From impasse to fascists in office? France’s crisis

A few months after Hitler took power in Germany, the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky described the fevered atmosphere: “The multiplicity of parties, the icy fever of elections, the interminable changes of ministries aggravated the social crisis by creating a kaleidoscope of barren political combinations”.1 There is an echo of that in France today, and in response, significant sections of the ruling class are considering that the fascists might be the only people who can discipline the working class and provide the necessary conditions for secure profit-making.

As I began to write this article at the end of October 2025, another turn of the French kaleidoscope was under way. In a desperate attempt to pass an austerity budget, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu tried to draw in the Labour-type Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party, PS) to back his budget by making paltry concessions over the pension attacks that had triggered mass strikes in 2023.2 President Emmanuel Macron appointed Lecornu as prime minister on 9 September 2025. He was the fifth holder of the office in two years and succeeded another Macron pick, François Bayrou, who was forced to resign following the failure of a vote of confidence in the National Assembly.

On 6 October, Lecornu revealed his cabinet—a group of the political undead from previous wrecked regimes. Just 14 hours later, he offered his resignation as a storm of outrage from left and right underlined he was never going to achieve a majority among MPs. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the newly reappointed Minister for Ecology and one of Macron’s loyal supporters, posted on X: “I despair of this circus”.3

Macron carefully considered his options—and decided to appoint the same man again. No wonder scores of social media sites lit up with Karl Marx’s famous dictum about events in France in 1851: “first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.4 This time, however, Macron gave Lecornu a different mission: persuade some of those who say they are on the left to back you. He dutifully dangled in front of the PS leaders some concessions to enable them to cover-up their break from other parties that had previously made up the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire, NFP).

These involved a tiny postponement of the implementation of the pension attacks forced through without a parliamentary vote after mass strikes in 2023 and some meagre increases in taxation on the rich. In a major debate on 31 October, these manoeuvres seemed to have cemented the PS leaders to Lecornu. Yet, such a lash-up will not survive for long.5 Speaking from personal experiences, at present, France is one of those subjects where, if you are about to do a meeting analysing developments, it is best to check your phone just before you start speaking to make sure there has not been some lurch to a different situation.6

By seeking to rescue Lecornu, the PS is paying a disgusting role of helping the rich to ram home a budget with tens of billions of cuts in key services and workers’ living standards. Simultaneously, Lecornu and his allies are strengthening racism. As the PS haggled about the budget, the Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) secured an unprecedented victory, passing, by a single vote, a resolution denouncing the 1968 Franco-Algerian agreement. Signed six years after Algeria gained independence from France, the 1968 agreement allows for Algerians and their families to obtain French residency certificates through an expedited procedure. “This is a historic day for the National Rally,” said fascist leader Marine Le Pen.7 The motion passed because sections of Macron’s MPs stayed away, allowing the RN and its conservative allies to win. Here is the true face of the PS’s friends.

A decades-long crisis

The day-to-day manoeuvres, emergencies and parliamentary crises are important. Yet, in most cases, something deeper lies behind them. The mid-level problem for France’s rulers is that the elections of June and July 2024 produced a parliament split between three blocs. The fascist RN and its immediate allies—which had the highest number of votes—grabbed 145 seats, the Macronites in Ensemble (Together) 168, and the NFP won 182. In addition, the traditional conservatives managed 45 wins.8 Macron refused to appoint a prime minister from the left (which would not have won a majority in parliament without Macronite backing) and has since appointed failed candidate after failed candidate from his own stable.

The longer-term crisis, which conditions both the immediate and mid-term one, is the failure of the ruling class to take on and break working-class organisation in the way that Margaret Thatcher did in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States in the 1980s. French workers have suffered some defeats and seen reductions in their living standards and rights in the last 40 years. However, these have not been nearly decisive enough for the ruling class. In 1995, for example, facing assaults on their pensions and other attacks, two million workers struck and shattered the austerity programme of the government headed by Alain Juppé.

In the last ten years, a series of struggles has underlined the resilience of the working class. The fight against the anti-union Khomri law in 2016 saw months of strikes and large demonstrations.9 The movement also gave rise to the youth-led occupation of public spaces under the banner of “Nuit Debout!” (Up All Night). This was followed by the massive 2018 railway workers’ strike, the explosion of the Yellow Vest movement from the end of 2018, the pension battles of 2019 and 2023 and the uprising in working-class neighbourhoods after the police murder of Nahel M. In 2025, struggle has returned again with a major strike on 10 September.

