France Polls: Ten Days That Shook Our World

The result of the European election shook us to our core. This June 9, what we feared most became a reality. Rassemblement National (RN) – the customised version of former Front National (FN), a Far-Right party founded in 1972, inspired by “revolutionary nationalism”, an ideology carried by the young neo-fascists of the New Order movement in Nazi Germany – was in the first position with 31.37% votes.

Even though the pre-electoral polls were showing similar results, it still chilled our blood, as we were desperately hoping to defeat the fascist force. But that was just the beginning of a nightmare. Within an hour after the result, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, hence imposing a hasty unprepared Assembly election of two rounds -- June 30 and July 7 -- providing an undisguised opportunity of victory to the Far-Right RN, freshly Red-Bulled by their triumph at the European election.   

Before describing the unbearable anxiety, the real trauma, shortly followed by a historic mass movement, let’s try to define what I mean by “we”, so shocked by “them” the RN/FN.

“We” stands for the people of France, citizens and residents of various ethnic origin – from North Africa, from Sub-Saharan Africa, from India, China, Japan, Indonesia and other extreme-Oriental countries, from West Asia, from different European countries, from the US and Latin America, but especially non-white people...

“We” stands for workers of all sectors, intellectual and manual labour, students, teachers, journalists, artists, authors, singers, sportspersons, from cities, suburbs and villages, from relocated factories and deserted farms, collapsed hospitals, threatened schools, rickety public services.

“We” stands for Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Agnostics and Atheists, but more specifically Jews and, of course, evidently Muslims.

“We” stands for men, women, young, old, feminists, humanists, heterosexuals, homosexuals, transexuals, people of the free world.

“We” stands for leaders and grassroot activists of Left parties: socialist, communist, Green and more spectacularly “Insoumis” – roughly translated “Rebels”, a faction of the former Socialist Party founded and led by Jean-Luc Mélechon.

“We” were the target of RN/FN, we were threatened by the political agenda of their national leaders, by the hate speech of their local leaders and cadres, without forgetting GUD – Groupe Union Défense – the fascist student militia, active since 1970s, extremely violent, capable of attacking and killing non-white people, gays and feminists, Left party activists.

So, we were facing a racist-fascist party which had an agenda of ethnic cleansing. But things were not in black and white, they were quite twisted and perverse.

First, since the massacre in Gaza, Mélechon and several leaders and militants of the “Insoumis” party made accusations against Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and his Far Right party. This divided the French Jewish community. Many Jew intellectuals and common people forgot or preferred to forget the anti-semitic genocidal DNA of RN/FN and stood against the Left party “Insoumis”. Some of them even went far, not to say, stooped low, to support RN/FN. Time of stupor and disgust for us, the others.

Second, there were rumours that President Macron wanted Jordan Bardella, the leader of RN/FN as Prime Minister. As a former finance sector employee, managing partner of Rothschild & Cie Investment bank – equivalent of a lackey of Birla and Tata –Macron never gained our trust. When he formed his political party, former En Marche, now Renaissance, he declared his motto to be “neither Left, nor Right”, which with time revealed to be Hard-Right and virulently anti-Left.

Macron provoked and aggravated people’s suffering, thus their anger and rebellion since he imposed several anti-people economic policies, such as increasing the retirement age to 64 years, suppression of wealth tax for the billionaires, privatisation of services and medias, destruction of public sectors, such as schools, hospitals, cultural and social activity organisations by cutting their fund, implementation of immigration law to control the flux of immigration in France.

Under the Macron regime, journalists were fired, workers, farmers, students, feminists in protest rallies trampled, clubbed, blinded, beaten up by the police force. Many times, in the now-dissolved National Assembly and on public occasions, President Macron and his party members openly showed their affinities with RN/FN and other Far Right parties and leaders, verbally attacking Left party leaders and activists. We haven’t forgotten how warmly he invited India’s Prime Minister as his guest of honor on Bastille Day 2023 and decorated him with the Legion d’Honneur.

So, clearly, it’s been years that Macron is kissing on one side the capitalists and bowing down before the fascists. Capitalism in its state of agony needs fascism and vice versa.

Third, in this perfectly opportunist situation, the multinational company owner, billionaire Vincent Bolloré, captured several television and radio news channels and newspapers. In less than a year, TV channels like CNews have become the mouthpiece of round-the-clock propaganda of racist, Islamophobic, misogynist, anti-immigration, anti-Left hate speeches, of sheer lies and defamatory stories. One can recall here the ‘Godi-Media’ in India or Fox News. In both cases, the Goebbels (Hitler’s propagandist) method of propaganda paved the path for two megalomaniac Far Right autocrats. Nothing surprising that former RN/FN party members, campaign managers, close friends became strategically chosen so-called journalists on these TV shows.

The devastating consequences of constant racist propaganda disrupted our daily life in France. Neighbours, pedestrians, shopkeepers, office workers – people we know and the people we don’t know -- are now disinhibited, shameless, ruthless and aren’t shy to to vociferate racial slurs.

Paradoxically, the more the small cities and villages are homogeneously “white”, populated by “native French”, without a single presence of a non-white person, the more they are displaying racist hatred, or rather a fantasised version of their fear and disgust for non-white people.

Disconnected from the reality of multicultural social fabric of big cities, such as Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Cannes, Nice and others, stuffed with non-stop racist propaganda on TV channels, often uneducated or poorly educated, living in deindustrialised and rural areas, many of whom are former communist party supporters, now disillusioned, but mostly white native French are vehemently ultra-nationalist. Both these categories are threatened by the liberal economy, relocation of industries – and these are the electoral base of RN/FN. They also show a visceral rejection of any progressive achievement, be it in economic, social, or cultural domain.

