At the last legislative elections in 2022, time was already up for the French Left. The union proposed by the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI), the Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (NUPES) seems, eight months later, to have been little more than a façade without a future, once most of its constituent parties and movements had made it through those elections largely unscathed.
Yet by taking note both of the LFI's dominance and the value in the end of joining forces at a time of democratic crisis, the various strands of the Left managed to survive and prove that they were not, ultimately, quite so irreconcilable after all.
Leftwing voters were not duped by NUPES at the June 2022 legislative elections, and the reduced turnout should already have served as a democratic warning. The turned-off voters who no longer believe in the reality of an ambitious alternative government continued to desert the polling stations in their droves when faced with a situation on the Left that lacked sufficient appeal.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
No democratic initiatives and a lack of clout in society
Eight months later and there has been no shortage of enthusiasm or promises of a united front, yet nor has there been any imaginative thinking; indeed, worse than that, the very desire to indulge in such thinking has been rejected. There has been no ethical awakening or democratic reflection.
In the National Assembly, the promise of a new way of doing things has foundered on the innate presidential nature of the French system, with the government resorting to the constitutional device of Article 49-3 to force through legislation. It has foundered, too, because of strategies aimed at safeguarding France's Fifth Republic and tactical plots in which the far right is playing an ever-greater role. Hopes that the Assembly can spearhead political change usually end up going nowhere.
In their different ways, the affairs involving former green party boss Julien Bayou and senior LFI figure and MP Adrien Quatennens have shown the inability of these movements to handle issues of sexist, sexual and domestic violence rationally and calmly within party ranks. Meanwhile, tensions around the approach adopted by the divisive figure of senior green MP Sandrine Rousseau seem to cause most of the disagreements within that movement. As for the French Communist party (PCF), it has closed ranks around its leader Fabien Roussel, despite the fact that the financial crimes prosecution unit the Parquet National Financier has started an investigation into whether Roussel's work as a Parliamentary assistant for a communist MP from 2009-2014 amounted to real work or was a fictional job at the taxpayers' expense, as revealed by Mediapart.
Such episodes speak volumes about the complex relationship the Left has with demonstrating exemplary behaviour; a Left whose transformation is both endlessly uncertain and fragile.
As for an ambitious plan which could bring about a united and reconstructed Left, there have been no collective in-depth discussions to study and iron out the “difficult” policy areas that remain between various parties. These were deliberately put to one side in what was a promising initial manifesto agreement, but one negotiated with the carefree attitude of those who knew they would not be forming a government.
Nor has any thought been given since to the issue of democratic change. The ambition of a Sixth Republic – in a concrete and institutional sense, not merely the use of formulaic words – has faded from view. The French Republic seems to have been reduced simply to procrastination over issues of security, migration and surveillance, far removed from its original ideals. Press freedom remains a gimmick of interest to just a handful of parliamentarians. The independence of the judiciary is not even an issue.
The Left has also been unable to rekindle the political flame in terms of broader society. There have been no ambitious policy plans or widespread support reaching out to workers or public services that have been cut to the bone. Nor have there been any wide-ranging plans on reducing working hours, on a maximum wage or on an overhaul of the tax system. This is a desperately uninspiring state of affairs during what are extraordinary economic times, with the return of inflation after 40 years, an energy crisis and environmental priorities.
Even the fight against the far-right seems to be an inconvenience to most of the current leaders, as a result of an acceptance of the confusing way in which the fascist or post-fascist threat – a very real one, as proven by a rise in increasingly unrestrained racist violence – is treated as “equivalent” to that posed by radicalism on the part of fringe leftwing militants (which is sometimes symbolic and most often dreamt up by large sections of the NUPES alliance).
Yet such militants have always been at the heart of the Left's front line when it has come to liberation movements (the fight against discrimination or against police and prison violence, feminism, LGBT+ rights, human rights, the environment). Faced with the current dangers the response from the Left appears, at best, conventional and chaotic; it certainly falls far short of what is required.
In a similar vein, during these perilous times the French Left's internationalist ambitions do not appear to have survived the change of century. LFI's founder and former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has personalised, even privatised, the party's policies on international relations, and NUPES' pro-European parties, whether green or socialist, seem more like tourism agencies than vehicles to develop joint doctrines.
As Russia's war in Ukraine has shown, international solidarity between peoples (or at least workers) vanishes into thin air wherever powerful 'campist' and conspiracy logic inherited from the Cold War still prevails. Once again, this lack of thought when faced with what is, to say the least, a charged international context, continues to bewilder. These disagreements deserve to be brought out into the open and debated, and not simply postponed with a promise to “vote on them” at some unspecified future date.
Far from the domain of social struggles, popular education and the training of activists, the Left's political elites focus on their divisions and wallow in daily condemnations and controversies rather than reflect on how to lead the cultural battle collectively. And how to convince the masses to trust them in the long term, rising above strategic and personal acts that revive a left-wing populism that does not make one believe in a better tomorrow.
Caught in the trap of a hostile media environment, on those occasions when they actually receive and accept invitations to appear on television and radio, leading NUPES figures give the impression that their only real support base in society is on social media networks. Unless it is the case that because they do not have any other place to make themselves heard, these grass roots supporters and activists resort to Twitter and other platforms to debate their contradictions in public, using invective. Rather than taking to the streets, or what is left of the streets, and debating a plan that is sufficiently rousing to make people want to go out and protest again.