On each occasion, workers have confronted government plans designed to slash workers’ living standards and weaken union resistance. Ministers have frequently had to make some concessions, but workers have not secured the sort of clear victory achieved in 1995, which changes the balance of class forces and boosts confidence among millions. Instead, the ruling class and the politicians who serve them have returned again and again to the fray. They have used the ideological weapon of the “need to deal with the debt” to browbeat other political forces, which have mostly conceded to this capitalist reasoning. There has been far too little questioning of how such debts emerge, the links to the bond market, the obscene wealth of the richest, and why there can be endless cash for war and repression but not for workers’ wages and key services.

The pressure on the politicians from the bosses to win fundamental victories is growing. In October 2025, an article in the Washington Post suggested, “The cost of Europe’s way of life—health care, affordable education and a dignified retirement for all, through high social spending—is becoming unbearably high.” It was titled “Europe’s high quality of life is getting hard to afford. Just ask France.” and explained, “France and Germany both face a rising economic challenge from China, which is competing with European manufacturing on big-ticket goods such as German-made electric vehicles and French-made nuclear power plants.” It quotes “crypto entrepreneur Éric Larchevêque”, who moans about “a country clinging to a benefits system it can no longer afford, one stubbornly resistant to change”. He complains that the “French way of seeing things, is that if you are successful, if you are rich, if you make companies, then you are a thief”. His solution is “a lot of cuts” in pensions, welfare and other public spending. He acknowledges the impact would be “very dramatic”.10

In forcing through the battle with the working class, the bosses have lost confidence that Macron will be their Thatcher. Martine Orange argues in the leftist magazine Mediapart:

He was their candidate. The one they had placed all their hopes in since 2016, the one who would finally make “the necessary reforms” for France. Some of them had even personally participated in financing his campaign. Now, they have all turned their backs on him. The enthusiasm and momentum that Emmanuel Macron had aroused at the beginning have transformed into a persistent resentment and rejection of the President of the Republic.11

The essayist Alain Minc, previously a loyal Macronite, said in a recent interview, “Macron is the worst president of the Fifth Republic”.12

After Lecornu made small concessions over pensions, the bosses denounced his softness. Patrick Martin, head of the bosses’ Mouvement des Entreprises de France (Movement of the Enterprises of France, MEDEF), wrote on social media,

The suspension of the pension reform inspires in me a form of sadness and concern for the country. Far from having resolved the problem, which grows a little crueller each day, of the slowdown, the decline of France, and the deterioration of its public finances, we are going to make it worse.13

Martin warned that “[m]any decision-makers fail to take into account a reality: the economic situation is not good, international competition is becoming incredibly brutal, and France is doing and will continue to do exactly the opposite of what the rest of the world is doing, namely supporting businesses to gain competitiveness”.14

This frustration with the existing forces is why businesses seriously contemplate an RN government, with all the dangers that gamble contains. If the RN launches a frontal assault on the unions, it might lose and not have the strategic understanding to retreat and compromise. If the RN tears into migrant rights, it could trigger an urban insurrection. If it assaults democratic rights, it could unite broader forces behind the left. The RN sometimes poses to the left to win workers’ votes and therefore has made populist demands that would hit business. That is why, so far, most bosses have stuck with some variety of Macronism or the traditional conservatives.

Now the squeeze is strong enough that big business demands desperate measures. As the French far-right weekly Valeurs Actuelles puts it:

The business world is trying to get its act together to influence future political choices. Their priority: to prevent Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his La France Insoumise, and even the left in the broadest sense from returning to power. “[Jean-Luc] Mélenchon is [Maximilien de] Robespierre! He’s [Hugo] Chávez in power!”, exclaimed the former head of the MEDEF Pierre Gattaz, predicting that France would suffer the same fate as Venezuela if the slightest left-wing proposal were accepted. The second is to put an end to political instability. “This country needs order, authority,” asserts a defence chief.15

The RN constantly offers sweeteners to the corporations. In an interview in May 2025, Jordan Bardella said he wanted reductions in taxes on business and massive cuts in public spending. He supported eliminating “dozens of regulations that constrain the productivity and competitiveness of our businesses”. Above all, said Bardella:

My ambition is to create a pact of trust with the business world. And this does indeed mean going out and convincing business leaders one by one, from very small and small businesses to CEOs of CAC 40 companies, including tradespeople and shopkeepers. I note, however, that the target of anger from economic circles today is not the National Rally, but rather Emmanuel Macron and his inaction.16

In this respect, Bardella has consciously offered a slightly different approach to Le Pen. Without departing in any crucial way from her politics, he has offered a more friendly face to capital.

