France Heads for Chaos and Instability

The second round of the legislative elections in France have left the country in quite a chaotic and unstable political situation. The left-wing New Popular Front (NPR), a heterogenous mix of leftists, socialists, communists and greens, has the most seats in the new parliament (184), while the Macronists in Ensemble ended up with many more seats (166) than their dismal results in the first round would have given them, thanks to the votes they received from other parties in order to prevent National Rally (NR) candidates from winning. Although NR received the most votes in the first round, only 143 of its candidates were elected, for an increase of over 50 seats. The party, however, remains the largest in France by the number of votes it was given in these elections and in the European elections one month ago.

Following the announcement of the results, Jacques Cheminade, chairman of Solidarité et Progrès, noted in a July 8 statement that the striking feature of this campaign was “the denial of reality by all”. All the parties and alliances acted as if it were “a domestic political battle, as if France were isolated from the global context. None mentioned the risk of war, and all acted as if supplying arms to Ukraine was a matter of course. None of them mentioned the financial oligarchy’s stranglehold on nations and peoples, all acted as if this were not an issue worth raising. They have thus made promises that are impossible to keep in the current order, to which they have all de facto subscribed, by failing to raise the real issues at stake.”

The reality, he points out, is that as part of NATO, France has to accept a “war economy directed against one of the two states in the world that has the largest nuclear military power”, thus de facto serving the second, the United States, and risking a generalized conflict. The reality is also that, “within the European Union, France will be obliged to present a seven-year debt reduction plan in September”.

For Solidarité et Progrès, Cheminade explains, the programs of both the National Rally and the NPF are unacceptable. S&P will fight for an exit from “the world of NATO, the City, Wall Street and the financial stranglehold to join the BRICS emancipation drive. It is in this political context, opposed to the ‘rules-based Western order’, that we will finally be able to find the degrees of freedom to apply more just policies.”

The declaration of Jacques Cheminade is available in French here.