If you trust the mass media, you will have had the impression that French politics this month is mostly about a bunch of squabbling lefties and a patient, sensible President Emmanuel Macron trying to get them to see sense. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As the Olympic opening ceremony went out to a billion TV viewers across the world, Macron was winning no medals for respecting democracy. On the contrary, he has been showing, as the radical left has been saying for years, that his relationship with neofascist leader Marine Le Pen is “more of a duet than a duel”.
Macron has so far refused to appoint a Prime Minister from the New Popular Front (NFP), the left alliance with the most seats in the National Assembly.
He has also said it is terrible that the far right won no seats on the parliamentary House Affairs Committee last week. This committee deals with parliamentary discipline, among other things, and recently suspended a left-wing MP who waved a Palestinian flag in the House. It is very good that it has no fascist members and now has a left majority.
Macron’s main priority is to avoid an NFP government. He hopes instead for an (unlikely) coalition, bringing together some of the right and some of the left around his own group. It would be very difficult for him to get a majority in that way, but this is his dream, and the reason he is refusing to follow normal procedure and appoint a PM belonging to the biggest parliamentary group.
Left debates PM candidate
Last week, after 16 days of negotiations, the four parties making up the NFP agreed on a name to propose for PM. Contrary to media reports, this delay was caused by real differences in political perspectives between the parties, not personality clashes or psychological weaknesses.
It was quickly understood that La France Insoumise (France in Revolt, FI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon would not get a consensus in the left alliance as a candidate for PM. The Socialist Party (PS) tried hard to push one of their leaders, Olivier Faure, for the role. After some days it became clear that to have a chance of agreement, a candidate who was neither an FI nor PS leader would be required.
First, the Communist Party (PCF) proposed Huguette Bello, president of the regional council of La Réunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, who often agrees with the FI, but who is not a member. The Greens and FI agreed, but the PS refused this choice, seeing her as too close to the FI. The PS may also have disliked her opposition to Islamophobic laws passed 20 years ago and/or her rather late move to support gay marriage laws.
The PS then proposed Laurence Tubiana, a top economist. The FI angrily rejected her because she recently signed a document saying the left should form a government coalition with Macron. She was also considered by Macron as a potential PM a few years back.
Agreement of the whole left alliance was finally reached on July 23 to put forward Lucie Castets as a candidate. Castets is a senior civil servant who formed an organisation to defend public services a few years ago. She campaigned against the raising of the retirement age last year and has declared that a coalition with Macron is impossible because his ideas are incompatible with the NPF program.
On those key points — apply the left program and do not make a coalition with Macron — she is a good candidate and is combative.
No truce!
Macron has insisted that a “political truce” is necessary until the end of the Olympic Games and does not plan to appoint a new PM until at least mid-August — even though he lost the elections more than three weeks ago!
Meanwhile, some of our new radical left MPs are making a splash. Thomas Portes received global media attention after he said that Israeli athletes were not welcome in Paris. He was widely accused in the media of antisemitism and encouraging terrorism. But the crowds at an opening Olympic football match between Mali and Israel and at the opening ceremony seemed to back his position, roundly booing the Israeli team.
The PCF, which for years now has been trying to carve itself out a political space to the right of the FI, promptly denounced Portes and declared that Israeli athletes were welcome. Macron invited Netanyahu to the opening ceremony, in a spectacular bid to rehabilitate genocide, despite claiming to have important disagreements with the Israeli government.
Meanwhile, the president hosted a lavish dinner with bosses from 40 major international companies, including Airbnb, Samsung, Coca-Cola and luxury goods group LVMH, desperate to reassure them that he does actually know what he is doing.
Two things have boosted Macron a little this week.
First, the Olympic opening ceremony claimed to show the world France’s great universal values. Even though Macron was loudly booed by spectators, such an impressive show of national pride does tend to comfort the "powers that be" for a couple of weeks.
Secondly, a coordinated large-scale sabotage of the country’s rail networks on the day of the opening ceremony helped the president because such acts can be used to justify an increasingly repressive society and an atmosphere of national unity against terrorism. No-one has claimed responsibility for the sabotage, but if it was a political intervention, it was one that weakens our side in the class struggle. We need mass struggle, not blockading workers leaving on holiday.
The situation is not immediately explosive, but we are entering a long and deep crisis.
The Constitution does not allow for new legislative elections for 12 months, but all three blocs in the National Assembly — the left alliance, Macron’s group and the far right — are several dozen seats short of a parliamentary majority.
Whether Macron does his democratic duty and names Castets PM or not, upheaval is assured and the organised mobilisation of the working class will be the key to a way forward.
[John Mullen is a revolutionary and a France Insoumise activist in the Paris region. His website is randombolshevik.org.]