Will the ruling class gamble on the fascists?

Ugo Palheta, the most important analyst of fascism in France at present, describes the logic of such a process:

If a significant fraction of the political, economic, and media elites hand over power on a platter to the fascists, it is in order to restabilise the political order in a context where no parliamentary majority has been able to emerge and where the political situation is blocked, on the verge of a regime crisis…

In such situations, the bourgeoisie is not truly threatened in its fundamental interests (the crisis is not revolutionary or pre-revolutionary), but due to chronic governmental instability, it is unable—or not completely—to impose its policies. The traditional bourgeois parties, which ensure its domination in the political field, are too discredited, their legitimacy among the population is too eroded. The bourgeoisie therefore needs to plug the gaps and regain the initiative in the face of popular movements incapable of taking power but strong enough to block some of its policies.17

If Macron’s desperate search for a stable government capable of ramming through a cuts budget collapses, he will eventually have to conceded to demands for fresh parliamentary elections or even resign himself and allow a presidential vote. Nothing is pre-ordained, but many polls suggest the RN (especially with enhanced ruling class support and cash) would have a strong chance of taking the prime minister’s or presidential position. If the RN does win, it will not be like Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany in 1933 as RN does not yet have a mass movement on the streets. However, it would not just be Macron with a twist.

Prime minister or president Jordan Bardella (or Marine Le Pen) would seek to impose even harsher laws against Muslims and migrants.18 They would boost the impunity of the police and try to break trade union power. They would insert their supporters in every state institution, every police authority, every health and education board. They would create a ruthlessly hostile environment towards minorities and the left. Perhaps most significantly, Bardella/Le Pen would embolden the fascist street thugs who seek to carry out a fascist programme “from below”. The fascists’ ambition has not changed. They want to smash working-class organisation and extirpate democratic spaces.

A glimpse of this comes from Perpignan, a city in southern France where the RN is in charge with Louis Aliot, vice-president of the RN, as mayor:

Aliot entrusted “security” to Xavier Raufer, a former leader of the fascist thugs of the Occident group. Perpignan holds the national record for the number of police officers and surveillance cameras per capita. The city is crisscrossed by some fifty neighbourhood mayors appointed by Aliot further reinforced by a surveillance network with shopkeepers in direct contact with the municipal police to report any “suspicious behaviour”.19

Aliot and his cop henchmen set out to “reclaim” working-class areas, “An expression that reeks of colonial warfare.” Aliot “intends to purge these areas of North Africans and Roma who live there—by bulldozing buildings and through lucrative gentrification projects—and to prevent both the establishment of so-called ‘Arab’ businesses and the reception of unaccompanied minors”. Unsurprisingly, he also celebrates French colonialism:

Racism is…at the heart of his campaign to glorify French [colonial] Algeria. Every year, there is an Algerianist commemoration. Every March 19 (the date of the ceasefire in the Algerian War), flags are flown at half-mast. After making the torturer Denoix de Saint-Marc and Generals Jouhaud and Zeller (organisers of the 1961 Algiers coup) honorary citizens of the city, Aliot named a public square after Pierre Sergent, the leader of the [pro-colonial Secret Army Organisation]metropole assassins. All of this is complemented by a profusion of jingoistic commemorations and festivities celebrating a supposedly eternal France, intrinsically Christian in its traditionalist Catholicism.20

Bardella will not immediately unleash Nazi terror on the model of 1933, but it will be a qualitative shift from Macron’s rule and set in train a process that can lead to a catastrophic reverse for the working class in France and more widely. It cannot be relativised or treated with complacency as “just another right-wing regime”. Those who underestimate the RN threat are in some ways replaying the fatal policies of the Stalinists in the 1930s who regarded social democracy and Hitler as “not antipodes but twins”.

Yet, parts of the French left think that pointing to the special danger of the RN distracts from the task of opposing Macron. Palheta, in the interview already mentioned, unfortunately accepts his questioner’s theory of “fascism already there”, where “we are not yet in fascism, not even sure that we are going there strictly speaking, but we already have elements of fascism today”.21 Palheta defends the idea that “Fascism is both here and not here” and that, for example, Macron is one of a number of “fascists” (in inverted commas).