The problem of internal decline
Eight months after NUPES was formed, an overview of its parties somehow manages to be even more depressing than it was before last year's presidential election. Stuck in internal issues, each of these organisations highlight their own weaknesses.
La France Insoumise, with its nebulous organisation - where membership just requires the sending of an email – is the leading movement in this New Left that is so reluctant to reconstruct itself. And it has shown its limitations. Things are not running smoothly and the monopolization of power by those close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon is no longer acceptable among those who are not content simply to walk dutifully in line behind him during his marches for the workers.
This neo-Lambertist approach – so-called after the late French Trotskyist Pierre Lambert – does indeed permit a group to take charge of a divided Left and impose itself as an effective militant force during presidential elections, driven by a personality whose talent is as undeniable as its excesses, even if the latter become less and less tolerable with each successive election. But this same approach quickly shows its limitations when it comes to having to present a concrete, demanding and dynamic policy, a task which can scarcely tolerate sectarian outbursts and egotistical paranoia.
As long as this method of leading its own movement continues, so trust in the reconstructive zeal of the Insoumise leadership withers away. Meanwhile there is a growing impression that France's decaying Fifth Republic suits Mélenchon much better than any other reformed and more democratic system.
The green Europe Écologie les Verts (EELV), which had also been performing relatively well after local electoral successes, despite the low score and disappointments of its presidential campaign with candidate Yannick Jadot, has not been able to capitalise on the current militant mood for climate action. Like former leader Cécile Duflot 15 years ago, the new EELV national secretary Marine Tondelier is again calling for the greens to become a mass movement.
But the EELV has never seemed interested in this, preferring instead to focus on apportioning its senior posts on a pro rata basis to satisfy its various competing internal movements. In addition, several well-known environmentalists have come along to take part in the adventure of a European, regional or local election, before generally distancing themselves from the movement.
As for the French Communist Party (PCF), it veers between a desire to open up towards new members and periods in which it withdraws into its communist identity; these two tendencies have been in perpetual opposition inside the party's headquarters at Place du Colonel Fabien in Paris ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Recently the anti-capitalist Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) has imploded and split after some members wanted closer ties with the Trotskyist party Lutte Ouvrière.
Even the Socialist Party (PS) has been unable to tow the unity line on the Left, split as it is between different factions, each claiming to keep alight the one true flame of French socialism, with none of them noticing that the church has collapsed around them. Luckily, there are so few believers now that this does not affect many people.
When they are all totted up, the active militants of all parties on the Left number no more than 50,000, which is not many when you take away the elected politicians, their staff and the local officials who work alongside them.
And yet, now is an opportune moment to bring an end to the Left's social-liberal flirtation, something which began 17 years ago after the Left became divided over France's 2005 referendum on a European constitution.
That period of 17 years is the same length of time as elapsed between the Left's previous crisis over Europe in 1954 - this saw an internal split within the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière over the European Defense Community, a parting of the ways that was rubber-stamped by divisions over the Algerian War – and the developments of 1971. This was the year of the Épinay Congress which gave rise to the modern Socialist Party under future French president François Mitterrand, followed by a 'Common Programme' on policies that the PS, the PCF and the Radical Party of the Left all signed up to.
Reconstruction - more vital than ever
The recent successes of the far-right Rassemblement National underline the extent to which methodically winning local support and then staying in those areas for the long-term are the best recipes for doing well in elections. These recipes are prepared inside parties thanks to an organisational framework and clear procedures which create internal consistency and allow for adaptation to an ideological culture, like the replacement of its political personnel.
The cultural battle is also a battle of activism. If the humanist and progressive narrative is today inaudible against the unequal, shriven and simplistic programme of the far-right, then without doubt that is because a large majority of the current political elite (from the Macronist centre to the right-wing represented by right-wing leader Eric Ciotti, and including the centre-right represented by former prime minister Édouard Philippe) revel in that. But it is also happening because that which remains of the current Left seems practically incapable of changing anything at all.
The birth of a new party (or federation or cooperative) that is deliberative in nature and whose internal procedures are adapted to the 21st century now seems essential for the French Left and French environmentalists. The replacement of party executives and the emergence of a new generation represent the last resort to end the depressing, inward-looking approach which, lacking any boldness or ideas, has for years done its utmost to demoralise those who would like to reverse the course of destiny.
This deep-seated reconstruction of the Left can only come as the consequence of a radically-open democracy that breaks with the militant Malthusianism and political paternalism that still operates in its ranks.
Everywhere that the Left has reinvented itself (in the United States, Chile and the great cities of Central Europe) or has managed to survive in government (as in Spain), it is through having succeeded in capturing popular attention via genuine citizens initiatives. These processes go far beyond the French Left's own primaries, which are competitive and short-term because they are solely electoral in nature.
One hopes that NUPES has the courage to become the organiser of a permanent democratic process, an ideological and electoral process at all levels (local as well as national), using the preferential and not the majority voting system. And that activists agree to run elections that are open to all who identify with the movement, in a process that is genuine and united in nature, and which deals with policy choices as well as the appointment (or replacement) of their future leadership candidates.
That would require saying “stop” to everything and bringing about a profound change in practices and habits. But it cannot be worse than now. Unless, that is, one stops to think about the future if nothing does actually change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The original French version of this op-ed article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter