Faced with France’s snap elections, the left-wing parties built an alliance in record time. But to defeat Marine Le Pen, sounding the alarm about the far right won’t suffice. The Left will need to offer a positive vision for working-class France.
Marine Le Pen, member of the National Assembly of France speaks during a conference on May 19, 2024, in Madrid, Spain. (Juan Naharro Gimenez / Getty Images)
Recent French elections have often followed a familiar pattern. The far right makes fresh advances, the radical left shows it is still able to mount a serious challenge — but ultimately, just about enough voters rally around the centrist establishment for it to survive. It seems that when President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections to the National Assembly earlier this month, he expected to rally the French middle classes behind him once more.
Yet it is far from clear that the status quo will indeed hold, or that he can rebuild a majority in parliament. With the first-round votes set for this Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is far ahead in polls (on around 35 percent), ahead of the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (almost 30 percent) and Macron’s own allies (just over 20 percent). For years, Le Pen’s agenda on immigration and Islam has become more mainstream: now, her party seems to be on the brink of a victory that would leave Macron a mere lame-duck president.
Ugo Palheta is author of La Possibilité du Fascisme. His analysis explores recent trends toward “fascisation” in French society, including the rise of Le Pen’s party but also the authoritarianism and Islamophobia that has already developed under Macron’s government. Elsa Gautier interviewed him about the snap elections, the social decay that helps explain the Rassemblement National’s rise — and the Left’s chances of providing an alternative.
Elsa Gautier
You’ve been an observer of “neo-fascism” for some years now. In your books you’ve warned of the “disastrous course” that French society seems headed down. How do you analyze the way things have sped up since President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections?
Ugo Palheta
The political crisis that’s hit France these last fifteen years has now entered an acute phase. This election is a litmus test. The problem is that the far right has a head start, given its success in the European elections. Still, there could be a real electoral surge for the Nouveau Front Populaire, if it doesn’t limit itself to being a deal between party leaderships. What we need is for social movements, trade unions, neighborhood collectives, feminist and environmental associations, etc. — all those who have been at the heart of the vibrant popular struggles of the last decade — to get actively involved.
Since 2017, France has had a three-sided division of the political field, with three camps of roughly equal strength (at least in 2022). There is a neoliberal one (led by Macron), a left-wing one (dominated by France Insoumise for some years now), and a far-right one (where the Rassemblement National is by far the dominant force). This situation couldn’t last forever, both because since 2022, Macron has no longer had an absolute majority in the National Assembly, and because the neoliberal camp has just suffered a major setback in the EU elections.
The Macron camp was no longer able to rally real social forces behind it — and the situation had become largely ungovernable.
Macron already had a narrow social base when he came to power because of his socially regressive project, but it’s got even thinner since his first election in 2017. (Based on their empirical study of elections since the French Revolution, economists Julia Cagé and Thomas Piketty said that the vote for Macron in 2022 was the “most bourgeois in French history.”) The only thing making up for this is that parts of the right-wing electorate who previously voted for the main conservative party, Les Républicains, have rallied behind him.
If we add to this the country’s deep distrust of political elites, particularly the Macronists, and the major social struggles since 2016 that have further destabilized the government (gilets jaunes, the movement against pension reform, the worker mobilization in public health, etc.), it’s clear that the Macron camp was no longer able to rally real social forces behind it and that the situation had become largely ungovernable.
Elsa Gautier
What do you see as the main reasons for the steady rise of the far right, as seen at the ballot box over the past fifteen years?
Ugo Palheta
The far right’s breakthrough at the national level dates back to the 1984 European elections. The Rassemblement National thus has a long-standing base, which has not been eroded by experiences in government at the national level, since it has always refused to govern in a subordinate position as part of a right-wing coalition. It can therefore say it is an “anti-system” force that will “kick them all out,” simply because it has not itself governed. It does this even if its economic program today is in full continuity with the parties that have followed one another in power over the last forty years: a neoliberal, pro-business policy that will bring no good to wage earners — quite the opposite.
The heart of the far right’s successes is that it has managed to politicize the fears that run through our society.