However, Palheta also argues (similar to David Beetham below, and the analysis I present):

The process of fascisation involves two concurrent and mutually reinforcing tendencies: a normalisation of fascism and a fascisation of the normal; a mainstreaming of the far right and an extremisation of the right. Second, when I say that the far right in power would not simply “continue the policies already in place,” I mean that it would not be satisfied with existing legislation, particularly regarding immigration, the rights of foreigners, freedom of the press, civil liberties, and democratic rights.22

It is true Macron trampled on democracy in ramming through his pension attack.23 He does unleash police violence and attacks workers’ social gains. Yet, seeing him as “actually existing fascism” obscures important facts. Workers lost the 2023 battle over pensions not primarily because of state violence but because trade union and left political leaders held back the movement. Fascists destroy union rights and repress their leaders—Macron relies on union bureaucrats. Fascists eliminate elections and parliament. Macron’s threadbare argument for why he will not concede to mass protests comes from his election as president and his claim that he works within the constitution.

There is, however, a relationship between Macron and fascism. In his book Marxists In The Face of Fascism, Beetham writes that the connection between fascism and the mainstream racist right within a parliamentary system can take two forms. These are “succession and simultaneous interaction”. The “succession” element is that Macron’s onslaught against migrants and Muslims, relentless removal of rights, and support for the cops’ savagery does not undermine the RN but legitimises it and allows the fascists to argue “choose the original, not the copy”. Far from being a bulwark against Le Pen, Macron clears the way for her. Beetham writes that “[r]eaction tends to be fuelled, rather than exhausted by concessions”. The “simultaneous interaction” part is that Macron knows the fascists will support his racism and therefore he is bolder in carrying it out.24

The fascists try consciously to spread their tentacles into other parts of the right. This has always been part of Le Pen’s strategy. How should the left react? It must tell the truth about the threat, develop the united front against fascism and strengthen class struggle and revolutionary socialist organisation.

Build the united front

Some on the left suggest French activists have wholly failed to construct united activity against the fascists and racism. That is wrong. The front may be as yet too small and narrow for the task, but there have been, and are, real efforts to secure a powerful response to the RN. The Marche des Solidarités (March of Solidarity, MDS) organisation brings together numerous organisations, and it sets out an ambitious programme for 2025 and 2026:

• 18 December: International Migrants’ Day
• 21 March 2026: International Day Against Racism and Fascism
• 1 May: International Workers’ Solidarity Day
• 14 July: Internationalist parade against war and borders
• 18 December 2026: Day Without Immigrants

For the “Day Without Immigrants—if we stop, everything stops”, MDS calls “on all collectives and associations to organise in neighbourhoods and unions in workplaces alongside collectives of undocumented immigrants and unaccompanied minors to oppose expulsions and to organise the struggle for equal rights”.25 It encourages strikes, business closures in neighbourhoods, blockades and demonstrations.

The MDS October 2025 assembly noted:

We are members of collectives of undocumented migrants, collectives of unaccompanied minors in struggle, anti-racist and anti-fascist collectives and associations, members of Urgence Palestine, of Guerre à la Guerre, of networks fighting against repression and police violence, trade unionists, feminists, activists fighting against transphobia… We come from Nantes, Lille, Nancy, Metz, Tours, St Brieuc, Rouen, Lyon, Marseille, Rennes and from all over the Paris region…

The situation is critical; the state is attacking and repressing, and fascists are aggressing. Self-defence and resistance must be organised everywhere. We say that there will be no successful global struggle without this anti-racist and anti-fascist response, without international solidarity against colonialism and imperialist war.26

MDS has done exemplary work at the grassroots among undocumented migrants. It has confronted state racism with militant mobilisations. In March 2025, it was central to huge mobilisations against racism and fascism. Thomas Foster reported for Socialist Worker:

Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in France on Saturday in a major breakthrough for the anti-racist movement. There were 100,000 in the streets of Paris, 10,000 in Marseille, 7,000 in Lyon, 5,000 in Toulouse, 4,000 in Rennes, 3,000 in Saint-Etienne, 2,500 in Brest and 2,000 in Montpellier. Anti-racists joined demonstrations in nearly 200 cities and towns, backed by nearly 600 organisations.27

MDS has been particularly effective at reaching out to the Palestine solidarity movement.

Much remains to be done in winning greater support from trade unions and left parties. Nobody, however, should sneer at what MDS has done. As similar (not the same) challenges face anti-fascists and anti-racists across Europe, the US and elsewhere, international cooperation, solidarity and mutual learning are very important. In Britain, Stand Up to Racism can hurl back Reform UK and Tommy Robinson, that would boost the French struggle. If MDS can turn the tide on the RN, every activist in Britian will feel stronger and more confident.

