The result of the legislative elections held in France cannot be
understood without starting from some considerations on the electoralsystem used. In France, voting takes place in 577 single-member
constituencies in which the winner is the candidate who has obtained
more than 50% of the votes plus one. If this does not happen in the
first round, a second vote is held in which those candidates who have
obtained at least 12% of the votes participate. However, in this case,
the system of desistance is often used: the candidates form a coalition
and the vote turns into a competition between the two remaining in the
running.
The largest number of deputies was elected by the New Popular Front
(NFP), a left-wing alliance that won 182 seats: the centrist formation,
wanted by President Emmanuel Macron, Ensemble, (E) elected 168, while
the Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen (RN), allied with a part of
the Republicains, led by the party president Eric Ciotti, elected 143
deputies. The Republicans won 61 seats, 22 were left-wing independents
elected, 10 right-wing independents and 10 regionalist deputies; to
these must be added 7 individuals elected. In the second round of the
early legislative elections, 66.7% of eligible voters participated, an
increase compared to the first round (65%), the highest level in a
second round since 1997, when 71.1% of voters participated. This result
was possible despite the fact that in the first round, the RN had
obtained 32.05% of the votes and the New Popular Front only 28.06%,
while Ensemble! 20.04%. And this is because the New Popular Front, in
order to prevent the right from winning, withdrew from more than 200
run-offs, voting for Macron's candidate. There were 215 constituencies
in France where there was a desistance, that is, one of the candidates
withdrew to channel the votes to the one who had a better chance of winning.
In these 215 constituencies, what happened was that in eighty percent of
cases the resistance worked: the tactical withdrawal of the left-wing
candidate or Macron's candidate led to the victory of the one who
remained in the race. It was the president's party that benefited most
from the generous commitment of the left to prevent the right from winning.
Now, Macron, who strongly wanted these elections to try to get out of
the crisis into which his politics has long been plunged, is playing
with the composite structure of the New Popular Front (in which
Mélenchon's France Insoumise is the most represented with 74 elected
members, to which are added 3 "dissidents" of the party. The Socialist
Party has 59 deputies and the Ecologists 28, the Communist Party 9
parliamentarians and Generation 5) and is trying to split it: his goal
is to eliminate Mélenchon and create a coalition government, dominated
by Macron's supporters, at most in a close alliance with the reborn
Socialist Party. For the first time in France, the government would
probably be led by a figure coming from the other leaders of the State,
"a technician", to create a government of national unity, on the type of
governments experimented in Italy. The left, for its part, insists on
asking for the nomination of a prime minister who comes from its ranks
and is waiting for the debate in the national assembly on the election
of its president to proceed with his identification.
The analysis of the vote
To understand what happened in France, an analysis of the vote is
essential, taking into account that the first round is the most
political vote, the second round is also very tactical, as we have seen,
so we must put together the two moments of the vote to note that the
city and the countryside voted differently. The distribution of the vote
draws very significant social dynamics on the territory.
Distribution of the vote by constituency (1st round)
Distribution of the vote by constituency (2nd round)
The vote for the left is concentrated in the cities and especially in
Paris where the right did not win even one seat out of 50 and this was
also the case in other large French cities where the left of the New
Popular Front managed to obtain a truly significant result. And we are
not referring, as in Italy, to a victory of the so-called ZTL left but
of the areas of the agglomeration parisienne, that is, the areas where
social hardship is strongest, where there are problems of poverty, of
marginalization, areas in which migrant communities and the poorest
classes of workers live, areas with major problems of integration, great
economic and social marginalization. It was precisely there that Nuovo
Fronte Popolare obtained its best results, so there was a very urban
vote that included the working-class neighborhoods of the big centers
and people of dual nationality who live in those houses that in the
program of the Rassemblement Nazional should be taken away from
immigrants and reserved for the French d'hoc, those without dual
citizenship. Without any emphasis, we can agree that in this case the
left has rediscovered its class function and has fully performed it. The
radical right confirms its establishment in a part of the South (around
Nice) and especially in the north-east (around Calais) and in the
internal areas, those furthest from the large centers: Le Pen wins in
the medium-small municipalities and loses badly in the large
municipalities. At the social level, the Rassemblement national obtains
its maximum consensus among the unemployed and in the working classes
with low levels of education and low income among those who are afraid
of globalization, of the instability of constraints, of inflation, of
immigration, of Islamic radicalism, of invasion, insecurity in the
streets, of petty crime, therefore fear that dominates in small centers
where perhaps you don't see an immigrant, where you don't see a
criminal, where you don't see anything but it is the sentiment that
prevails and imposes itself. Instead, on the contrary, Esemble! Macron's
party, reaches its peak in the high-income and upper-social classes,
among the elderly: there is an interesting generational dynamic that
sees the left very strong among young people, with over 40% of the
votes, while Macron wins among pensioners and over-sixties. The voter
flows between the first and second rounds show that especially left-wing
voters when they had a Macronian candidate voted for him in 72% while
Macronian voters when there was a left-wing candidate to vote for him
supported him by about 40-50%.
