In France this summer, victory seemed promised to Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN; National Rally), following a lightning-fast campaign after snap elections were called by President Emmanuel Macron.1 Instead, the left obtained the largest number of parliamentary seats. To… Continue Reading
In 2023, French workers, young people, migrants and Muslims fought President Emmanuel Macron’s government in a series of explosive battles that saw some of the highest levels of struggle in Europe for many years.1 It is, as one French analysis… Continue Reading
What has been happening in France since January 2023 comes closest—in terms of its breadth and duration—to a revolutionary situation in an advanced capitalist country in decades.1 In addition to the objective factors, such as the deepening contradictions of capitalism… Continue Reading
The results of the French presidential elections in April 2022 show a level of polarisation in France not seen since the 1930s. Fascist Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (National Rally; NR) party, previously known as the Front National… Continue Reading
The war in Ukraine has reshaped the French presidential election, the first round of which is set to take place on 10 April. President Emmanuel Macron has used the opportunity to portray himself as a global statesman who can bring… Continue Reading
What means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity between the development of the productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for… Continue Reading
Lazy clichés run through the liberal media’s depiction of the so-called “ungovernability of France, popular resistance to the advance of neoliberalism that seems so inexorable elsewhere” and the country’s “rigid labour market and work rules that supposedly stand in the… Continue Reading
We live in troubling times. Across Europe, the far right is advancing and growing in confidence. In France, the Front National candidate Marine Le Pen entered the run-off for the French presidency in 2017 for only the second time in… Continue Reading
A review of Jim Wolfreys, Republic of Islamophobia: The Rise of Respectable Racism in France (Hurst, 2018), £14.99 This April, French president Emmanuel Macron urged Catholic bishops to “engage once again” with the “political scene” and “repair” the relationship between… Continue Reading
As France entered the 20th century, it embodied, for many people, and to many socialists, the ideals of liberty, egality and fraternity that had been the pillars underpinning the revolution of 1789. Surrounded on all sides by kingdoms and empires,… Continue Reading