French president Emmanuel Macron called for snap parliamentary elections in France in the evening of the elections for the European parliament in which the far-right National Rally party won as much as 31.4% (double the Macron‘s Renaissance party’s 14.6%). Just five days after that, on Friday June 14th, left and left-leaning political actors made a coalition agreement. They will go to the elections, scheduled to take place on June 30th and July 7th , as the New Popular Front, Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP).
Mašina talked about the French left‘s tactics for the approaching elections with Natalie Depraz, a member of the left-wing La France Insoumise political party, a member of the action group GA Paris 17 in the 17th arrondissement in Paris. Depraz is a professor at the University of Paris Nanterre and an academic member of the Husserl Archives at the École normale supérieure (ENS/CNRS). Depraz visited Belgrade while attending the Change conference organised by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Ifdt.
Would you elaborate on the forming of the Nouveau Front Populaire coalition?
I think it’s a historical event because we organized so quickly.
When the French president made his announcement about the dissolution of parliament on Sunday evening, I think he was expecting that we – the left wing, the left parties – would not be able to do anything in such a short time. He limited the time in order to impede us from making a coalition. That was his plan or his calculation, and it‘s great that it didn’t work.
Even before the 14th, on Monday – so 24 hours after the announcement – we already had negotiations. So it was very quick. It took a few days, of course, to complete the negotiations about who is going to be candidate where, and for which political party. The parliament has 577 members, so it was huge work, and they worked day and night to make this agreement happen. That‘s why I think it’s a historical event.
And of course, it’s an electoral program, so it doesn’t mean that we are going to agree on everything afterwards. But there is an urgency, as you know, because it’s so important for the National Assembly. So, we needed to do something, and we’ll see what happens.
Is this a big surprise for Macron?
Yes, of course. It’s a counter surprise, I would say.
And on your side – it‘s perhaps bad timing to ask you this now – but are you surprised that you managed to make a coalition so quickly?
Actually, I didn’t believe it at first. On Sunday evening, when I heard that the Parliament will be dissoluted, I thought that we wouldn’t be able to do anything because we only had three weeks. I didn’t know how it was even possible to do anything.
And when I saw that the following day, we already had a de principe (basic) agreement – well, I was so amazed.
What will be the main messages of this coalition for the elections?
I think there is only one word: to win. And make the Rassemblement National (the National Rally party) presence in the parliament as small as possible, that is, not obtain any relative majority.
Even though we are realistic and we know that it’s going to be a growing force – I mean, it’s not possible that their presence in the parliament doesn’t grow a lot. But our expectation is that with this coalition, with this union, we can succeed in getting more representatives from the left parties.
In the sense of political spectrum, how broad a coalition is it?
It is as broad as possible. It even includes Place Publique, Raphaël Glucksmann‘s party which is not actually a left party. If not for other things, then because he supported Macron most of the time. He’s a liberal and he hasn‘t got a lot to do with us.
At first he didn‘t even want to be a part of the coalition and he was very clear in his opposition to La France Insoumise on Sunday. Then he went back and forth during the whole week, saying yes – no, yes – no. And then, during the negotiations, he probably saw that he could have some results if he would come with us so he finally accepted. From where we stand, even if his claim to be a socialist is no more than a claim, we can’t exclude him, because he will take Macron’s votes in some districts.
For example I know that Place Publique is going to have a candidate in the district where I was a candidate two years ago for La France Insoumise.
This is the fourth district, which is a very right wing oriented district. I knew I wouldn’t be elected there two years ago, but we had a surprisingly good result there in 2022. We ended up with 13,27%, which was huge for this district. We were in the third position after the Macron’s candidate and the LR (Les Republicains) candidate, which was great: it was a historical success in that regard!
So, I hoped at first that I would again be made a candidate there, and I even asked for that, but they decided to give this district to Place Publique as a concession. We wouldn’t win there anyway and maybe it will be possible that the Glucksmann’s party’s candidate takes votes from Macron’s.
How successful was the left in the European elections in France?
The left in the right sense of the word – that is, not Glucksmann. Glucksmann’s party was quite successful and won the third place, so to say. As I said, he replaced some of the used-to-be Macron’s votes, he took the place that Macron doesn’t have anymore.
