Paris-based anticapitalist activist and Green Left contributor John Mullen spoke to German publication Marx21 on July 12 about the July 7 French election result and the immediate challenges for the left.
Marine le Pen
While elections are not at the centre of class struggle, the formation of left-wing electoral alliance the New Popular Front has inspired a wider and deeper anti-fascist mobilisation in France, argues John Mullen.
Green Left’s Susan Price spoke with John Mullen, an anticapitalist activist living in Paris and a supporter of the left-wing France Insoumise, following the far-right's gains in the recent European elections and French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election.
Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the French presidential elections on May 7, receiving 58.21% of the vote compared to the 30.01% share for far-right National Front (FN) candidate Marine Le Pen.
Despite the apparently decisive victory, the vote signals continued political uncertainty in France fuelled by widespread disillusionment with France’s democracy. It raises questions as to whether Macron’s supporters, organised in a new centrist movement called En Marche!, will be able to form a working government out of legislative elections scheduled for late June.
Presenting himself as a genuine alternative to the far-right candidate National Front and free-market candidates Francois Fillon and Emmanuel Macron, left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon who has surged into third sport in France's presidential race, whose first round is set for April 23. The Left Party's Melenchon pitched himself as the candidate for peace and solidarity across borders at a mass meeting on April 8 attended by 70,000 supporters in Marseille.
As the initial horror and outrage of the attacks in Paris on November 13 subside, the impacts they are already having on French and European society are becoming clearer.
A state of emergency has been declared by the French government and will persist for up to three months.
French officials announced on November 17 that France would see an extra 115,000 police officers, gendarmes and soldiers deployed across the country.
In this context, rational debate is being restricted and progressive movements are on the defensive.
Refugees