Raise the level of struggle

In the Financial Times, Simon Kuper writes that “[t]here’s a widespread desire for a 1789—without the guillotines.” The reference to the French Revolution (and not everyone would abandon the chopping off of heads) is because the rich have grown their wealth obscenely. Kuper notes, “According to economist Gabriel Zucman between 1996 and 2024, the wealth of France’s 500 richest families “ballooned from 6 percent of French gross domestic product to 42 percent”. He adds:

France now leads the EU in numbers of billionaires. Because corporate tax (cut by Macron) is lower than income tax, they pay an effective tax rate of just 25 percent, about half that of the average French person, calculates Zucman. He proposes a wealth tax of 2 percent on the 1,800 people worth over €100 million [£87 million]. In a poll by Ifop, 86 percent favoured “la taxe Zucman”. [France’s richest man Bernard] Arnault doesn’t. To him, the plan is “a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy”. Macron sides with the oligarch.28

The Zucman tax sparked a furious debate across France in the autumn of 2025, engaging millions of people, and it became a central issue in the PS’s deal with Lecornu. The PS did not make Zucman’s plan a condition for saving Lecornu, instead it proposed and won its own even less far-reaching version, riddled with get-outs and loopholes.

However, the struggle on the streets and in workplaces can go far further than the PS and its allies think is appropriate. On 10 September 2025, a “block everything” day went far beyond the official trade unions: “Speaking to Socialist Worker from the streets of Paris, Denis Godard described the day as a ‘dream for revolutionary socialists’. ‘This is a movement the leadership cannot control,’ he said.”29

On 18 September, over a million took to the streets. As a slogan written on a bus shelter in Paris put it, “They Have the Money, We Have the People!”. In Paris, a trade union-backed march of hundreds of thousands ripped through the streets, with several other marches throughout the city all day. Another massive day of action followed on 2 October, this time linked explicitly to solidarity with the Palestinians.

However, the union leaders who moved to the head of the movement from 18 September have held back revolt:

The inter-union alliance carefully avoided raising the most basic demand, one that was unavoidable given the ongoing political crisis and the simmering anger against the authoritarianism of the government: Macron’s resignation. By refraining from demanding his departure, the alliance is ensuring the president’s continued rule. Speaking on France Inter radio, Sophie Binet [leader of the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) union federation] reiterated her dissatisfaction with Lecornu’s initial announcements, asserting, “Our goal isn’t to bring down Emmanuel Macron; we have nothing against him. In fact, given the geopolitical crisis, we need a president who can lead on an international scale”.30

In contrast, revolutionaries in the Autonomie de Classe (Class Autonomy, A2C) group argue to bring together economic and political issues and to organise grassroots networks within the unions that can act independently. Nicoals Verdon writes:

If we want to act as revolutionaries within and for our class, active participation in the unions and their development is therefore essential. But by their very nature, unions will never be revolutionary organs. By grasping this contradiction from below, the activity of revolutionaries within the unions offers the possibility of increasing collective confidence in the struggle, in the revolutionary power of our class…

But we must keep in mind that the class struggle is anything but linear. There are waves, troughs, and shifts to the left and to the right. All of this can be disorienting, even demoralizing. That’s why we need compasses. They require a shared, collective analysis of the overall situation, the strengths and weaknesses of the movement. These compasses don’t fall from the sky; they are developed and tested collectively. That’s why at A2C we believe it’s necessary not only to be involved in unions but also to act independently.31

What sort of socialist organisation do we need?

Great crises test every part of the left. The betrayal by the PS is not just a condemnation of that party and its rotten vision. It also explodes the strategy of Mélenchon and La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI). Mélenchon is by far the most high-profile left winger in the French political scene and has played a crucial role (particularly recently) in opposing Islamophobia and not backing off despite frenzied claims that his support for the Palestinians is antisemitic. He says without a shred of defensiveness: “‘When I was born, one in ten people had a foreign grandparent. Today it’s one in three’, and I started saying, ‘We are the new France’”.32 At his best, he seems to offer an inspiring vision: “We want to represent the proletariat, the gig economy workers, the educated girls who are looked down upon, the lost boys who want to make it”. Mélenchon continues:

In families from formerly colonised countries, we’re talking about the second or third generation of French citizens. And all these people have a political culture shaped by liberation struggles and the fight against colonialism. They have a political awareness. They calculate, they reflect. Their family culture is politicised. They understand everything. And they no longer allow themselves to be manipulated by the old left that used to control them.33

Those of us who have watched the horrors of the start of Your Party may be permitted some envy of LFI’s punch and swagger, although we should remember it has no real democratic structures, even fewer than those suggested for Your Party.