As far as the real left is concerned, the radical left, France Insoumise, the EP elections were a success because we have three more representatives. We had six, and now we will have nine. This is not a lot, of course, but if you proportionalize, it’s almost double. That’s what I say; I say: “Look, we have double the number of representatives now”. And people look at me, like: “Well, okay”. (laughter) But I still think that the proportion matters.
Would you say that France is now a very polarized society because the votes are going from the center to the left and to the right?
Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. That’s what the media want us to think. They want us to believe that
there will be this extreme polarization between right and left in the parliamentary elections, and that that there will be the two main forces. It’s a kind of a projection, a specter haunting the society. They want to create that impression so that the people don’t vote for the extreme parties.
Macron called both the left and the right “lunatics”.
So I think that’s more what the media are conveying. I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily true because there are many people who are going to vote for a kind of moderate position, either Glucksmann or Macron.
But Macron has not taken an entirely moderate stance during his electoral campaign – or before, with different policies against workers’ rights and social rights. He’s even been warmongering: he asked for a war economy for France recently, and not for the first time.
I agree. A perfect example of that is the immigration law that was voted during the Christmas holidays, with very few representatives present, very, very quickly, and with the help of the Rassemblement National and the LR, the Republicans. Macron was in complete alliance with them for this law, which is quite emblematic of this kind of deals, the deals he already had and is going to have with extreme right.
So you’re right – it’s not a moderate party anymore. But many people think that it is. Even though most people oppose what Macron has been doing during the last two years, they still see him as a representative of the center right.
Like, “civilized”?
Yeah, Republican. “We are not violent, we don’t do aggressive things”. I think that some people are still going to vote Macron. Maybe not a lot; I think that Glucksmann is going to replace Macron largely.
So it’s not impossible that we end up with a national assembly with three main blocks. So, hopefully the Nouveau Front Populaire will have one third, the extreme right the second third – and then there will be a kind of… You know, in the French Revolution, we named the representatives that were hard to pinpoint politicaly the Marche, the Swamp.
I can imagine that there will be this third part of the parliament, with this kind of representatives, who are going to sometimes vote for the extreme right, sometimes for the radical left. And they’re going to be the ones upon whom the voting will depend, because otherwise it will be blocked.
We’re here, so to say, under the impression that Macron was elected with much help from the representatives of big financial capital and that he has catered to their needs and requests in the first few years of his rule. But now, looking from outside it seems like he’s at least in word also catering directly to the values and needs of the voters of the far right – trying to attract them by using their rhetoric.
Obviously it isn’t the first time in history that this has happened and it only allows the far right to grow. Now, the financial capital goes hand-in-hand with the right, but at one point the ideas and actions of the far right can come into collision with those of the financial capital. With that in mind: in your opinion, what do those who elected Macron, the representatives of big bucks, feel about Macron’s warmongering?
It’s hard to answer that. What is clear is that the traditional right parties and their electorate are completely divided on this topic. As you saw, some are going to join the extreme right, or have already, and some are not.
So I think that even in Macron’s staff, there are people who are going to engage in this rhetoric of using the extreme right discourse in order to – well, maybe not even to get votes, but to be in alliance with this growing force, and to assure that in the end their party remains alive and shares a part of the leadership with the extreme right. For example, in case Jordan Bardella becomes prime minister.
Macron has the illusion that he will be able to control the far right, whereas actually Macron’s staff is going be the one who is going to be controlled.
It’s happened before.
We know that perfectly well from history, as you say.
I asked because contradictory requests are coming from the right. In Germany, a part of the far right is even asking for the end of the war in Ukraine, claiming that they would talk to Putin and see eye-to-eye as conservatives.
And we know that Marine Le Pen is using funding from Russia.
Yes; so it’s not that certain that the rise of the far right in Europe equates that war will necessarily soon spread throughout the continent. Or does it?
It’s linked to another kind of division, between the democratic values and what is seen in what Putin is doing as a dictatorship. That’s why Putin is ready to give money to the parties who will be against the left parties.
What I said is actually my own personal perception of the whole interpretation of the whole situation right now. And I’m not speaking in the name of the Nouveau Front Populaire, of course, and even of the France Insoumise movement, even though I’m, of course, quite involved in it.
All the more because I have no actual formal responsibility, I’m not a candidate this time, but just a member of a “group d’action” an action group, in the 17th arrondissement.
