The French Elections and their aftermath
New opportunity for the left or an inglorious retreat?
11 August 2024
Events in France following the European elections in June took an extremely dramatic turn. The outcome for Macron’s party was a disastrous collapse in their vote. Macron’s Renaissance Party obtained only 14.6% of the vote, the far-right National Rally (RN) obtained about 31.4% of the vote.
In a desperate gamble Macron called a snap election for the legislative assembly. This is held in two rounds. In the first round he increased his vote to 21% but was again beaten by Le Pen on 33%. Even worse a leftist electoral front, the New Popular Front (NPA), also beat him on 28% of the vote.
In the second round the far right were beaten into 3rd place. However Macron still managed only second place and the largest number of seats were won by the NPA. This is seen as a major victory, but there are many questions. Members of the coalition have been involved in earlier attacks on the working class. Some of these moved immediately to block calls by the leading left party, La France Insoumise, for their leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, to be appointed Prime Minister. Even more fundamentally, the defeat of the right was achieved by the NPA standing aside in a number of constituencies in favour of Macron’s candidates, themselves far to the right and with a recent history of attacks on workers and migrants.
The debate has now been taken up on the international stage as a model for left groups across Europe.
The view of Socialist Democracy is that the new enthusiasm for a popular front does not represent a dramatic step forward for the working class, but rather a further political collapse towards reformism and electoralism.
Although the far right is a danger, the major threat comes directly from capitalism and imperialism. It is them who are cutting away at living standards and democratic rights, criminalising refugees, leading the drive to genocide in Palestine and war in Ukraine and in Asia and preparing for global war. The racists and fascists are following in their footsteps rather than leading as a vanguard to smash the working class.
With the partial exception of Gaza, many socialist groups have failed the political tests facing them, this is especially the case with Ukraine, where they clearly support the Zelensky regime and the US and NATO escalation towards a forever war with Russia. A similar liberalism leads to silence around the threats to China and the militarisation of Western society.
It may be a relief to focus in on the simple story of the fascist threat, however Fascism and imperialism will be defeated by a mobilised working class. The task of the left is to analyse the contradictions of capitalism and propose a programme of action to the working class. That’s what we have to strive for, not shaky parliamentary alliances.
This division will not resolve itself quickly. Not only have many socialist groups dismissed the possibility of revolution at any stage, they have abandoned any serious analysis of capitalism and imperialism on which revolutionary practice could be based. Much of their attention is focused on identity politics rather than class and their response to critique is to cancel and threaten their opponents.
The following articles are an initial attempt by Socialist Democracy to provide a revolutionary analysis. We welcome responses and further debate.
Part 1
Socialist
groups and popular front “theory” today
Part 2
The
significance of the French Elections for the European working class
Part 3
Back
to the Popular Front