I think the heart of the far right’s successes is that it has managed to politicize the fears that run through our society (in particular the fear of social decline, for oneself or one’s children, the fear of unemployment, precariousness, insecurity, etc.) all in light of the threat posed by immigration, foreigners, Muslims, etc. It has been able to transform these fears into the hope that we could live better if we stopped immigration, if we “brought minorities to heel,” and so on. This has worked because, at the same time, the dominant political forces have themselves been spreading xenophobic, Islamophobic, and securitarian rhetoric.
Another important reason is that the left-wing coalitions that came to power under the domination of the Parti Socialiste (in the 1980s, between 1997 and 2002, and then between 2012 and 2017) generated a great deal of disappointment and disorientation among the working classes and, more broadly, among wage earners. They did this because they pursued economic policies very similar to those of the Right. If “neither Right nor Left” (the slogan used by both Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen since the 1990s) has worked so well, it’s because the Left, particularly under François Hollande, has governed from the Right.
The left-wing coalitions that came to power under the domination of the Parti Socialiste generated a great deal of disappointment and disorientation among the working classes.
Added to that, a relentless political and media campaign has imposed the idea on a good part of the population that, in any case, it’s not possible to achieve a more egalitarian distribution of wealth between workers and bosses, between rich and poor, that we can’t really change society anymore, that there’s no alternative. All this has fostered the idea that the only thing workers can hope for is a policy of taking from foreigners to give to the French (or to the “real French,” in a racist vision), and attacking minorities to the benefit of the majority.
If from the 1980s there was a kind of fatalism about class politics (skepticism about challenging the power of the propertied or capital), this was somehow offset by a sense of opportunity for racial and racist politics. This is the whole policy of “national preference,” which has become “national priority” in the current rhetoric of the Rassemblement National. This operates, in the imaginary of the far right and much of its electorate, as a racial priority.
Elsa Gautier
What different social groups make up the Rassemblement National electorate today? What do recent social-science studies tell us about the motivations behind the far-right vote?
Ugo Palheta
Contrary to popular belief, the far-right electorate is not homogeneous: it is far from made up solely of blue-collar voters or working-class people in general, as is sometimes claimed. It appears more like a conglomerate of different groups. We saw in the last presidential elections that rival far-right candidate Éric Zemmour scored excellent results in wealthy communes and neighborhoods, but the Rassemblement National has also managed at various times in its history to attract voters from the privileged classes, increasingly so today as Macronism collapses and the far right appears to some of the rich and bosses as an alternative to the unified left.
That said, there are areas of strength for this party and factors that predispose some people to the far-right vote. From a class point of view, the far right is particularly strong among people who succeeded in finding a stable economic position despite a low level of educational qualifications. So, it takes root especially among the lower ranks of the self-employed (shopkeepers, craftsmen, small business owners), but also among the upper fractions of the working classes (mostly whites), such as workers with permanent contracts who own their own homes. This social base is all the stronger when these people live in small towns or in what sociologist Benoît Coquard has called the “countryside in decline” (which does not mean all rural areas), particularly in regions historically hostile to the Left.
It’s also important to dispel the misconception that this is the party of the poor and the young. In the first round of the presidential election in 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was on a par with Marine Le Pen among people earning less than €1,250 a month (net) and ahead of her among those earning between €1,250 and €2,000, while the Rassemblement National was ahead of him among those earning between €2,000 and €3,000. And while the far right has made progress among young people compared to the 1990s, Marine Le Pen was clearly beaten in 2022 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon among both twenty-five to thirty-four-year-olds and eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds.
It’s important to dispel the misconception that the Rassemblement National is the party of the poor and the young.
As for the motivations of the far-right electorate, it’s worth emphasizing that the desire to have more purchasing power, and the desire to stop immigration and attack “immigrants,” “foreigners,” and “minorities” (categories which the far right uses in ever-vague terms) can work together in combination. This party has succeeded in forging a close link between the “social” (improving material living conditions) and the “racial” (standing up for “nationals,” understood in an implicitly racist sense, which counterposes the “native” “true” French to those who are only “French on paper,” and supposedly not French or patriotic enough).
Elsa Gautier
What do you think has been the impact of recent changes in the media field, under the influence of powerful shareholders like Vincent Bolloré, who have embraced reactionary ideas?
Ugo Palheta
The mainstream media has played an important role at every stage in the process that’s led to the rise of the far right.
