Remember When I Said That Emanuel Macron Thought That the Racist Right Was the Opposition, but the Left Was the Enemy?

It appears that Emanuel Macron is refusing to allow the winning NFP to start forming a government.

Given that Macron called these snap elections, he should abide by their results, but Macron would rather play into the hands of the French xenophobic and anti-EU right than deal with the politics of being just a little bit less awful to ordinary folks:

The staging is neat. President Emmanuel Macron interrupts the night of the European elections to address the nation. He is right that the situation is serious: Renaissance, his centrist party, has just suffered a heavy defeat, garnering only 14.6 percent of the votes cast, a long way behind the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which came first with 31.37 percent. In an attempt to keep control of a political field slipping away from him, the head of state announces the dissolution of the National Assembly and calls for snap elections in three weeks. He thus complies with the demands of the RN, a party founded by former Waffen SS members and ultras from French Algeria, and paves the way to their political cohabitation.

His decision, however, was made without considering the maturity of the left forces. These proved able to rise to the moment by forming an alliance — the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) — and a common programme breaking with the neoliberal order in less than five days of negotiations.

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This hazardous ‘neither-nor’ policy (neither RN nor LFI), which places the radical left and the far-right at the same threat level for the Republic, accompanied most of the second-round electoral campaign. It must be admitted that it would’ve been difficult for the President’s supporters to backtrack on their constant demonisation of Mélenchon — particularly the accusations of antisemitism levelled against LFI for its criticism of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, conducted with France’s support — without admitting their perjury. That that demonisation campaign was backed by the media, which also contributed to whitewashing of the far-right, made the shift even harder.

In the end, though, there was relief. Contrary to the pollsters’ predictions and the fantasies of the media, the RN’s gamble failed, and the NFP declared a surprise win. 192 MPs make the united left the main force in parliament, ahead of the plummeting presidential bloc on 163, and the far-right bloc, which, with 143 seats, still made significant gains. Nonetheless, the NFP remains far from the 289 seats necessary for an absolute majority. This configuration deepens a trend that has been at work since the 2022 presidential and general elections: the setting of the political field into three blocs, each incapable of securing an absolute majority on its own, which remains unprecedented under the Fifth Republic regime in place since 1958. 

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The president is now meant to task the leading group with forming a government. Since the end of this electoral cycle, however, Macron has been silent on addressing the NFP. Numbers-wise, for a coalition to govern the country, it must now recruit from both the conservative right and the centre-left. But for this option to materialise, Macron must overcome two obstacles: convincing the radicalised right of his own party to ignore the siren call of an alliance with the RN, and above all, breaking the NFP.

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In any properly functioning democracy, the left would have already been invited to govern — but that outcome would require a repression of Macron’s megalomania and his deep aversion to redistributive politics. Macron’s greatest fear is seeing the NFP succeed in improving the daily lives of the working and middle class, which would empower the progressive coalition for the next presidential election in 2027. His camp would prefer disaffection spurs support for the RN, which will continue its economic and social policies and spare the rich. As in the 1930s, the bourgeoisie has made clear it prefers ‘Hitler to the Popular Front’. The left therefore bears an immense responsibility: without maintaining unity around a break from neoliberalism, it will fail to prevent the far-right from coming to power.

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After a few days of pause, the negotiations resumed and eventually came to a conclusion. White smoke at the NFP: on 23 July, the left-wing parties managed to agree on Lucie Castets. Castets’ relative anonymity has not prevented her from demonstrating a firm commitment to defending public services, promoting fiscal justice, and combatting the rise of the far-right. The tenacity of LFI should be applauded; without it, such a prime ministerial candidate, respectful of the programme endorsed during the electoral campaign, could not have emerged.

The NFP’s statement was published barely an hour before Macron’s first media address, scheduled for that same evening at 8pm. Many, me included, were convinced that the president could no longer ignore the NFP — that the unity reaffirmed on the left that day would force him to make gestures towards its voters. But we hoped in vain. Instead, Macron repeated what he had already written in the press: ‘No one won.’

This behaviour goes beyond a denial of democracy. It is a liberal coup d’état structured around Macron’s fantasy of a ‘republican front’ explicitly excluding LFI and allowing him to cling to power.

I would see a similar power dynamic in Germany.  Should the LP and/or BSW achieve a plurality in future elections I would expect the SPD, CSU, CDU and FDP forming an alliance with the Neo-Nazi AfD to keep them out of power, repeating the error made by Franz von Papen in 1933 with that unpleasant little man with the mustache.

History is rhyming here.