The Nouveau Front Populaire has been formed to take on Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the French legislative elections.
It is a coalition of ultra-leftists, woo-woo greens, a candidate who has been identified as an active antifa activist, the tottering geriatric residue of the French Communist Party and also many traditional opportunistic socialists. These include former president François Hollande, who has leveraged his support for a safe seat in the Corrèze, and Raphael Glucksmann, who had previously been positioning himself as the sensible face of the left. He has now aligned himself with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the tantrum-prone Gaza-obsessed Trotskyist who rules the hard left France Insoumise.
The Nouveau Front Populaire is offering an economic program that seems to have been drawn up in a circus clown car
The Nouveau Front Populaire is offering an economic program that seems to have been drawn up in a circus clown car, proposing 150 measures which are in totality and individually insane. There is to be a price freeze on all products of première nécessité — including food and energy. Good luck with that. There will be an immediate repeal of Macron’s hard-won and ultimately modest pension reforms — no matter that France with an aging population can’t afford it. There are more taxes on the “rich” obviously and an exit tax on anyone trying to leave. The NFP promises to welcome migrants and offer them immediate benefits. And of course the coalition is committed to a ceasefire in Gaza and all other conceivable social justice causes, reflecting the diverse priorities of the group.
Note here for just a moment that the life expectancy of the new popular front can be measured in days. These people loathe one another. The coalition will last precisely until June 30 and the first round of voting, after which it will be sauve qui peut (every man for himself) for those candidates who survive into the second round one week later. When the dust settles some of those who have marched under its banner might well defect to Macron, if they smell gainful employment.
It’s comic that the Nouveau Front Populaire has positioned itself as the successor to the original Front Populaire that tried to unify the left against fascism in 1936. The original popular front ended in complete failure and with the occupation of France shortly afterwards.
This time the objective is to oppose the rampant Rassemblement National, which the left considers hard-right racist extremists. The difficulty with this is that Le Pen’s party is firstly nothing like right-wing on the economy, where it is fundamentally socialist and has an enduring fondness for protectionism. This is balanced or perhaps complemented by its nationalist stance on migration and demand that the character of the country be recognized and protected. It’s unclear how it would be likely to achieve any of these objectives, if ever in government, but there’s a first time for everything.
Jordan Bardella, the new TikTok-savvy face of the party, himself born of Italian and Algerian immigrants, came out second best when he debated Macron’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, before the European election. Just as Macron defeated Le Pen when they debated in 2017 and 2022. But Bardella has also been careful to avoid making too many grandiose gestures and has suggested respect for the bond markets which sustain the country’s enormous debts, growing towards €4 trillion ($4.3 trillion), more than 110 percent of GDP. Although he also talks of reversing Macron’s pension reform.
Bardella is only twenty-eight and has been uniquely close to Marine Le Pen, who still calls the shots. She ultimately intends to run again for president, her fourth attempt, in 2027. Barring a maneuver from Macron to stop him, Bardella will be prime minister if the Rassemblement can win an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. But this is a big ask.
As ever in the Le Pen clan, it’s a family affair. Bardella is reported to have been stepping out with France Nolwenn Olivier, a granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
I’m known for crawling out on thin limbs during French elections but with under two weeks to go before the first votes, I’ll predict that French voters know that there are extremists running for the Assembly — and they are in the Nouveau Front Populaire. The most recent polls are showing the Rassemblement with a 5 to 7 percent lead over the NFP, with team Macron trailing.
Voters will have been revolted to see the thugs in black on the margins of the NFP demonstrations demonizing the Rassemblement as fascists. They have already been out fighting the police in their struggle against extremism.
Bardella and his party will do well but he doesn’t want to be prime minister of a coalition government and it would take a landslide to win him an absolute majority. The Nouveau Front Populaire will, I predict, have a disappointing result. Its figurehead — the massively disagreeable Jean-Luc Mélenchon — turns off voters every time he opens his mouth.
Macron’s deputies expect to lose many seats and their plurality in the Assembly, which makes even more inexplicable the president’s decision to launch this chaos. It is extremely difficult to translate polls into a prediction of who will be on top in 577 separate elections across two rounds but I’m seeing gains for Rassemblement, losses for Macron and a rejection of the ultra-left. And a hopelessly divided Assembly.
Credit where it’s due. Marine Le Pen has transformed the party founded by her father who found the Holocaust a mere “detail” of history into a center-right contender to run France. Macron has largely made this possible with the failure of his own personality-based project that has united the country against him. And by installing Bardella she has turned her party positively milquetoast. How they might perform in power is of course entirely another question. I suspect that they could quickly disappoint their followers.
Which winds us back to the president. He is sinking in the polluted waters of the Seine, where the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics is in just one month. This was supposed to be his moment. He will need all his acting talent to pull this off. Will he dare dive in, as he promised, to prove the water is safe enough for open-water swimming events? What was Macron thinking when he dissolved parliament and called a referendum on himself? Has he lost his holy breath and inspiration. Macron has always claimed to be the smartest guy in the room but barring a political miracle, his carrots are cooked, as they say here.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
