France’s New Popular Front Can Stop the Far Right (2024)

Harrison Stetler

Despite their internal divisions, France’s leading left-wing forces have agreed to form a Nouveau Front Populaire. What made this alliance possible?

Clémence Guetté

Minutes after the European election results on June 9, and the major defeat suffered by his own political camp, Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and snap parliamentary elections for June 30 and July 7. The reactionary and racist far-right bloc had just won almost 37 percent of the votes cast in the EU elections. The president’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly at this moment was the final confirmation that Macronism is a stepping stone for the Rassemblement National. The far right, legitimized by a complicit media and the extreme center, has never been so close to seizing power as it is now.

The very next day, and in light of the urgency of the situation prompted by the dissolution, France Insoumise called for a meeting between the partners who formed theNouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale(NUPES [a previous left-wing alliance]) and to engage in this electoral battle together. The Nouveau Front Populaire has been strengthened by the participation of collectives, associations, and unions and has been met with enthusiasm in all sectors of society. It has two aims: to prevent Marine Le Pen’s victory and to enable the popular bloc to win and govern.

The political situation shows that this is possible. Almost 32 percent of the votes cast during the European elections went to [the parties that later formed] the NFP bloc. This doesn’t count the reserve of votes among abstentionists, which totaled 48.5 percent of the electorate. Given the massive rejection of the Macronist center, the popular bloc is the only force that can defeat the far right. This is what has made this historic alliance possible and necessary. We reached an agreement in four days, providing for single NFP candidates in each constituency and a common program of government committed to a rupture with the existing social and political order.

Harrison Stetler

The NFP claims to be more than just an electoral alliance. What is it calling for, in response to the many crises that France currently faces?

Clémence Guetté

France Insoumise has always been very clear: we refuse purely circ*mstantial electoral alliances. That we were able to rally around a governing program devoted to responding to the social and ecological emergency is what made this alliance possible. This program of rupture is also what makes an NFP victory possible: it is aimed at responding to the needs of the French people and there is massive support for the measures it includes.

The Nouveau Front Populaire has drawn up a plan for government if we win this election. The plan lays out the emergency measures to be taken within the first fifteen days, from price freezes on basic necessities and a hike in the after-tax minimum wage to €1,600 [a month] to the repeal of the increase in the retirement age to sixty-four. To respond to the ecological emergency, we are calling for a moratorium on megafarming. For international peace, we call for the immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood.

The program then details other measures to be taken over a longer time frame, such as the return of community policing, the repeal of Emmanuel Macron’s immigration law, and the free and unconditional right to change one’s sexual identity before a registrar. The Nouveau Front Populaire alliance is above all an agreement on a program of rupture designed to respond effectively to the social, ecological, and democratic crises facing our country.

Harrison Stetler

The line from big business, many in the media, and Macron’s allies is that the NFP program represents a serious danger for France — that it would lead to national decline and provoke a financial crisis. What’s your response?

Clémence Guetté

We’re not surprised by uproar caused by the NFP’s program for rupture among employers, the mainstream media, and politicians — in short, from a large segment of the French oligarchy. This response was to be expected. This has always been the case whenever the popular bloc is in a position to win, as was nearly the case during Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s 2022 presidential campaign.

What’s the main question in this election? It’s about whose money we should use in order to govern. For the past seven years, the Macronists have taken from the pockets of workers. Le Pen and her followers propose to scrape even further at the bottom of the barrel, attacking foreigners. Our program aims to find money where it’s in no short supply: directly in the bank accounts of billionaires. That’s what our ambitious tax proposal is all about. We want to tax corporate super-profits and reintroduce a wealth tax, strengthened with an environmental component.

This plan scares them. They’re less afraid of a financial crisis than of a societal rebalancing from capital to labor, from shareholders to employees. It also should be noted that the neoliberal paradigm that’s prevailed in France since the 1980s — supposedly designed to avert a so-called “national decline”— has done nothing to stop the outsourcing of our industrial base or revive economic growth or stem the consequences of inflation for the vast majority of the population. The Nouveau Front Populaire program is supported and defended by many economists, such as Julia Cagé and Michaël Zemmour. It represents an historic opportunity to respond to the economic situation facing France and the French people.

Harrison Stetler

Among the biggest source of tensions on the French left is international politics, whether on Ukraine or the war on Gaza. How have you been able to resolve these divides?

Clémence Guetté

Let me start by returning to the program signed and supported by all the political forces of the Nouveau Front Populaire. We need to disentangle the media’s presentation of the Left’s allegedly numerous disagreements, which almost always entails a caricature of France Insoumise’s position on Gaza. For example, I often hear on TV that we don’t call for the release of Israeli hostages, even though we demanded that starting on October 7. Naturally, that demand is included in the program’s emergency measures, as is the call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

There are no divisions in the Nouveau Front Populaire over the need to defend peace and support international legal proceedings pertaining to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Similarly, I hear far too often that France Insoumise has an ambiguous position on the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we condemned Russia’s violation of international law as soon as it invaded Ukraine. Our votes, particularly in the European Parliament, speak for themselves.