To put it simply, there was an initial period (from the 1980s to the 2000s) in which the far right had little presence in the media (only Jean-Marie Le Pen was invited, and then only rarely), but in which the Front National’s obsessions — particularly with insecurity and immigration — took on an increasingly important role in the press, on the news, on talk shows, and so on. Added to this increasingly anxiety-provoking atmosphere was the creation of a generalized feeling of powerlessness on economic and social issues, bludgeoning people with the message there was no alternative to neoliberal austerity (privatizations, cutting back labor protections, pensions, etc.).
In a second period, starting in the 2010s, the far right began to colonize media space. First of all, more Front National politicians were invited to appear on all media platforms (including public radio). But it was above all the creation of the Bolloré media empire that changed the situation, increasing tenfold the audience of pseudojournalists (who were real racist and reactionary ideologues) at Valeurs actuelles, Causeur, Boulevard Voltaire, etc., and giving free rein to certain old blowhards from the right-wing press (Zemmour, Yves Thréard, etc.). This is quite a cocktail, since the “fachosphere” that was very powerful already fifteen years ago on the web and social networks, has now been combined with many traditional media (CNews, Europe 1, JDD, etc.), continuously broadcasting the common sense of the far right.
Elsa Gautier
Why has the Left, despite its social demands, been met with indifference, or even hostility, from certain working-class groups sympathetic to the Rassemblement National?
Ugo Palheta
First of all, it should be pointed out that there has always been a section of the working classes who voted right-wing (with significant territorial variations): part of the Front/Rassemblement National’s working-class electorate thus stems from a former right-wing electorate that became radicalized from the 1980s onward. But there has indeed been what political scientists call a “dealignment” between the Left and the working classes, which has taken place in several stages.
Why can’t the Left speak more to the working classes? In my opinion, the first reason is the failure of all left-wing governments dominated by the Parti Socialiste (from François Mitterrand to François Hollande, via Lionel Jospin), insofar as these governments essentially betrayed the hopes placed in them. Mitterrand was supposed to “change people’s lives,” but he made the austerity turn. Jospin claimed to break with the center-right model of prime ministers Édouard Balladur and Alain Juppé but privatized more than all the conservative governments put together. Hollande claimed that “finance is my enemy,” but his real policy was hyperfavorable to the rich and to capital.
The mainstream media has played an important role at every stage in the process that’s led to the rise of the far right.
There are, of course, other aspects to this, such as the legitimization of racist and securitarian ideas, due to media hype and their adoption by prominent political leaders. But the most important thing to confront is the record of the Left in power, and in particular that of the Parti Socialiste. The paradox is that part of the working classes think that the Left and the elites have abandoned them in favor of immigrants and minorities. But immigrants (and often their children) and minorities are the first to have suffered — as workers in particular — from socially regressive policies, unemployment, and precariousness.
Elsa Gautier
You write that disaster is possible but “resistible.” Is there anywhere — in France, or abroad — where the far right is in retreat? In other words, are there any effective strategies against the far right?
Ugo Palheta
There are areas where the far right has not made electoral inroads, such as French-speaking Belgium. No doubt, that’s both because a “cordon sanitaire” has been kept up against it (far-right representatives are not invited to appear in the media) and because the traditional workers’ movement (notably the trade unions) has retained a significant influence there, able to build concrete solidarity. But it’s important to understand that there’s no magic formula for pushing back the far right, and once it has established itself in the political field, it doesn’t disappear, even after coming to power (as we saw in the 1990s in Italy and Austria, where it was in government as part of broad-right coalitions). So, there’s a long-term job to be done, on at least three levels.
First, there’s grassroots activism, particularly in places where the Left and social movements (notably trade unions) have little presence (rural areas, small towns, small and medium-sized businesses). This demands not simply refuting the lies of the far right, notably on immigration, but ensuring the existence of a discourse of equality and social justice, build solidarity, etc. That means defending the idea that it’s possible collectively to build a better future, not by attacking immigrants or minorities, but by challenging the power of the possessing classes.
