The result of these European elections is a significant shock. With Macron announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly, it is vital that the whole of the left – the parties, the unions, and all the organisations of the workers’ movement – meet and mobilise. We propose that, in the towns, in the neighbourhoods, and at the national level, meetings take place over the next few days to achieve unity. We need to resist in the streets and at the ballot box.

Barely more than half the electorate voted in these European elections, and yet tonight’s results sound like a wake-up call. As has been predicted for weeks, the far right has won a huge number of votes across Europe and will be able to bring dozens of elected representatives, probably more than a hundred, into the European assembly. The far right is on the threshold of power in several European countries. It is already participating in some coalition governments.

In France, the Rassemblement National (National Rally) increased its score by nearly 10% compared with the previous elections, putting the far right as a whole at nearly 40%. Their electoral platforms were racist, authoritarian, and homophobic. However, this result is due to decades of racist and anti-social policies pursued by governments on both the right and the left.

It is also the consequence of the Macron government’s desire to legitimise the Rassemblement National as its ‘best enemy’, while at the same time implementing some of its policies, in order to turn every election into a duel between the presidential camp and the RN. But this blackmail, ‘vote for us or let the far right win’, is working less and less because the rejection of Macron’s authoritarian, anti-social, and racist government is increasingly massive.

After the defeat in the 2022 legislative elections, President Macron’s camp is once again suffering the rejection of the electorate and is only managing to muster a paltry 15% of the vote, despite the fact that all the resources of the state were put at the service of Macron’s slate and that the President and the Prime Minister led the campaign.

The social-liberal left of co-management and hollandism (Holland was the last Socialist Party president) expressed by the Glucksman slate, is once again feted by the media. This is not a good sign. This neo-liberal left, with its restrictive labour laws, a reactionary position on nationality, and compromise with Western imperialism, has led us into the wall, further demoralising and weakening our social camp and propelling Macron to power.

The votes for Manon Aubry’s and Rima Hassan’s list (La France Insoumise/Melenchon) were driven by popular and working-class anger at Macron’s authoritarian ultraliberalism, but also at his complicity in the genocide taking place in Gaza at this very moment.

The challenge for our social camp is to regain the upper hand in a context of economic, social, democratic, and ecological crises that are combining and amplifying. All the forces on the left that reject this socially and ecologically destructive system must come together to resist the far right and the Macronism that feeds it at the ballot box and on the streets.

Montreuil, Sunday 9 June 2024

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