Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of France on Saturday to denounce the rise of a far-right party in the country and call on people to stop it from taking power in early parliamentary elections called by President Emmanuel Macron.
The protests, organised by the country’s five biggest trade unions and widely supported by human rights groups, activists, artists and supporters of the newly formed left-wing coalition known as the New Popular Front, mostly protesters spoke out against the bleak state of affairs in a country led by a far-right prime minister.
“For the first time since Vichy, the far right could regain the upper hand in France,” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told a crowd in Paris.
That prospect prompted former President François Hollande to come out of retirement and announce on Saturday that he would run in parliamentary elections to try to stop the far-right from taking power.
“The situation is very serious,” he said in his hometown of Corrèze. “We need to convince a disoriented population that French unity is essential.”
Macron shocked France last week by announcing he would dissolve the lower house of parliament and call for new parliamentary elections following a crushing defeat for his centrist Renaissance party at the hands of the far-right National Rally party in European elections.
The move is a political gamble: Mr Macron hopes that voters will rally to him. He is trying to position himself as a stable, healthy force between the two poles of his National Rally and the far-left France Indefatigable party, which later merged with the New Popular Front.
But there are signs his decision may backfire.
Early opinion polls show a lead for the Rally National party, which has long called for drastic cuts in immigration and asylum seekers and for a “national first” system to reserve jobs, housing and hospital care for native-born French people.
“There was a lot going on behind the scenes for Macron to gamble on this election,” said Gilles Ivaldi, a political science professor at Sciences Po in Paris who studies far-right politics in France and Europe. “What Macron overlooked is that the Rally National has political momentum, which is key to winning the election.”
The National Rally has been out of power for many years, but its political fortunes have been rapidly turning around, bringing people like Philippe Noel, a 45-year-old teacher, into the streets on Saturday.
“There is certainly a risk of a far-right government,” Noel said, walking alongside a brass band playing pop songs to the crowd under drizzling skies, “but it’s not inevitable. I’m hopeful that all the left-wing parties can come together.”
Police estimated that 250,000 people had taken part in demonstrations across France by Saturday afternoon, including 75,000 in Paris.
“I came here feeling angry and powerless,” said Ruthie Eltebiz, 26, who works in the technology industry. “We need to come together.”
As the protests died down, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, a member of Macron’s party, announced Renaissance policy changes that mirrored promises made by rival parties to boost French families’ purchasing power, including indexing pensions to inflation, allowing employers to increase employees’ salaries through tax-free bonuses and offering supplemental health insurance at a cost of 1 euro a day.
“The French know that our policies are consistent,” he told daily newspaper Le Parisien in an interview. “For other parties, it’s like a parachute drop without a parachute.”
The demonstration passed largely without incident, as students, workers, tech programmers, business executives, footballers and everyone else expressed their determination to thwart the rise of the National Rally.
But in Paris, groups of protesters dressed in black began vandalizing storefronts and clashing with riot police who used tear gas. Protesters were booed by other demonstrators and warned that violence would encourage right-wing politicians and right-wing media to portray the left as extremists.
“It’s crazy that 50 percent of people today are voting for a racist, misogynist party that expels foreigners and doesn’t address the real problems of its people,” said Laura Michaud, 31, a business executive who joined friends at the protest. “I’m not a fan of Emmanuel Macron, but if I have to vote I’ll vote for him.”
But many in the crowd said they hoped the newly formed left-wing coalition would defeat the far right, just as the Popular Front coalition did in the 1930s.
In response to the rise of far-right fascist political groups in Europe, the Popular Front initially established a government under Leon Blum, who became Germany’s first socialist and Jewish chancellor in 1936. During his brief leadership, Blum secured many workers’ rights that are considered essential today, including collective bargaining, a 40-hour work week, and two weeks’ paid annual leave.
“We’ve been hoping for this Popular Front for a long time,” said Patrick Franceschi, a business developer who supports the Green Party. “We voted for Macron twice to go against the National Rally, but now there’s a Left Front, and it’s closer to my political family.”
The New Popular Front is made up of environmentalists, communists, socialists and far-left parties, and has come together despite recent bitter conflicts and opposing policies.
The coalition government released a policy platform on Friday promising to raise wages, restore purchasing power for French people and lower France’s legal retirement age from 64 to 60. It said it would withdraw from European Union free trade agreements, arguing that globalization is killing French jobs.
On immigration, the coalition government wants France to be more welcoming to asylum seekers and climate refugees, a position that differs significantly from that proposed by the National Coalition.
But rifts are already emerging, with some key members of Indomitable France dropping out of the candidate list, and the return of Mr Hollande could complicate things further: the Socialist party collapsed under his leadership and he is a polarizing figure for many on the left.
Saturday’s demonstrations were reminiscent of the massive protests that flooded the streets across France in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right National Front, advanced to the second round of the presidential election. Le Pen’s daughter Marine took control of the party in 2011 and renamed it National Rally, but its core principles, such as anti-immigration and increased police powers, remained.
At the time, left-wing parties banded together to form the so-called “Republican Front,” which called on its members to defend the country from far-right forces and to vote for conservative rival Jacques Chirac even if they disagreed with his policies.
“It was a line drawn,” said Cecil Ardhuis, a Stanford University professor and expert on the National Convention. “There was an essential difference between a party that threatened the republic by destroying values like equality, liberty and solidarity, and other parties that might disagree with us on policy but stayed within the bounds of the Constitution.”
It worked, and Chirac was elected president by an overwhelming majority.
Since then, a Republican Front-style bulwark has been repeatedly called for to keep far-right members out of the presidency, especially in lower-level elections. The strategy has worked in the past but has weakened over time. In 2022, 89 members of the National Rally were elected to the 577-seat National Assembly, making the party a strong opposition force. Le Pen won 41.5% of the vote in the presidential election but lost to Macron.
The party made further gains in last week’s European elections.
Segolene Le Stradic Contributed report.
