Early legislative elections: France votes for the man who made its history and the racist far right

All opinion polls predict the winner to be the far-right National Rally party. Faced with the fascist danger, the left finds a way to unite with the new Popular Front coalition, which brings together the entire left, from communists to ecologists, including socialists and rebels. The group calls for a popular uprising, especially among the working class and young people who do not often vote, to block the path of racist and fascist parties. The victory of Marine Le Pen’s party in the European elections awakens racist hatred against foreigners and freedom of speech and insults.

This is a new France based on identity, unfettered, which wants to exclude foreigners, Muslims, immigrants, “those who create stains”, and even dual nationals from certain functions. This is a French moment of exclusion, national preferences and “we are at home”. What will happen to Macron, who chose to do this despite his defeated majority, when the vote was not mandatory? The French left has achieved the feat of concocting a common platform in an emergency, calling for a referendum and blocking the way for the far right. Emmanuel Macron, who has always been elected on the Republican vote (i.e. the vote that prevents the far right from coming to power), may go hand in hand with the National Rally?

Racism has been trivialized

The worst case scenario in the country of Jean Jaurès is that Emmanuel Macron and his majority campaign in an extreme, no attitude. His two terms in office always benefited from the Republican vote to block the extreme right. He would use the support of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party for Palestine as an excuse to classify it as left-wing extremism, instead of calling for obstacles to national rallies. The country is in a climate of anxiety, with a large part of society worried about the outcome of the vote. This fear is also felt by the players of the French football team, who are currently in Germany for the European Cup.

The National Rally already feels victorious, and it has a long history of racist hatred against black and Arab players of the French team, on the pretext that they will not sing the French national anthem or do not represent French society. It openly calls for the use of talents regardless of origin and skin color. In the European elections on June 9, 2024, the National Rally received 31.4% of the vote, shocking the country, which had not seen the extreme right so close to power. But since the emergence of François Mitterrand, racist arguments have been developed, de-demonized, watered down.

More than a million people took to the streets against Jean-Marie Le Pen

In 2002, when the far right made it to the second round of the French presidential election for the first time, and Le Pen defeated Jacques Chirac, on April 21, 2002, 1.3 million people spontaneously took to the streets to loudly protest against the possibility of Jean-Marie Le Pen coming to power. 22 years later, 19.23% of them took to the streets to express this rejection and the hope to see brotherhood still engraved on the gables of the French Republic.

The excesses of racism and the feeling that have won over the RN supporters could awaken the left-wing abstentionists, who are disappointed with parties that do not implement their programs after being elected. What is certain is that this election will mobilize the camps, as the number of voting proxies has increased and the latest Ipsos poll predicts a turnout of 61% to 65%, compared to 47.51% in the first round of the last legislative election in 2022 in France.

The vote is open because between national issues there are also issues of leadership of the parties, with dissident candidates from non-party representatives who are trying to regain seats in parliament. We find dissidents in almost all parties: France Independents, Macronists, Socialists and Republicans. Emmanuel Macron is now alone and after deciding to dismiss his deputies, the candidates of the losing majority are distancing themselves from him, given that his unpopularity is at its peak. In any case, without them, the rest of his political career will continue, and as the former president of Burkina Faso said, everyone is fighting for his own business.

The left is unwilling to let France fall to the far right, and after the coalition of left-wing parties, trade unions and democratic organizations are mobilizing to fight this danger that could be fatal for the people. The media are also involved in this fight, and the evening newspaper Le Monde, through its director, “called on its readers to vote against the extreme right, describing it as a “major political danger that weighs on Western countries”. Fenoglio explicitly calls out in his article the “classification of citizens”, “exclusion of dual nationals from certain sensitive professions” and even “questioning land rights”: “Rebuilding obstacles? Yes, once again, firmly,” he wrote. Because “to give up a little power (to the Royal Navy) is to risk seeing everything that has been built and conquered over two and a half centuries destroyed little by little”.

Will all the components of the Republic be saved once again by the Left? Will the elections of June 30 and July 7, 2024 once again succeed in excluding the parties of hatred, xenophobia, racism? Will the heirs of the Dreyfus family be victorious?

Sanaa Gaye

Lefaso.net