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France on the edge
Nearly 150 years after French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s masterwork, contemporary France is roiled by its own Season in Hell, a deeply fractured and unsettled political moment in which dark phantasms grow large and the path to a better world is anything but clear.
Introducing a new series of political analysis from the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office.
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 ... read more "Unity Makes Strength?"
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Due to dwindling membership and internal divisions, the decline of French trade unions long seemed inevitable. Against this backdrop, the unity demonstrated by the so-called intersydicale since the beginning of the massive protests against the pension reform, as well as internal renewal... read more "The Paradox of French Labour"
Two months into the battle over Macron’s pension reform, is the movement closer to victory?**Version française ci-dessous***
The pension reform was supposed to be the landmark measure of Emmanuel Macron’s second term. After failing in his first attempt in 2020 following two months of strikes and blocked... read more "Inside France’s Social and Political Explosion"
Macron’s deeply unpopular pension reform seems set to pass, but the fight isn’t over yetThe last few weeks have seen over 1 million French citizens take to the streets against the government’s planned pension reform. Most of the political parties and France’s trade union movement, not to mention over 90 percent of the active ... read more "One against All?"
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 ... read more "Macron Makes a Power Move"
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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 ... 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 ... read more "Quick Take on the French Legislative Elections: Wins for the Far Right and Broad Left, Macron in Trouble"
June legislative elections, which closely follow the presidential election, typically serve to rubber stamp an incoming president’s mandate. This year is different, with second-term President Macron facing a stiff challenge from a united left making a credible push to win a parliamentary majority and ... read more "French Legislative Elections and the Next Left Hope"