France hasn’t changed much since the 1790s. Absurd levels of inequality, failing state institutions, and rising sectarian tensions are only some elements of the current nationwide crisis that mirror the past. Although French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that joining the “extremes” could “lead to civil war,” most of the French electorate seems undeterred. On the one hand, support for Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally has skyrocketed recently, securing more than double Macron’s seat share in this year’s European Parliament. On the other hand, progressive heavyweights like Jean-Luc Melenchon and Olivier Faure have assembled a hard-left alliance known as the New Popular Front (NFP). The NFP’s shocking 2024 legislative election victory represents a resounding public rebuke of Macron’s neoliberal status quo and Le Pen’s reactionary xenophobia.  

Beginning his career as a Rothschild & Co investment banker, Emmanuel Macron rose through the ranks of French politics as a pro-business reformer. He served as Elysees Palace Secretary General and later as Economy Minister under President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government. In 2015, he authored the highly controversial “Macron Law” which aimed to stimulate economic growth through sweeping deregulation and loosened labor protections. The bill was so unpopular that the French government invoked Article 49 of the Constitution to bypass a parliamentary vote. Macron announced his candidacy for president the next year, severing his ties with the Socialist Party and creating his own centrist movement known as “En Marche!”. Branding himself as an anti-system maverick, Macron garnered support from those on all sides of the ideological spectrum who felt abandoned by the established parties. According to Hanken Professor Martin Fougère, “his positioning as right-wing and left-wing ‘at the same time’ (while remaining very vague about his program for as long as possible) made it possible for him to attract voters from both centre-right and centre-left.” This technocratic electoral framing gave Macron greater flexibility when developing his political persona: one day he could be an ambitious environmentalist and receive endorsements from France's scientific community, the next day he could draw on his experience in banking and promise to “simplify life” for entrepreneurs. While Macron was relatively unknown prior to leaving the Socialist Party, he decisively won both the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.  

Macron’s main opponent during both elections was far-right demagogue Marine Le Pen. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Front in 1972 (renamed to National Rally under Marine) and has been convicted of Holocaust denial along with several other instances of hateful rhetoric. Although the younger Le Pen has downplayed her neo-fascist roots, she has become notorious for inciting violence against foreigners. For example, she once compared Muslims praying outdoors to “Nazi-occupation” and has even vowed to suspend immigration into France altogether. Le Pen’s crusade against “savage globalization” is at the heart of her nativist populist appeal. At a rally in Lyon she said, “Our leaders chose globalization…These ideologies want to subjugate our country, one in the name of financial globalization, the other in the name of fundamentalist Islam.” By linking immigration to the liberal economic elite, Le Pen was able to attract much of France’s white lower and middle classes without fundamentally addressing the root of their material conditions. David Gow explained in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, “Trapped in a cycle of low growth, high unemployment, [and] weak productivity…Le Pen's authoritarian dirigisme becomes attractive to millions by issuing false promises of keeping jobs and capital at home.” This strategy has made her Macron’s fiercest rival by far, seen in the National Rally’s commanding performance in the 2024 European Union elections. While rising migration has been a major criticism of the Macron presidency, his austerity measures have triggered an immense wave of public anger. In January 2023, over a million French citizens protested Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64, with several riots taking place throughout the country. Le Pen has largely distanced herself from these protests, even condemning striking refinery workers for causing a nationwide fuel shortage. In contrast, the New Popular Front has been the only electoral platform to directly acknowledge worker demands and offer an alternative to Macron’s neoliberal economic vision.

Progressive parties such as the Greens, the Socialists, and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed were on the frontlines against the retirement hike. At first, lawmakers tabled nearly 20,000 amendments to Macron’s pension bill in hopes of disrupting its passage. Next, they attempted to dissolve the government entirely through a vote of no confidence. After the reforms were pushed through the Constitutional Council using Article 49, French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel tweeted “A law enacted in the middle of the night, like thieves. Thieves of life. May 1st 2023: Everyone on the street.” This leftist bloc reunited a year later to counter the National Rally’s unprecedented gains in the European Parliament. 

At the core of the NFP platform is a systemic rejection of Macronism through the revival of the universal welfare state. Their policies include: raising the minimum wage, freezing prices for essential goods like food and energy, returning the retirement age to 60, boosting housing benefits, and raising taxes on the wealthy. Melenchon has even suggested abolishing the “presidential monarchy” and creating a new Sixth French Republic. In stark opposition to Le Pen, the NFP has also embraced France’s large Muslim community. Alain Gabon of the Middle East Eye wrote that France Unbowed, the coalition’s largest partner, “is also the only party that dares talk about and denounce systemic and state racism and the only one to propose the abrogation of the infamous ‘law against Islamist separatism’, a major part of Macron’s ‘Systemic Obstruction Policy.’” Beyond that, the NFP has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and immediate recognition of the Palestinian state. This radical agenda propelled the coalition to victory in the 2024 French parliamentary election, winning more seats than Le Pen’s National Rally and Macron’s Ensemble. By standing in solidarity with the working class and refusing to alienate minorities, the NFP formed a robust multi-racial anti-capitalist movement that now threatens France’s political elite. 

In less than 3 weeks, the French left organized a formidable proletarian platform that halted the rise of the National Rally and weakened Macron’s grip on national power. Despite the NFP gaining the most seats in parliament, President Macron appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister, a conservative member of France’s smallest party now backed by Le Pen. Not only is the move a worrying omen for the legitimacy of French popular democracy, it also exposes the liberal establishment’s willingness to collaborate with the extreme-right for survival. With Melenchon calling for “long-term battle” during a mass September demonstration in Paris, it’s clear that yet another French revolution is on the horizon.