Since their victory in the European election, RN/FN projected the president of their party, a very young 20 something person, Jordan Bardella, as their candidate for Prime Minister. New monkey, old tricks. The party has dissimulated its fascist DNA, has taken a softer populist approach, the media has put them in good grace and washed the tar.

On June 9 evening, still in a state of shock and distress, people and activists, “we” started expressing on social media our anxiety and worry, but also our determination to fight the beast.

On June 10, after using for the first time the term “Popular Front”, François Ruffin and elected Assembly members from different Left parties published an on-line petition appealing to the leaders of the parties to form a Left Front. In a few hours, the petition received several hundred thousand signatures.

Parallelly, 350 celebrities of political, intellectual, artistic and militant activities, among which Nobel laureate economist Esther Duflo, Nobel laureate novelist Annie Ernaux, published an opinion piece in Le Monde, appealing to form a Left Front, to fight fascism.

This was followed by the joint call from five biggest trade unions: CGT, CFDT and others.

In the evening of June 10, leaders representing Insoumis – Manuel Bompard, Green Party – Marine Tondelier, Socialist Party -- Olivier Faure, Communist Party -- Fabien Roussel and three other Left parties, formed the coalition, naming it “New Popular Front” (NPF), to offer a political and economic line distinctly different from that of Macron, to fight the fascist force.

In the next two days, other Left leaders like Raphaël Glucksmann (Jewish and demanding to eliminate anti-semitism in the Left Front) and Carole Delga joined the Front. They agreed to carry on a joint venture, a perfect collaboration, in the common interest of each Left party in the Front in each constituency. Legendary leader Mélechon, next generation leaders

Clémence Guetté, Manon Aubry, Manuel Bompard, Louis Boyard, Mélanie Vogel and so many others, François Hollande of Socialist Party and former President of France passed days and nights giving speeches in public meeting across the country, debating on TV channels and radio channels, describing in detail the programme of the NPF. Increase the minimum wage to 1,600 euros, age of retirement at 60 years, taxing the super-rich, fixing a non-exceeding price for the elementary substantial products ….

Renowned economist Michael Zemmour posted regularly on social media his analysis and support to the programme. Manès Nadel, a 15-year-old high school student and Left party activist emerged as the cutest, bravest ever possible figure of this movement, as a symbol of a new generation of hope and possibilities. All of the above cited leaders are extraordinarily brilliant. Invited by the Left newspaper L’Humanité, this writer wrote an opinion piece, informative, and rather poetic.

Leaders, militants, people – we all stayed connected on social media, because not only were we campaigning for NPF, but we also had to deal every single day with Far-Right defamatory propaganda, threats, racist insults online and on the ground. Several Left activists were physically attacked during the campaign, several French citizens of North African and Sub-Saharan African origin were threatened and ordered to leave the country.

On June 29, voters cast their ballots in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, French Polynesia … and at embassies and consulates in the Americas and Caribbean region. On June 30, voting took place in France metropolitan. The turnout for the first round of 2024 Assembly election was 59.39%. In 2022, it was 39.42%. The result of the first round election was still a disaster as RN/FN got 29.26% votes – 37 seats; New Popular Front 28.06% – 32 seats; presidential coalition 20.04% – 2 seats. Various other Far-Right, Centrist and Left parties got negligible numbers of votes.

So, the risk of RN/FN forming the government was still there. No mainstream media ever gave a shot to the NPF. Bolloré Media was working overtime to denigrate the Left leaders and their programme, every debate turned into harassment and aggression. But they resisted. Brilliantly. Sincerely. There was an incredible osmose between party leaders and militants and ordinary people turned into activists.

Independent media, like Mediapart, Blast, Au Poste played a crucial role in informing, analysing, exposing the facts and fighting the Far-Right propaganda. Social media echoed all of this and the amplified force of resistance became spectacular.

Jordan Bardella kept a very well-behaved attitude but failed miserably in presenting his party’s programme, as there was hardly any. Dozens of RN/FN candidates became laughing stocks because of their incoherent answers, others revealed their Nazi affiliation by posing with a Nazi Cap, or by calling to kill Arabs and Blacks… These cases were exposed by the regional TV channels.

Six days before the second round of election, a major coalition was formed between President Macron’s party (Renaissance) and the NPF, but in a fragmented way. Macron himself maintained a posture of “neither nor” that is neither RN, not the Left Front, so far. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal openly dissociated from Macron’s strategy, stating that the urgency was to fight the fascist party and gave instructions to vote for NPF in a constituency where the President’s party will be in third position. And vice versa – instructions were given and scrupulously maintained by the NPF to vote for the President’s party in a similar case.  

For less than a week, online and on the ground, in different cities, people lived and breathed following the rhythm of the passionate mass movement. Poems, songs, paintings, tags overwhelmed the days and nights, as well as the brilliant speeches of the NPF leaders. The message was to BELIEVE, not to give up, that every single vote counts.

And it worked. Sunday, July 7, 2024, the participation rate in the assembly elections was 59.71%, at 5 p.m. In 2022, at the same time, the participation rate was 38.11%. As for the results, beating all the prognostics, exit polls and last-minute pro-RN/FN propaganda, NPF got 182 seats, Macron’s party 168 seats, and RN/FN 143 seats.

No party achieved an absolute majority. But, in a proper parliamentarian governmental system, it is possible to have Macron as President and a Prime Minister from the NPF. The question is: will Macron be dignified enough to respect people’s voice, accept the victory of NPF and the Prime Minister proposed by them?

The struggle is not over yet, but the taste of victory is the taste of life, it’s a triumph of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

The writer is a Kolkata-born French author and a citizen of France. Her works have been published by Gallimard. She is also a winner of the French academy award for literature. The views are personal.