By dissolving the National Assembly early, Macron has gained time,
because now for a year it is no longer possible to call new elections,
the government, presumably, will accompany him for three years, until
the end of his mandate.
However, the future of France will depend on how these three years are
managed, proof of this is that Le Pen has declared that it is a deferred
victory, because the Rassemblement National will continue to grow. The
plans of Marine Le Pen and her heir apparent Bardella are thwarted by
the extreme inadequacy of her party's candidates, who have proven
incapable of managing the power they aspire to because they are
unpresentable and driven by racist hatred and incompetence.
The economic situation
Even though political commentators underline the undoubted role of
desistance played by the left to prevent the victory of the
Rassemblement National, the success achieved is due, in our opinion, to
the economic and social program of the New Popular Front, which is
characterized by the attempt to give a positive response to the great
struggles and mobilizations that have characterized the social conflict
in France in recent years. Undoubtedly, Macron's economic and social
policy has been disastrous and a failure, as demonstrated by the
increase in the cost of living, the inadequacy of wages, the social
measures and lastly the immigration law, voted in agreement with the
right, which Macron also says he wants to fight. Macron's 7 years at the
Elysée will be remembered because the Constitution was forced by
launching two fundamental laws against the will of Parliament and
against the country. The struggles of the yellow vests first, the one on
pensions, then dug a ditch within French society that divides the
people, both right and left, from power and therefore it is no
coincidence that the left's program at the first point contains the
immediate reform by decree of the retirement age, bringing the first
exit back to sixty years and the immediate increase, also by decree, of
the minimum wage to 1600 monthly. It must be said that the maneuver on
pensions alone would cost 50 billion euros by 2027, which is an
unsustainable cost for a country whose budget is in crisis, so much so
that the European Union has opened infringement proceedings against
France. Now it is true that the only country in Europe that has not
actually applied the stability pact is France and that therefore the
French have become accustomed to the fact that what applies to everyone
else does not apply to them, but the infringement procedure is still
open, with a deficit expected for this year of 5%, so it cannot be taken
for granted that the European Central Bank will support the deficit. All
that remains is the immediate adoption of the particularly severe wealth
tax to go and look for and find the money where it is, that is, in the
pockets of the rich, something to which Macron is radically opposed.
This is the real reason why the president does not want to have any
relationship with France Insoumise and Mélenchon, who instead maintains
that the increase in wages and the massive injection of financial
resources into the market would trigger a virtuous mechanism, which
would produce an increase in income capable of impacting tax revenue, of
such an identity as to repay social interventions and rebalance the
budget. Certainly one of the essential corollaries of this new economy
is the abandonment of the war economy and the country's politics of
grandeur, the definitive liquidation of the remnants of colonial and
power politics that characterize Macron's international politics,
especially with regard to what remains of the French colonial empire and
the country's influence, especially in Africa. Although the agreed
program of the New Popular Front still includes support for Ukraine,
these economic policy choices presuppose and entail its abandonment.
Even if the majority of political forces pretend to ignore it, war is
the terrain on which the possibilities of a different economic policy of
the left are measured.
The chickens come home to roost
Even if for the moment Macron, hiding the persistent behind the need to
manage the Olympic Games, has announced to keep Gabriel Attal in office
for current affairs, a new government will have to be formed and will
have to equip itself with an economic policy. The budget maneuver looms
in September: France, which has the third highest public debt in Europe,
after Greece and Italy, increased more than all the other countries of
the European Union since 2019, has a budget characterized by a growing
deficit. The left proposes an expansionary policy that would be
self-financing as it would determine the increase in GDP, counting on
the fact that with the growth of incomes, state revenues would increase.
