The results of the second round of the legislative elections are a defeat for the current government. Emmanuel Macron is indeed far from obtaining an absolute majority of in parliament, confirming his illegitimacy and his status of “badly elected president”.
The defeats of several leading Macronists, from Richard Ferrand to Christophe Castaner including Amélie de Montchalin, who join Blanquer defeated in the first round, testify to the rejection of Macron and his ilk.1
The composition of the National Assembly presages a continuation and amplification of the situation of political instability, with a minority “presidential majority” unable to govern alone. Given policies he pursued during his first term and the radically anti-NUPES [Editor’s note: NUPES is the left-wing New Ecological and Social Popular Union] campaign between the two rounds, Macron will undoubtedly seek support to his right, hardening his policies even further.
The democratic crisis is continuing and growing, with a very high abstention rate and a significant distortion of votes due to the voting system, which still does not include any form of proportional representation. Abstention is particularly high among young people and the working classes, who felt little interest in a campaign that the government did everything to make inaudible.
The NUPES scores are in line with the results of the first round of the legislative elections – and of the presidential elections – and show the existence of a significant and positive dynamic on the left. The FI [Editor’s note: La France Insoumise—”France Unbowed”in English—is a democratic socialist and left-wing populist political party launched in 2016] has five times more MPs, which confirms the presence of a significant rejection “on the left” of Macron and neoliberal policies, and of an aspiration for more social justice, ecology and democracy, and even of a hope for a better world. Despite our criticisms of the NUPES, we welcome the fact that millions of people have seized on its candidates to express their anger against Macron and to send a large number of MPs representing a left breaking with social liberalism to the Assembly.
But the scores of the far right should alert us. With more than 80 MPs, the Rassemblement National (RA) [Editor’s note: The National Rally, until 2018 known as the National Front, is a far-right political party in France]has achieved a historic score, and confirms its process of “normalization”, with a real presence in several regions (in the north, east and south-east) and breakthroughs in others. The RN will certainly have fewer MPs than the left, but its capacity to cause harm will be considerably amplified, as it seeks—unfortunately with success—to take advantage of the political instability and the democratic and social crisis. The fascist threat is there, and the current government bears a heavy responsibility, through its policies and speeches, for this dangerous phenomenon.
We must do everything possible to ensure that the political crisis that is about to unfold does not benefit the most reactionary forces. Hence the challenge of preparing, from today, the struggles of tomorrow, relying among other things on the militant dynamics generated by the campaigns of some of the NUPES candidates, in order to constitute or perpetuate collectives ready to lead the coming battles against authoritarian neo-liberalism, starting with the defense of our pensions, which should be a struggle of the whole political and social left, as well as that for the defense and revival of public services.
In a situation where the danger of the extreme right is asserting itself, there is also an urgent need to build tools of resistance and organization for our social camp, including at the political level. We need a broad political force to defend the interests of the vast majority of the population and the perspective of another society, free from capital and social and ecological disasters. It is time to build this fighting left in the coming months!
Courtesy International Viewpoint
Footnotes
- Ferrand president of National Assembly, Castaner former minister of the interior, Montchalin Minister for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, Jean-Michel Blanquer former Minister of National Education. Current ministers defeated in the elections have to resign.
