The mass of French voters in the latest parliamentary elections allowed the Left-wing coalition of parties—the New Popular Front—to gain the largest number of seats in Parliament, though far short of a majority. The far-right National Front has hardly been defeated.
On April 24, Emmanuel Macron won a second five-year term as president of France. The rise of right-wing politicians posing as populists is a worldwide phenomenon aided by the neoliberal economic policies of centrist candidates such as Macron and Joe Biden
French President Macron’s calculated use of fascist language marked a new low. He may have felt it necessary in response to the racist, anti-immigrant campaign of Eric Zemmour.
A letter to the French government warned of civil war. Signed by 25 retired generals and about 1,000 service personnel, it claimed that the nation’s “civilizational values” are threatened by immigrants , Islamism, “anti-racism” and attacks on the police and military.
Governments across the world are conducting a war against the freedom of thought, from France’s assault on critical race theory to U.S. criminalizing of Indigenous water protectors to Poland’s legal enshrinement of Holocaust denial.
There is danger of neo-fascist parties gaining or taking control in several European countries including Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy.
With Brexit, the rise of the far right, Macron’s vacuous French nationalism, and Sinn Fein’s victory in Irish elections, the “idea of Europe” is under great strain.
Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Readers’ Views addressing: challenging fascism across all borders; charter teachers strike; pitfalls of bourgeois politics; women on the march; prison strikes big and small; and the racist criminal injustice system.
The uprising of the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) against French President Emmanuel Macron embodies the unity and brutal disunity of our time.
In OPEC powers’ participation in the counter-revolutionary attacks on the revolutions in Syria and Yemen, and in the anti-immigrant reactionary reshaping of European politics, we see the next stage of bourgeois politics taking shape.
We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
From Paris, Francis Sitel analyzes the results of the 2017 presidential elections in France: Where does opposition stand in relation to election-winner Macron? .
The recent elections in France and Britain have been a welcome setback for that fascist Right which saw Trump and Brexit as a cresting wave carrying them to state power.
France’s national elections will head to a run-off between fascist Marine Le Pen of the National Front party and liberal bourgeois centrist Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche party.
