Marlon Ettinger is the author of Zemmour and Gaullism and the cohost of Flep24, the French Legislative Elections Podcast for 2024.
France’s political elites have made vague criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu but refused to denounce the genocide in Gaza. Now left-wing lawmaker Rima Hassan has been dragged to trial because she defends Palestinians’ right to resist occupation.
Critics of French left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon have repeatedly claimed that he’s finished. But as he launches his latest presidential campaign, his popularity among working-class and minority voters is again making him a real contender.
The latest release of Epstein files sheds more light on his ruling-class allies. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has resisted calls for a public debate on the subject despite Jeffrey Epstein’s far-reaching relations in business and diplomatic circles.
France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy has called on his allies to stop demonizing Marine Le Pen. It’s part of a broader shift in establishment conservatism toward open collaboration with her far-right party.
Leading French automaker Renault is reportedly converting some production sites to make military drones. It’s stirred discontent among car workers in France, who say they didn’t sign up for Europe’s rearmament push.
France’s government has survived a confidence vote thanks to the Parti Socialiste’s abstention. While Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promises to suspend unpopular changes to pensions, unions object that the retirement age hike has merely been delayed.
France’s new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has had a rocky start. Yet as armed forces minister, he has already proved himself where it counts: loyally defending Emmanuel Macron’s austerity plans while pushing for ever higher military spending.
In France, right-wingers love to pose as defenders of free speech. Yet the takeover of media by a cast of billionaire pro-Trump tycoons means that just a handful of individuals have a veto over huge swaths of the press.
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.