Marlon Ettinger is the author of Zemmour and Gaullism and the cohost of Flep24, the French Legislative Elections Podcast for 2024.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise is the biggest radical-left force in Europe. Liberal opinion seethes against all aspects of the movement — but Mélenchon’s comrades haven’t been thrown off course.
European leaders have lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s tariff plans as absurd. Yet some are also using the crisis to push their existing agendas — with France’s government stepping up pressure for sweeping budget cuts.
Roubaix used to be home to France’s textile industry — but doesn’t have the same battalions of factory labor as it once did. For France Insoumise, the challenge is to rebuild the Left’s roots in working-class communities.
In recent months, Emmanuel Macron insisted on the need to slash public debt, yet now he calls for huge military spending. The call to remilitarize has become the center of the French president’s agenda — and offers a pretext for even further cuts to welfare.
Dozens of statements to a French court tell of decades of sexual abuse at a Catholic school. The case has also created a political crisis, with media allegations that today’s prime minister François Bayrou knew what was going on but failed to act.
Emmanuel Macron’s government gave tax breaks for France’s wealthiest while counting on purchase taxes paid by ordinary consumers. Now saying it has a budget hole to fill, his administration is again expecting working-class people to pick up the bill.
A break-in at the country home of Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his house graffitied with far-right slogans and a swastika. The troubling attack followed past assassination plots against the French left-wing leader — but international media totally ignored it.
Since his first presidential campaign in 2017, Emmanuel Macron has presented himself as the only barrier to chaos. But this snap election has shown how much Macron has helped build up the far-right threat in order to entrench his own power.
For years, French media has speculated on “Les Horaces,” a secret group of state officials who hope to join a far-right government. With Marine Le Pen’s party heading polls for the parliamentary elections, their plans look closer to reality than ever.
Emmanuel Macron continues to attack the French welfare state. Following his regressive retirement age reform that sparked mass protests, Macron is now seeking to force jobseekers to do unpaid work in exchange for their meager benefits.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has often claimed to defend France’s welfare state from liberals. But as millions struck against Emmanuel Macron’s retirement reform, Le Pen wasn’t with the protesters.
Emmanuel Macron has pushed through a rise in the pension age despite vast protests. In a televised address on Monday night, he said he’d “heard the anger” in the streets — yet his government’s new budget plans promise further attacks on France’s social model.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has often claimed to defend France’s welfare state from liberals. But as millions strike against Emmanuel Macron’s retirement reform, Le Pen seems to be aiding Macron’s agenda rather than siding with the protesters.
Once a major national force, today’s French Socialist Party finds itself outcompeted by both the radical left and neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron. But last month’s congress shows many leaders would rather kill the party than sign up for radical policies.
Today brought mass strikes against Emmanuel Macron’s “retirement reform” in France. Increasing both the pension age and the number of years workers have to work, the planned measure will see more French people die before they get any retirement at all.
In France’s parliamentary election, left-wing parties more than doubled their number of MPs, helping to deny Emmanuel Macron a majority. Yet the smaller forces who backed Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s coalition are already pulling back from any longer-term pact.
The first round of France’s parliamentary elections saw left-wing coalition NUPES come first nationally. President Emmanuel Macron’s allies reacted by tarring the Left as extremists — but Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s coalition looks closer than ever to power.
Emmanuel Macron claimed that France was missing a “king figure” — then spent five years ruling it like a monarch. His record has fueled Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s pledge to get rid of the presidency entirely and rebuild French democracy from the bottom up.
France’s center-right has long used its Gaullist origins to distinguish it from the heirs to Vichy. But today, xenophobes like Marine Le Pen are claiming de Gaulle’s legacy as they seek to overcome the historic split on the Right.