The majority did not vote for RN or Macron: let’s show it! Unite! Let’s mobilize in the streets!
Against Bardella and the RN against Macron’s policies on July 7 vote New Popular Front!
Not a workers’ and youth ballot for the RN!
The results of the first round of the snap legislative elections were a thunderclap and a huge slap in the face to Macron. A strong RN vote is a definite danger, above all for the interests of the working classes, workers and young people. Many of us reject racism and a society dominated by more exploitation and division. This is what the RN in power would represent.
Workers and youth, let’s build protests to defend our interests! For a massive increase in wages and decent jobs for all, the definitive repeal of the law on unemployment insurance, against racism, anti-Semitism and all discrimination.
Where does this RN vote come from?
The RN vote is the largest ever recorded. This should not be taken lightly. Macron’s power is weak. Since 2017, he has ruled without any support for his policies. He is forcing social breakdown through. From the hundreds of trials against trade unionists to the violent repression of demonstrations, the repeated bypassing of parliament using the 49-3 constitutional clause, or the brutality of the management of the Covid crisis. All this was possible because our mass protests and actions did not succeed. The RN is clearly benefiting from this situation.
Under Macron, the ultra-rich and big shareholders have never reaped so much profit: 300 billion in two years! While a third of people cannot provide three meals a day in France. But neither Bardella nor Macron designate the capitalists for what they are: profiteers from crisis and social misery! No wonder, they are at their service!
An important New Popular Front vote against Macron and the RN
The result of the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP) is not that far behind the RN. Without its right-wing Republican (LR) allies, the RN won 9,377,000 votes (29.25%) and the NFP 8,975,000 (28%). That is a difference of only 400,000 votes. The militant work of La France Insoumise (LFI) has a lot to do with it, the work of all those who joined the campaign around the demonstrations of solidarity with Palestine and after the European election.
A whole section of people is disgusted. Abstention among young people is high: between 35% and 38% amongst 18-34 year olds because of the polarisation and divisions. Many no longer believe in the promises of the left, which has spent more time criticizing LFI than fighting against Macron.
What role does the RN play?
Today, it is possible that the RN will have a majority in the Assembly and find itself in government. This would be a defeat for the workers, because our legitimate anger against Macron would be diverted by a far-right that pretends to have ‘normalized’, but still plays the same role. Bardella and Le Pen are there to prevent our righteous anger from turning into revolt and a rejection of capitalism and exploitation.
This is precisely why Macron dissolved the Assembly. He prefers to leave room for the RN rather than for social anger to turn into a mass movement against him and the capitalists.
Workers and youth have nothing to gain by electing the RN against Macron. On the contrary, it is the assurance of a government that will want to carry out severe attacks against public services, against immigrants, against the rights to organize and fight against injustices… they are there to continue and deepen the social counter-revolution of Macron and Sarko-Hollande before.
No Macron-Bardella government!
Not a single vote of workers and young people for the RN!
Let’s vote New Popular Front against the RN candidates!
We call for the RN to be stopped in its electoral ascent so as not to have the most reactionary right in front of us. Faced with the RN, we call for a vote for the NFP, and to campaign with us for the combative candidates in the NFP, in particular from LFI and the PCF.
Macron paved the way for the National Rally and now wants us to block their way by voting Macron?! With this, he is trying to make people forget his own politics. Thousands of young people, workers, especially from immigrant backgrounds, blacks, Arabs, Muslims… will perhaps vote with disgust for Renaissance in order to prevent the RN from having an absolute majority, which we understand. But we are not fooled.
Fight the RN with our own forces!
Whatever the outcome of the election, our camp, that of workers and youth, must have its own voice, independent of the parties that have been running the system for the capitalists for decades.
From now on, we need rallies and demonstrations everywhere! Let’s show that we will not let racism or the anti-social policies defended by the RN and Macron pass! Trade unions and left-wing parties would strengthen our camp by calling for such mobilizations.
No to any Socialist Party-Green (PS-EELV) government agreement with Macron and LR behind the backs of the workers!
We strongly reject any idea of a national government agreement, defended by EELV and the PS with their Republican Front. No alliance can or must be made with those who, through their policies, pave the way for the RN, with racist and discriminatory ideas and carry out anti-social and anti-worker policies. This alliance, if it existed, would make the RN rise further.
On this subject, LFI differs from the other NFP parties. It is withdrawing only where the RN came first in the first round and where LFI came third, it is contesting in all other cases. These withdrawals are not a proposal for a political agreement with the Macronists, who, moreover, are constantly attacking LFI. If LFI were a party anchored in the working class, it would contest everywhere to express a class vote against the RN, Macron and the right.[1]
But voting is not enough. We must call for a massive mobilization in the streets because this is where the real balance of forces can be tested. However, LFI does not make this central. It is therefore weaker in the face of those who attack it all day long, and in particular the RN which can present LFI as an ally of Macron, which it is not. The RN could not do this if LFI called for building a strong mobilization against the RN and against Macron, as it did after the European elections.
For an independent voice of workers and youth!
By dissolving the assembly, Macron has accelerated a certain political decantation. Unlike on June 9, no massive rally is being organized and the unions and parties seem paralyzed, glued to the electoral rhythm dictated by Macron.
However, beneath the surface, things are moving. Over the past 3 weeks, more than 53,000 people have joined La France Insoumise on its website and in its “action groups”. This is positive and it is an indicator of a potential to organize and fight. It shows the desire to get out of the false divide imposed by Macron: the RN or him.
For those who want to resist the RN and Macron, the fighting trade unionists, community activists, and all those who want to fight despite enormous difficulties, we lack a political tool of mass struggle against Macron, the RN and capitalism. This reality is becoming palpable. These thousands of workers, alongside young people who are beginning to mobilize, form a new layer that would have a favourable attitude to the creation of a new militant mass party of the working class. Alongside LFI, communist activists, everyone needs a broad, inclusive and democratic common political framework to discuss and organise around a combative program against capitalism.
Join the Gauche révolutionnaire (CWI in France) for Socialism!
In this second round, our ballot will be more of a respite than a real barrier to the RN or to Macron’s policies. No electoral victory for the NFP would be a guarantee. Nor would a victory for the RN be a defeat forever. It all depends on whether workers and youth, with their organisations, actively respond to the current political and social crisis and organise themselves. This is what Gauche révolutionnaire campaigns for every day. We want to strengthen the workers’ camp around a program of struggle against capitalism and for socialism. We are building an internationalist revolutionary Marxist organization and supporting every step forward toward the independent organization of workers and youth.
[1] In French parliamentary elections voting takes place in two rounds. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the top two candidates automatically go through to the he second round, along with any candidates winning more than 12.5% of the votes. Typically, this means that three candidates (or less commonly four) qualify for the second round. Such second round contests are called “triangular” (or quadrangular). This invites an emphasis on ‘tactical voting’ and the tactical withdrawal of candidates.