That being said, the visions for international peace defended by the various currents in the Nouveau Front Populaire are not perfectly hom*ogeneous. We had to make compromises, faced with the urgent need to stand up to the far right, to restore peace in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine and stop the killing. France Insoumise is committed to a diplomatic and not a military solution to the border question in Ukraine. War with a nuclear power is not an acceptable strategy.

We call for a nonaligned international position and reject the notion of providing “unconditional” support for any nation. Our compass is and will remain international law and the defense of a strong and independent French diplomatic stance. Peace in Ukraine, as in Gaza, must be achieved by law, not by arms. This is not just a matter of principle: it’s how all conflicts have been resolved.

We have taken it upon ourselves to be the first and sometimes the only political force in France to demand a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. This consistency has opened us to unjustified attacks. But it has also allowed us to rally our partners in the Nouveau Front Populaire to our position, and to achieve concrete victories such as the European Parliament’s vote in favor of a cease-fire. We will continue along this path.

Harrison Stetler

The NUPES alliance succumbed to its divisions in 2023. How will you prevent this new alliance from suffering the same fate?

Clémence Guetté

France Insoumise regrets that NUPES was not united for the European elections. Since last summer, our movement repeatedly called for a joint ticket bringing together Les Écologistes, the Parti Communiste, the Parti Socialiste, and France Insoumise on the basis of the common program signed by all these political forces during the 2022 legislative elections. We have always opted for political coherence, in front of the citizens who elected us in 2022, and so called for a new popular union for 2024. Similarly, we never gave up on supporting the common framework created by NUPES in order to represent a coherent alternative both to Macron’s neoliberal bloc and the racist and reactionary bloc if parliament was dissolved.

This alliance did not collapse because of “its divisions.” From June 2023, it was clear that some of our partners wanted to go it alone for electoral reasons. But with the Nouveau Front Populaire, we have an agreement for a program of government — as was the case with the NUPES — because we intend to win. We are accountable to our voters. And this time, the burden of responsibility is even greater: associations, citizens’ collectives, and trade unions have joined us. It’s up to all these forces to collectively defend this program and stand up to the far right.

Harrison Stetler

France Insoumise has been accused of carrying out a purge last weekend, deselecting some of the leading figures in your political movement. This has revived concerns over the lack of internal democracy in the party. What do you make of this scandal?

Clémence Guetté

The Nouveau Front Populaire is not only made up of and supported by political forces, but brings together associations, trade unions, and civil society. Its goal is to be a political outlet for a new France, one representing young women, the working class, and all those who suffer from racism and poverty and who aspire to change that. France Insoumise is the only political movement to have taken this promise seriously by opening itself up to certain figures from outside the political world and selecting them to defend the Nouveau Front Populaire program in the National Assembly. It would be cynical and hypocritical to nominate these figures in constituencies in which they’d face little chance of winning a seat.

I’m extremely proud that trade unionists like Céline Verzeletti and Marie Mesmeur — or representatives of citizens’ collectives like Amal Bentounsi and Aly Diouara, and the ER physician [the candidates who replaced the five deselected MPs] — will be carrying the banner of the Nouveau Front Populaire. It also ought to be reiterated that no one has a lifetime seat in parliament. It should also be obvious that our movement won’t run certain people who have stated a desire to no longer caucus with France Insoumise in the National Assembly. As always, the France Insoumise electoral committee opted for consistency, breaking out of the political vacuum by making room for admirable social-movement figures.

Harrison Stetler

In light of this latest affair, many partners in the NFP, and indeed certain figures in France Insoumise, have questioned the continued influence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Is it time for him to step aside and allow new figures in France Insoumise and on the Left to play a more central role?

Clémence Guetté

Those who’d like to bury Jean-Luc Mélenchon ought to be reminded that without him and his perseverance, our country would have gone without an alternative to fascism for quite some time now. I’d like to thank him for leading us through this crisis for as long as he has. And to those who talk about him withdrawing, let me ask: Is Jean-Luc Mélenchon a candidate in any constituency? Has he defended anything other than the Nouveau Front Populaire in the last two weeks?

Let’s bring this debate back to earth. The task we face is to govern a country threatened by wars on several continents, while holding firm to the course of peace. France is facing major economic turbulence, and our project can expect stiff resistance from ultraneoliberal and reactionary segments in the state and in society. In a situation like this, it would be absurd to brush aside our most experienced political leader.

