Ukrainian people as well as the integrity of their borders.” It would pursue further arms deliveries, the cancellation of Ukrainian foreign debt, and the seizure of assets in France owned by Russian oligarchs.

Such a leftist government would find itself totally at odds with President Macron, and this would immobilize French policy across many fields, domestic and foreign. The Fourth French republic was destroyed over the French pursuit of colonial wars in Algeria and Vietnam. Would the Fifth Republic created by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 go the same way? It’s unlikely but France is a politically volatile nation.