The capital needed to trigger the growth process should however be found
with a robust increase in taxation and with a wealth tax that would hit
the Macronian electorate, trying to reverse the tendency towards a
redistribution of wealth in favor of the wealthier classes that has been
the characteristic feature of Macronian management of power. It seems
completely unrealistic that a choice of this kind will be adopted as
long as, as in the current situation, the party of the President of the
Republic plays a decisive role in the management of the State. If a
policy capable of addressing and resolving the problems posed by the
electorate is not adopted, the victory of the right will only be
postponed. It should not be forgotten that the Rassemblement National
was the party that received the highest number of votes in absolute
terms, both in the first and second rounds, even though, under the
majoritarian electoral system with single-member constituencies used in
France, receiving more votes on a national basis does not in any way
imply obtaining more parliamentarians: to be elected, a candidate must
receive more votes than the other candidates in his or her constituency,
regardless of how many votes the party received in total. However, the
persistent consensus for the right still translates into instability on
a social level. Furthermore, during the next elections in three years,
these will be held to simultaneously read both the President of the
Republic and the new National Assembly. This once again means a
polarization of the vote on the two candidates who will be the
expression of the opposing sides. Therefore, the only opportunity that
the left has to govern is to intensify the social conflict and try to
obtain, through union mobilization and struggles, those objectives that
are precluded by a future coalition government that will lack the
necessary coherence in pursuing the objectives contained in the left's
program. This is the only way to improve the living and working
conditions of the French people and at the same time to prevent the
majority of the electorate, disappointed by the left, from deciding to
support the right of the country in the future.
Holding one's nose
The left-wing people in France have shown great maturity, choosing to
vote for the Macronists, in the second round of the ballot, they voted
holding their noses, just to block the right and defend the Republic.
This great generosity and maturity should not be offended and trampled
upon, giving way to maneuvers aimed at excluding the left from
government responsibility, from attempts to frustrate the implementation
of its program, because the response will inevitably produce the descent
into the field of workers and laboratories, of men and women in the
streets, in defense of their rights and interests, because they and
their needs are the ones who embody the Republic. The shameful barrage
opened by the right-thinking press, by the establishment, by the
supporters of power will not be enough to defeat the legitimate
expectations of left-wing voters who want with all their might the
implementation of the government program that is the basis of the
coalition that fought and sacrificed itself to defeat the right and all
this regardless of the prime minister identified. A question clearly
imposes itself on the bosses, the financiers, the technocrats of every
stripe: but how could you think that the yellow vests, that the workers
on strike for wages, those who took to the streets in defense of
pensions, demanding well-being and quality of life, were joking when
they went on strike for days and took to the streets; how could you
think that they would forget the treacherous and violent use of art. 43
of the Constitution to force the parliamentary and popular will; how
could you not understand how the country was capable of uniting in
defense of the Republic and of freedom, fraternity and equality,
regardless of skin color, origin, if migrant, sex, gender, age?
If it were to happen that the evil arts of reformism, the centrist
swamp, managed to divide the coalition and keep power in the hands of
the usual suspects, the regime bureaucrats and high-ranking state
officials, then the only possible response will be to take to the
streets, and this time even more decisively. It is necessary for
supporters of the republican order to remember that while many things
divide the right and left of the country, the needs and many demands are
common and that therefore the struggles for higher wages, for pensions,
for greater social justice, will see the country united in the streets
to fight a common enemy, as has already happened in recent years, in the
face of the failed policies of the Macronian government. Democratic
freedoms have a price and at the same time a condition: equality and
social justice.
The European Union must also understand this, realizing that choosing
the rearmament of Europe as a priority is completely detrimental to
social policy, carrying forward a green reset of economic and
development policy, is incompatible with the pollution of the community
aequis as a direct consequence of the forced entry of Ukraine into the
Union for political reasons, in violation of all the parameters required
by the Treaties and with economic damage and at the expense of the
peoples of the countries that are part of it.
The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/07/20/la-francia-va-a-sinistra/
_________________________________________
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