By Miguel Sorans, a leader of Socialist Left, Argentina, and of the IWU-FI
8/07/2024. Marine Le Pen’s far right failed to achieve an absolute majority and suffered an unexpected electoral defeat in the legislative elections rerun on 7 July. It was a tremendous blow. In boxing, one would say “he fell to the canvas”. It went from first place in the first round to third place.
The left-wing New Popular Front won first place, gaining 182 deputies in the new National Assembly. In second place was Emmanuel Macron’s pro-government Ensemble (Together) with 168, far less than the 250 they had. And third was Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), who already thought they had won, with 143 deputies.
The French and global far-right could not celebrate. Not only Marine Le Pen, but Jordan Bardella, Meloni, Bolsonaro, Milei, Vox in Spain, Chega in Portugal, and Trump.
Thousands of workers and young people celebrated in the streets of France, especially in Stalingrad Square in Paris, commemorating the battle that marked Hitler’s downfall. Youth with Palestinian flags and posters repudiated the genocide of the Zionist state of Israel. Thousands who had led the massive strikes and marches, in 2023, against Macron’s reactionary pension reform.
It was precisely their massive turnout to vote, which put paid to the possible electoral triumph of the far right. The second round had a record turnout of 67.1 percent.
In the elections for the European Union (EU) parliament on 9 June, a punishment vote against the capitalist governments took place. For both the centre-right (Macron) and centre-left (the social democracy of the Spanish state or Germany). With a large abstention and a high vote for sectors of the liberal right (Germany) and the far right (France and Italy). In France, people took for granted that the far right would secure Marine Le Pen’s “historic triumph”. Her failure dashed that prediction and showed that the French working class, the youth, and its militant, are firmly pro-Palestinian.
The UK election on 4 July also slowed down or relativized the electoral trend towards the far right. There the Labour Party (LP), the British centre-left, swept away 14 years of rule by the Conservative heirs of Margaret Thatcher. It was the Conservative Party’s heaviest electoral defeat in its long history of imperialist rule. The Labour Party is part of a centre-left that has already ruled in the service of the British imperialist bourgeoisie, with Tony Blair among others. But what is important is that millions of British workers punished the conservative right with a punishment vote, in this case the PL, not a far-right variant, reflecting in a distorted way the big strikes that were taking place between 2022 and 2023. In January 2024, for example, there was a historic junior doctors’ strike.
In France the other big loser, apart from the far-right Le Pen, is Macron and his centre-right government, even though he came second. Already in the European elections and in the first round, he did not get over 20 per cent. Thus, paying for the anti-worker, anti-popular and repressive policies of his government, such as pension reform, police violence, persecution of migrants and support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
The International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) also knows that many voters for the NFP did so unwillingly, to stop Le Pen and the far right. This centre-left, reformist left coalition is not part of the solution but part of the problem. Some on their lists have been in office like François Hollande, of the Socialist Party (PS), who governed for the multinationals and big business against the working class. As do other so-called left governments, such as in Pedro Sanchez’ Spanish state (PSOE) or the German Olaf Scholz (PS).
The NFP members, LFI, CP, and worker leaders did not fully oppose Macron’s pension reform in 2023. They refused, for example, to call for a general strike,
Now they want to use their electoral triumph to pact with Macron to go to a shared government, claiming to have the prime minister. To integrate into a capitalist government (“cohabit”). François Mitterrand’s presidency in France proved that class conciliation governments implement austerity measures.
From the IWU-FI, as an international Trotskyist left current, we believe the only way out for French workers is to continue the struggle and its mobilisations. To defeat the far-right and confront the Macron government’s attacks on the masses and youth.
The elections will not close the serious bourgeois political crisis in France. It’s crucial to mobilise for wages, pensions, migration laws, public sectors, and the Palestinian people.
From the IWU-FI, we call for a critical vote, in the second round, for the candidates of the NFP to stop the far-right. And in the constituencies where the choice was between Macron and Le Pen, we proposed a null vote or abstention. We stood shoulder to shoulder with those comrades who went out to mobilise and vote against Le Pen and the far right. We need to unite Trotskyist forces and learn from Argentina’s FIT-U to build an anti-capitalist, socialist alternative. A new united alternative, politically independent, serving the struggles, proposing an urgent economic plan for workers and the people to fight the crisis and aim for a workers’ government.