The emergence of new figures is precisely what’s happening! To think Mélenchon is crowding them out is paternalistic. Just take France Insoumise comrades like Mathilde Panot and Manuel Bompard, with whom I led the negotiations that allowed for the historic NPF agreement. There’s also our movement’s elected representatives in the European Parliament, such as our lead candidate Manon Aubry, or Rima Hassan, a Palestinian refugee and human rights jurist. Our force and movement are brimming with fighting figures who owe a great deal to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. We are all aware of the attention he has devoted to creating a new generation capable of continuing the fight.

Harrison Stetler

In the event of an NFP victory on July 7, the parties will have to propose a prime minister. How would the alliance resolve this tense issue?

Clémence Guetté

Before thinking about nominations, there’s a battle that must be won to defeat the Rassemblement National and the Macronists at the ballot box. Without that victory, there will be no prime minister to sign a decree to freeze prices. The question of who eventually holds that pen is not the primary concern for the millions of French people struggling to make ends meet.

I should also insist that a Nouveau Front Populaire government is bound by an agreement for a program of rupture. Whoever is at the head of an NFP government must apply this program without compromise or betrayal.

As for the functional specifics, the alliance accepted the proposal from Olivier Faure [secretary general of the Parti Socialiste] that the largest group within the majority in the National Assembly will get to put forward a figure for prime minister on behalf of all the forces of the Nouveau Front Populaire. It’s as simple as that.

Harrison Stetler

The results of the European elections have strengthened the Parti Socialiste. Relative to the 2022 NUPES agreement, it will have more deputies in proportion to the other left-wing parties. Should we fear a reestablishment of the center-left, after the last few years when France Insoumise was largely the dominant force?

Clémence Guetté

There are several different possible readings of the June 9 results. What I see is a stagnation of the center-left bloc made up of Les Écologistes and the Parti Socialiste, coupled with a relative strengthening of France Insoumise when compared with the previous European elections. We won almost 10 percent of the national vote, or nearly 4 points more than in 2019. This represents around a million additional votes. Additionally, our movement retains the largest number of constituencies in the Nouveau Front Populaire agreement. The narrative of the strengthening of the Parti Socialiste also needs to be qualified, given its candidate’s score in the 2022 presidential election (mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo took just 1.75 percent of the vote).

We reached an agreement on a program of rupture precisely because we categorically refuse to return to the politics of the François Hollande years and the betrayal and retreat that they represented. France Insoumise would never have agreed to unite on a platform not grounded in a rupture with the anti-social and antidemocratic order that has sacrificed the French people for over fifteen years. We’re not afraid of going backward. We remain the driving force behind our bloc.

Harrison Stetler

Your district in Val-de-Marne is relatively safe. On the other hand, where the Left needs to make inroads is in constituencies beyond urban areas. Judging by the results of the European elections, the Rassemblement National has extended its reach in exurban and rural parts of France. How can the Left reverse this trend?

Clémence Guetté

First, I’d like to stress that it’s not true to say that there’s a fundamental divide between urban and rural France, or that the Rassemblement National is hegemonic in the countryside. Population density is not a relevant explanation for understanding how our fellow citizens vote. There’s not a “trend to be reversed.” Rather, we must insist on the fact that the difficulties encountered by people living in rural areas are often very similar to those in working-class neighborhoods in urban areas.

What’s true is that there’s a common feeling of abandonment in both areas. They both need to be addressed, especially when it comes to access to public services and healthcare. Seine-Saint-Denis [the dense suburbs north of Paris] is the biggest medical desert in France. We urgently need to unwind the tendency toward pitting geographical areas against each other. The difficulties encountered in both urban and rural France are very often similar or stem from the same root causes.

The result of the European elections shows that the Rassemblement National enjoyed higher turnout among voters who had supported the party two years earlier. Mass voter participation is therefore the key. We can secure this by providing an answer to popular anger and the demand for a better life.

Harrison Stetler

A victory for the Rassemblement National on July 7 cannot be ruled out. In that case, how will you contain the threat posed by the first far-right government since Vichy?

Clémence Guetté

The Nouveau Front Populaire will lead the resistance to the far right on two levels. Thanks to this alliance, we intend to win these elections and defeat the Rassemblement National by preventing it from gaining a majority on July 7. Beyond an electoral victory, this new front brings together a whole popular bloc designed to mobilize people to defeat the far right’s offensives, wherever they come from. This front will not disappear. It will be strengthened by all the forces in French society — from trade unions and associations to citizens and politicians — who reject the fascist bloc for what it is. From the political institutions to the streets, the Nouveau Front Populaire will resist the anti-social and racist impulses of the far right. France Insoumise will make no compromise with far-right extremism.