What way forward in France?

France is in an unprecedented political crisis. President Emmanuel Macron’s political party, Ensemble, was beaten in the European election in June. It was an anti-Macron referendum, resulting in a victory for Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist party Rassemblement National (RN), in an election with little participation and a divided left. Macron then dissolved the national assembly thinking he would be able to find a new majority with the right-wing Republicans and part of the Socialist Party (PS) and the Ecologists (EELV). He lost the parliamentary elections too because he is hated for his anti-social, pro-rich policies.

A new left-wing electoral coalition was promoted in the general election by La France Insoumise (LFI), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, under the name of Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), involving the PS, EELV and the PCF (Communist Party). Its political agenda was quite limited, not calling into question the policy of serving capitalism. However, the NFP did call for the repeal of the 2023 pension ‘reform’, for wage and pension increases, and an end to war.

Macron’s side came in third place in the first round. Then in the second round the NFP alliance won the most seats thanks to an electoral mobilisation of young people and workers, resulting in a record participation, especially in working-class migrant areas. Macron then refused to respect the tradition of nominating a prime minister from the biggest political force.

In this uncertain economic and political situation, the French capitalist ruling class do not want to see the application of the NFP’s programme, even though it does not represent a great danger to their control, proposing modest neo-Keynesian measures of redistribution and the preservation of public services. Macron took advantage of the Olympic Games to not appoint a new government, passing anti-social decrees and continuing his policy of attacking public services.

He then appointed Michel Barnier of the right-wing Republican party as prime minister – even though the Republicans only won 5% of the vote. Macron had the agreement of Le Pen’s RN that it will not vote for a censure motion but wait for the 2027 presidential election.

The government is mainly composed of classical right-wing personalities there to carry out austerity policies. Barnier announced an unprecedented budget cuts plan of 60 billion euros in 2025, 20 billion of which will fall on ministries and local authorities. It also proposes getting rid of 40,000 teaching jobs, 100,000 administrative court posts and the closure of post offices.

The movement against pension reform in 2023 was unprecedented in terms of its duration and form. No lessons, however, have been learned by the trade unions or the left regarding its failure. There have been almost no national days of strike or other action in 2024. It is the mobilisations for Gaza and the elections that have remobilised a layer of young people and workers.

Faced with the Barnier government, a single budget mobilisation date was proposed by the CGT union on 1 October. Participation was low, however, because there was no campaign to build the strike and no plan of struggle by the leadership of the CGT. Faced with the austerity budget, the trade union leaders say they do not want to create more instability and want to win concrete things for workers. But how? The trade union leaders should be calling for a new day of united strike action. This should be built around a plan of growing struggle and demands that include opposition to all redundancies and the attacks on public services and the unemployed, and for the renationalisation of privatised companies and the transfer to public ownership, under the control and management of workers, of companies that close sites or production such as the pharmaceutical company Sanofi.

The absence of struggle and a conscious intervention by workers and young people has allowed the right-populist RN to pose as the opposition to Macron. Like Macron’s party, the RN incorporates part of the classic electorate of the French right, those who want a harder policy against workers by dividing them on a racist basis. In the recent elections, and in the games to form a government, the RN has given up on all its social promises. During the previous government the RN also voted with the Macronists against the social measures of the left, but this is not yet visible enough on a mass scale, because the RN is favoured in the media. It has proposed a retirement age of 62 instead of 64. But this is a scam because with the 42 working years minimum they propose very few would be able to actually leave work at 62! And they want to finance this by attacking social security and immigrants

Workers’ anger is immense, even if it cannot find a way to express itself, and there may be a certain sense of defeatism in the workers’ organisations. Unity is needed but cannot be achieved on any old programme. The NFP is not the answer. The PS and EELV have accepted this alliance to block the RN for a time, to keep their deputies, and also to have a ‘left’ label for the 2026 municipal elections, while they are, in reality, pro-capitalist parties. Moreover, the PS refused to support the institutional process of impeaching Macron, initiated by La France Insoumise, in order not to ‘create a greater political crisis’! The PCF has also chosen not to take advantage of the contradictions and weakness of the Macron government, favouring ‘stability’. This is a problem in view of the weight of this party in the CGT and the workers’ movement.

Logically, there is little enthusiasm among many workers who voted for the NFP, remembering the neo-liberal, anti-working-class policies of former president Francois Hollande, for example, who was an NFP candidate in the elections from the PS.

On 7 September, on the initiative of LFI, there were large demonstrations against Macron. But the atmosphere then declined with the impossible prospect of impeachment, unions that did not clearly call for it, and did not link it to the 1 October mobilisation. Today they are all preparing for the next elections rather than organising resistance to the devastating policies of Macron and Barnier, who are supported by the RN.

We need a united front of all the unions and left parties against Macron. A united front that allows us to fight together and puts forward a programme of rupture with capitalism.

Since Macron came to power, LFI has been the only political force on a large scale that opposes racism, police violence and war, and denounces the economic and environmental problems of the capitalist system. Young people and workers joined LFI this year to fight against the RN and against the war in Gaza. Some LFI activists want to see a revolution in France against Macron, the RN and the capitalists. They see no other way out of the crisis, especially after the vote ‘theft’ in the general election when LFI won the most seats but was prevented from forming the government.

But LFI’s programme is limited to the idea of a ‘citizen’s revolution’ through the ballot box, supported by mass mobilisations, but without the centrality of the working class. However, LFI will not be immune from the contradictions and strategic choices created by the unstable political situation. These could lay the basis for the construction of a mass party of workers for socialism in France. But Mélenchon and the leadership of France Insoumise do not want to make this choice.

The task of conscious militants in the workers’ movement, combative trade unionists, as well as LFI activists, communists and revolutionary organisations should be fully devoted to encouraging the working class and young people to intervene decisively as a class. In this unprecedented period, members of Gauche Révolutionnaire, the French section of the CWI, are oriented towards the unions and young people to build the revolutionary Marxist forces necessary to play a decisive role in the process of reconstruction of the workers’ movement on the basis of struggle for a genuine socialist programme that can finish with Macron, Le Pen and the capitalists!

Matthias Louis

Gauche Révolutionnaire