France’s Far Right Is Gaining Where the Left Has Crumbled
French workers vote for the far-right Rassemblement National more than for other parties, but more often, they don’t vote at all. Rather than laying down roots like the old workers' parties, Marine Le Pen’s party has exploited the vacuum left by their decline.
President of French far-right Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen, in Paris on February 7, 2024. (Gonzalo Fuentes / AFP via Getty Images)
For decades, France’s left was dominated by the French Communist Party (PCF), an organization that built up strong networks of support in working-class France over the twentieth century. Yet from the 1980s onward this mighty organization declined, leaving a vacuum to be filled. The Front National — the far-right party, led by Marine Le Pen, which became the Rassemblement National (RN) in 2018 — was a major beneficiary.
The PCF’s decline is closely bound up with the destruction of the social and organizational conditions that had long sustained workers’ participation in French political life. This shift gave social and activist groups far removed from the working class the opportunity to speak politically on its behalf. Le Pen’s Rassemblement National has no real activist base in working-class areas or on the shop floor. But today it can present itself as the “party of workers.”
The Rise and Weakening of a Workers’ Party
Founded as a workers’ party in the interwar years, from 1945 through the 1970s the Communist Party was the main activist and electoral force on the French left. The PCF’s organization was rooted in working-class France — and was usually headed by leaders hailing from such backgrounds. Its political weight was all the greater because of the relative social cohesion of these same classes. Skilled metalworkers and those employed in public firms with protected status (on the railways or in gas and electricity) played a key role in PCF ranks. Close connections between the sites of labor and residential areas also meant that workplace-level political involvement easily extended into the local context. Blue-collar union activists joined forces with the likes of teachers to challenge social elites’ power over municipal office.
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