France

The Left
Version française ci-dessous The forward march of extremist forces in Europe continued apace in the 2024 super election year, with far-right parties watching their election results surge in country after country. Their recent instalment into leadership positions within the European Commission — a historic first for the continent — is now eating away at the foundations of the bloc’s traditional governing coalition, which has tended to span from the centre-right to the centre-left. Meanwhile, the stunning re-election of Donald Trump as President ...
read more "Europe Needs an Action-Oriented Left"
Demonstration against the extreme right in the presence of the new Popular Front 15 June, Paris.
IMAGO/Le Pictorium
When Emmanuel Macron was elected President of France in 2017, he vowed in his first public speech that the far right would be erased before of the end of his mandate. Seven years later, Marine Le Pen’ Rassemblement National (RN) is on the verge of power, set to walk through a door that was left wide open by Macron when he decided to dissolve the French legislative assembly and call for snap elections after the highest result ever registered for the far right in France in the European elections on 9 June. The results of the EU elections seemed to...
read more "France between Fascism and the Popular Front"
Clémence Guetté during a major LFI meeting before the first round of the French presidential election, in Paris, March 2022.
IMAGO/ABACAPRESS
****Version française ci-dessous****With only a few days to go before election day, the foundation’s Nessim Achouche spoke to Clémence Guetté, a member of the French National Assembly for La France insoumise (LFI) and co-president of the movement’s think tank, Institut La Boétie, about LFI’s electoral strategy and how Institut La Boétie helps to inform that strategy with research and serious debate.
read more "The Struggle for Hegemony Is a Struggle for Ideas"
European Election Debate With The French Candidates
Debatte zur Europawahl mit den französischen Kandidat*innen am 10. April 2024 in Brüssel.
IMAGO/ABACAPRESS
How French voters turn out in the European elections next month could have major domestic implications Do the French care about the European elections? Thus far, the European electoral campaign has failed to stir up much popular enthusiasm. Of course, it is only just getting underway, and headlines have focused primarily on the new government and farmers’ protests in recent months. The first televised debate, held on 14 March by TV channel Public Sénat, was a testament to this lack of interest: the public had to wait until less than three months before the elections ...
read more "A Test Run for 2027?"
European parliamentary candidate Fabrice Leggeri and MP Edwige Diaz during a meeting to launch the RN’s campaign for the upcoming European elections in Marseille on March 3, 2024.
European parliamentary candidate Fabrice Leggeri and MP Edwige Diaz during a meeting to launch the RN’s campaign for the upcoming European elections in
IMAGO / ABACAPRESS
With ex-Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri running for the Rassemblement National in the EU elections, boundaries between mainstream institutional politics and the far right seem ever more blurred. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) has long claimed an anti-establishment identity, irreducible to Left or Right. But its march to power also relies on winning institutional figures to its camp. One was Thierry Mariani, a minister under Nicolas Sarkozy who is today an RN member of the European Parliament (MEP). Yet on 17 ...
read more "The Far Right Has Found Its Place in Europe’s Institutions"
An analysis of the perspectives for the French left and the NUPES in the 2024 European Parliament elections***Version française ci-dessous***   This study aims to provide a brief analysis of the current state of affairs in the European Union in order to analyse the perspectives of the French left in the 2024 European Parliament election. In France, the question of the union of the left was at the heart of public debates in the year preceding the presidential election of April 2022. This union was widely sought by a large majority of left-wing voters, which even ...
read more "Unity Makes Strength?"
Youth Organisations And Left-wing Parties Call For March For Our Pensions Demonstrators, including one holding a sign wi
Youth Organisations And Left-wing Parties Call For March For Our Pensions Demonstrators, including one holding a sign wiwww.imago-images.de

Macron Makes a Power Move

Ethan Earle
The French president’s deeply unpopular pension reform could make or break his administration Thursday, 19 January 2023 was a historic day in France, with well over 1 million people turning out in the streets as part of a nationwide strike to protest proposed reforms to the country’s vaunted pension system. Sound familiar? It should, because a similar reform proposed by President Emmanuel Macron was blocked by popular protest just a few years ago. The exact crowd numbers are disputed, as always, with the police estimating 1.12 million, while the Confédération...
read more "Macron Makes a Power Move"
***Version française ci-dessous*** On Sunday 19 June, a long electoral sequence in France that began on 10 April during the first round of the presidential election ended. Although this first election only had one winner, Emmanuel Macron re-elected in the second round against Marine Le Pen, the tripartition that has worked the political field since 2017 was heavily reflected in the results and now structures a national assembly divided between the group Ensemble, the Nupes and the RN. Also, The Republicans were more resilient than in the ...
read more "The Re-Parlamentarization of French Politics"
While the headiest dreams – of a radical left National Assembly with Jean-Luc Mélenchon as its Prime Minister – have been dashed, the Popular Union (NUPES) led by La France Insoumise (LFI) emerges from yesterday’s legislative elections as the principal opposition to a weakened President Macron. There is no doubt as to the election night’s biggest loser. The only question is whether Macron should have considered actually campaigning, debating, putting forth a program, not ...
read more "Quick Take on the French Legislative Elections: Wins for the Far Right and Broad Left, Macron in Trouble"
On 10 of April at 20:00, the two faces of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen appeared on French TV screens announcing their advance to the second round of the French presidential election. The incumbent president placed first with 27.8 percent of the vote, putting him slightly ahead of the far-right leader, who scored a record high of 23.1 percent. No matter what happens between now and 24 April, one of the two candidates will be the next President of France by the end of the month. But for this picture to be accurate, it needs to include Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the ...
read more "Not Out of the Woods Yet"