As the philosopher and activist Frédéric Lordon writes, “Of all the political figures of the Fifth Republic, none possesses the intellectual stature of Jean-Luc Mélenchon”.34 This does not mean LFI can play the necessary role. It substitutes the role of the working class with a category of the “people” and opposes the particular form of capitalism that exists now rather than capitalism itself. Lordon writes sharply that LFI takes on the networks of the rich without locating them in a system of profit and elite ownership. So, when it rages against the system, it is against a particular expression of capitalism, not the entire way society is organised:

[LFI] is not anti-capitalist, after all, as is perfectly within its rights. What’s less acceptable is being misled into believing falsehoods and reaping the symbolic benefits of a stance without the substantial resources to support it. We always come back to the same point: it’s not enough to declare oneself in favour of “the break”; one must specify the break with what.35 

Lordon goes on that LFI is also fixated on change within the system, just as the system shows it will not allow even the smallest reforms unless there is a direct assault on capitalist policies and priorities. He writes:

The microscopic attack on the reign of self-accretion of money that the Zucman tax constitutes is provoking a reactionary violence that gives a fairly good indication of the degree of fanatical radicalisation of the bourgeoisie. And, by an a fortiori [even stronger] argument, we can see the “reception” that would be reserved for projects to bring lucrative property into line. In a very symptomatic manner of language, the qualifier “existential” today fills the discourses of the most aggressive powers and dominations. We should therefore not doubt for a moment that capital would immediately declare itself in a situation of “existential combat”—and, let us say, for once the use of the term would be quite appropriate: because in fact, it would be a matter of attacking its very existence. In other words: of skinning it.36

In terms of the immediate crisis, the only reason that the PS can play such a pernicious function for the bourgeoisie now is that it was resurrected by the LFI and then given a big block of parliamentary seats as part of the popular front deal.

In the 6th constituency of Calvados in northern France, NFP candidate Noé Gauchard came a close third in the first round of the French elections. He pulled out in favour of former Macron prime minister Elisabeth Borne. Borne was one of the authors of the attacks on pensions that put millions on the streets in 2023. She repeatedly attacked the conditions of unemployed workers. She backed the cops as they brutalised protesters after the police murder of Nahel M a year ago. At the same time, the LFI’s Leslie Mortreux stepped aside for interior minister Gerald Darmanin. Darmanin rammed through the most racist laws of the Macron regime. His name is associated with repeated racist and Islamophobic crackdowns. Darmanin once wrote for publications close to the antisemitic and royalist Action Francaise (French Action) and may have attended one of its summer camps Giving credence to Borne, Darmanin and others repeated the false idea that these supposedly centrist figures are a dam against the RN. It is the same terrible strategy that thought Macron would block Le Pen.

As I wrote at the time:

The excuse is that this is worthwhile and necessary to block candidates of the fascist RN party. But the result will be to rehabilitate proven enemies of the working class from president Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberal and repressive regime. This will lay the basis for a further surge of fascist support. The [NFP] is supporting precisely those who smoothed the path for fascist leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. In the British context, it would be like a left party not running against Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman in the hope that they win and stop fascist Tommy Robinson.37

In the 2022 presidential election, the PS took only 1.75 percent of the vote. This was judgment on previous PS presidents and their assault on the working class. The party was on the brink of extinction, but after joining Mélenchon’s first popular-front project, Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (New Ecological and Social People’s Union), it went on to win 27 seats in the subsequent parliamentary election. This revived its prestige and personnel. In 2024, the NFP gave it the necessary cover to double its haul of seats. Now it has not just bitten but savaged the hand that fed it.

To “keep out the fascists”, the LFI instructed its supporters to back not just the PS but some of the most reactionary Macron characters in the 2024 elections. Yet, this process has not halted the RN and instead empowered a pro-boss PS “left” that tears up the electoral deals. In a September by-election, Carole Delga, PS president of the Occitanie regional council, refused to back a second-round vote for the left if the candidate came from the LFI. Mélenchon angrily responded, “What do we have to do to please them? Tear up the programme? Say that the police don’t kill? Propose budget cuts like them and backroom deals with Macron?”38

Millions share that anger, but the true failure is also LFI’s. That is why a different, struggle-based, class-centred party is now so urgent.39

Charlie Kimber is co-author, alongside Judy Cox, of a forthcoming book on the 1926 general strike.

Notes