In Paris and throughout France it is the day of street demonstrations by the people of the left and the trade unions against the specter of the Rassemblement national coming to power. Six days after the electoral success of Le Pen and Bardella’s party, which pushed Emmanuel Macron to the sudden decision to dissolve the Chambers and call early elections, tens of thousands of people marched across the country to shout their “no” to the clearance of the heirs of collaborators with the Nazis. But also to reiterate, in many cases, their anger against Macron himself – opposed by trade unions and left-wing militants for his political recipes on pensions, welfare and immigration. According to the CGT, the main French trade union, something like 640 thousand people took to the streets throughout France on Saturday in 182 different rallies: 250 thousand in Paris alone. The estimate from the Paris prefecture is much more limited, according to which around 75 thousand people marched in the capital. However, colorful and multifaceted rallies, in which all the main acronyms of the left who in recent days have signed the electoral pact to run together under the banner of the «Nouveau Front Populaire» have met: from communists to ecologists, from radicals de La France Insoumise to the Socialist Party and the allied formation of Place Publique led by Raphael Glucksmann. In the demonstrations, there were also many Palestinian flags and slogans in solidarity with that cause.
The political framework
However, in the face of the split that has taken place on the right among the Republicans, what is now taking center stage are the battles over the names of the candidates – and the political platform – of the left front. La France Insoumise, a group led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, recently presented its lists, which revealed the exclusion of several deputies considered critical of the party line. “A real purge”, protest the excluded. Surprisingly, the person who will run for a seat in the next Parliament is the former President of the Republic François Hollande, who also ended his five-year term at the Elysée with peak popularity and leaving a Socialist Party at an all-time low in consensus. He is now back on the field in the Corrèze district. He confirmed it himself: «If I took this decision, it is because the situation has never been so serious», Hollande said, adding that «the union of the left is necessary, but it is the union of the population that is indispensable ». According to a survey published today by the newspaper Les Echos, the RN is credited with exactly a third of the preferences (33%), clearly ahead of the Nouveau Front Populaire (25%) and the bloc that supports Macron (20%). But in one week the political landscape has already been turned upside down and in the two weeks remaining before the vote a lot could still change.