Then there’s the political and cultural battle, which involves grassroots work to disseminate ideas, as well as building independent media and producing and spreading critical knowledge (on class inequalities, racist discrimination, state violence, etc.). And finally, there’s the question of political alternatives: we won’t be able to bring about a lasting regression of the far right if a left-wing government fails to show in concrete terms that improving the living conditions of the majority (higher wages, lower retirement age, shorter working hours, etc.) is not incompatible with, for example, welcoming migrants with dignity, whether or not they are recognized as refugees.
Elsa Gautier
Seeing how the far right has ruled in recent times (Italy, Hungary, Argentina), what do you think the first few months of a government led by the Rassemblement National’s Jordan Bardella might be like?
Ugo Palheta
I think that, if it comes to power, the far right will seek not only to prove itself to its own electorate, but also to reassure the economic powers that be, and to attack those combative parts of society which are capable of challenging its domination.
Proving itself to its own electorate does not mean enacting social policies. In fact, all Bardella’s recent announcements show that this party is in the process of abandoning all the “social” measures in its program. What it surely will mean is an intensification of the racist attacks that have for years targeted groups identified as the “enemy within” (migrants, Muslims, Roma, working-class, and immigrant neighborhoods). This will have immediate consequences in terms of tracking down and deporting undocumented immigrants, but also for the already meager resources of many immigrant families, including many children (due to the “national priority” of reserving welfare benefits, jobs, and social housing for the French).
If it comes to power, the far right will seek not only to prove itself to its own electorate, but also to reassure the economic powers-that-be.
Reassuring the economic powers that be will mean extending the supply-side policy that has been pursued by all recent governments: tax cuts for companies and the rich in particular, application of the pension and unemployment-insurance reforms initiated by Macron’s camp, drastic budget cuts to compensate for the fall in fiscal revenues linked to the aforementioned tax cuts, and so on.
And let’s not forget that if it reaches power, the far right will control the police establishment, whose members are already widely committed to its ideas and today eagerly await a major “clean-up.” Faced with a vigorous civil society, which has mounted important popular struggles over the last decade, there is no doubt that the Rassemblement National will use shallow pretexts and indeed already-existing laws to undermine resistance, going much further than current Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has. This could mean breaking up various collectives, criminalizing dissenting ideas and movements, targeted arrests, and hampering trade union action (especially with the restriction of the right to strike), etc.
Elsa Gautier
Do you believe that the Nouveau Front Populaire can emerge victorious from this short snap-election campaign?
Ugo Palheta
I believe that the only battles we lose are the ones we fail to fight, and that, as Ras l’Front said in the 1990s, the advances for the far right are made up of our own setbacks. We have every reason to be afraid. But it’s important that we don’t give in to panic, and the best way to avoid that is to organize, discuss, and act collectively, in a moment which is going to be decisive for the future.
It was crucial for the left-wing political parties to unite in such a short space of time. This has foiled part of Macron’s plan to disunite the Left and build yet another false duel between himself and the far right. But unity is not enough — or rather, as we said in an editorial in the magazine Contretemps, unity is a battle.
It’s important that we don’t give in to panic, and the best way to avoid that is to organize, discuss, and act collectively.
This has several implications: it’s a battle because, to be electorally victorious and to lead to further conquests, unity must be more than a momentary union between political organizations with weak links to society. We need broad swathes of the population, especially the working classes and oppressed groups (through labor unions, neighborhood collectives, antiracist and feminist organizations, human rights associations, etc.), to take part in the campaign, push through their own aspirations and make this front more than just a cartel of political organizations. That was actually what the Popular Front was about in 1936.
And unity is a struggle, because even within the union of the forces of the social and political left, there are divergences, and thus necessary debates on political orientation. For there to be victory, in the elections and afterward, we need to take stock of the impact of François Hollande’s policies in particular, and never repeat such an experience of betrayal of the popular interest. Concretely, that means that we need as many MPs as possible from the left wing of the coalition (which includes France Insoumise representatives but also figures from recent social struggles like Amal Bentounsi, Philippe Poutou, or Raphaël Arnault), so that the anti-neoliberal left will remain the coalition’s center of gravity.
We can’t beat the far right simply by playing to fears about the Rassemblement National (though they surely are legitimate given this party’s racist, reactionary project). It is imperative that this popular front represents a genuine alternative to the policies of social regression and to the world as it is, to a capitalist, racist, patriarchal, productivist society. It has to be seen as a front for hope.
This interview was first published at Socialter.