The campaign for April’s French presidential election is already polarizing around the “culture war.” The flood of anti-immigrant messaging isn’t just coming from the far right or even President Emmanuel Macron’s administration, but also many of France’s leading capitalists — not least billionaire tycoon Vincent Bolloré, owner of the Fox-like CNews.

The situation ahead of this spring’s vote thus looks perilous. There is every likelihood that the runoff will again set the neoliberal (and increasingly conservative-hued) Macron against a candidate of the hard or far right. Logically enough, fear is spreading in left-wing circles, which by current polling seem hard-pressed to mount a strong challenge in April’s contest.

One expression of this fear is the plea for unity among the various left-wing candidates, none of whom currently polls much above 10 percent. While Jean-Luc Mélenchon generally stands out as the top-ranked left-wing candidate, there are a slew of alternatives, from the more liberal (such as Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, of the Socialist Party, and the Green Yannick Jadot) as well as the French Communist Party’s (PCF) Fabien Roussel, former Socialist minister Arnaud Montebourg, and three Trotskyist candidates (Philippe Poutou, Nathalie Arnaud, and Anasse Kazib). François Hollande’s former justice minister Christiane Taubira also looks increasingly likely to throw her hat into the ring.