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PARIS.- Tens of thousands of people demonstrated this Saturday against the prospect of the extreme right coming to power in France, in the midst of a political crisis unexpected advance of the legislative elections.
“I thought I would never see the extreme right come to power, but now it can happen,” Florence David, a 60-year-old woman, said with fear at the beginning of the demonstration in Paris.
The centrist president Emmanuel Macron shocked France by bringing forward the legislative elections scheduled for 2027 to June 30 and July 7, just an hour after the far-right victory National Meeting (RN) in the European elections on Sunday.
Political analysts considered this decision as a “risky bet” in a context of the rise of the extreme right in Europe, where France is one of Ukraine’s main supporters in the offensive against Russia.
“We have to tell everyone to go vote and that fights daily to prevent RN’s victory“said the French striker this Saturday Marcus Thuram at a press conference from Germany, days before the Blues’ debut in the Euro Cup.
Faced with a new possible victory for the far-right party, which won 93% of French municipalities in the European elections, five unions called to demonstrate this weekend. “Our democracy is approaching a turning point,” warned the leader of the moderate CFDT union, Marylise Léon.
The “fear” of the RN took different forms in the march in Paris: defense of democracy, the rights of foreigners, and the LGTBI+ community.
The demonstrations are reminiscent of those of May 1, 2002, when almost a million people took to the streets against the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen, after he managed to advance to the presidential runoff. But since then, his daughter, Marine Le Pen has managed to moderate the image of that National Front, renamed RN.
According to police sources, Some 250,000 people took part in the demonstrations this Saturday, of which 75,000 were in Paris. The CGT union raised these estimates to 640,000 and 250,000, respectively.
The protesters held signs with the phrase “Liberty for all, equality for all and fraternity with all” – in reference to France’s national motto – as well as “Let’s break the borders, documents for everyone, no to immigration law.” Some chanted “Free Palestine, long live Palestine” and they wore the traditional kufiya scarves.
“In 2002 it was a healthy movement of anger and fear. Now we’re used to it [a la ultraderecha]. It’s not good,” warned Alice Ribière, a 39-year-old teacher marching in Nice, southeastern France.
RN would get 29.5% of voting intentions, according to a Cluster17 survey published on Friday, which places the leftist New Popular Front coalition as its main rival (28.5%). Macron’s centrist alliance comes in third place (18%).
The political earthquake generated by the electoral advance, which already divided the conservative party Los Republicanos (LR) over its leader’s proposal to make an agreement with the extreme right, also hit the left-wing coalition.
France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) outraged its socialist, environmentalist and communist partners, by separating from the elections five outgoing deputies critical of their leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and give rise to a close friend, Adrien Quatennens, convicted in 2022 for marital violence.
Among the sections are the media representatives Danielle Simonnet, Raquel Garrido -daughter of Chilean exiles- and Alexis Corbière were replaced by lesser-known candidates. All three will attend the elections anyway.
“We must support the ‘purged’,” said François Ruffin, who sounds like the alternative to Mélenchon in the 2027 presidential election. The unexpected candidacy of the former socialist president François Hollande In the legislative elections it could further strain the coalition.
The French They will elect 577 deputies to the National Assembly in as many constituencies with a single-member system with two rounds. The leftist forces divided up the different constituencies.
The elections do not affect Macron, whose second term as president ends in 2027, but it might have to share power with a government of a different political color.
AFP and AP Agencies
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