When I last wrote about the fallout from France's election this summer, and President Emanuel Macron's refusal to nominate a Prime Minster from the coalition of left and left leaning parties that gained the most seats in Parliament, many people predicted (and I agreed) that Macron seemed likely to work with the right (including the fascist National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen) to effectively steal the election. Perhaps to the surprise of no one, Macron has now done just that and appointed Michel Barnier as PM despite the fact that Barnier's party gained only 8.3% of the seats in the election.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/macron-rightwing-prime-minister
Macron Names Right-Wing Prime Minister, 'Turning His Back' On French Voters
"The election ended with the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), the left coalition, winning a plurality of seats at 32.6%, Macron's own Ensemble coalition of centrist neoliberals winning 27.9%, and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) winning 24.6%. NFP and Ensemble coordinated their efforts in the final round, forming a "republican front" to block the RN—a successful effort that drew praise from left and centrist figures across the world.
Barnier's center-right party, Les Républicains (LR), once a powerful force in France, gained only 8.3% of the seats, yet emerged victorious in the prime ministerial sweepstakes following Macron's negotiations with RN leader Marine Le Pen, who's thought to have agreed to Barnier's appointment. Without RN's support, Barnier could be ousted by a no-confidence vote in parliament.
In late August, Macron rejected the NFP's proposed prime minister, Lucie Castets, a little-known civil servant and economist whose nomination was itself a compromise reached by the parties within the NFP, which include the center-left Parti Socialiste (PS), the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI), and Les Écologistes, a green party.
Les Écologistes on Thursday condemned Macron's choice, saying he was "obsessed with the preservation of his neoliberal record" and he'd aligned with the far-right."
The important thing to understand here is that Macron has ultimately stolen the election, and ignored the will of the people; who banded together and cast votes for the expressed purpose of stopping the fascist right in France from taking power. Of course he was able to do so because no party won a true majority, but the left coalition (Nouveau Front Populaire) did finish with the most seats, and would reasonably assume the right to form the government under normal circumstances, so Macron has told French voters to pound sand because he'd prefer to work with the fascists regardless of how people voted.
There will of course be those who argue that this is not an open capitulation to fascism, because Bernier is not a member of the National Rally, but as the article notes given his rightward turn on immigration, and the fact that he didn't support the republican blockade to stop La Pen and the fascists from winning, I think that position is obtuse; at a minimum he will be relying on support from National Rally to stay in office, and is thus likely to appease them and support significant portions of their fascist agenda. Of course, Macron himself has spent several years appeasing the fascists by tacking hard right on migrants, nationalism, and anti-left policies, and also didn't support the republican blockade so the argument that there even is a French center has rightfully been derided by many left wing observers with far more experience in French politics than you or I.
Stepping back into an American perspective however, I think this speaks to a larger problem in capitalist, Pig Empire politics I've been talking about for a long time. The simple truth is that when push comes to shove, the capitalist "center" (which is objectively a right wing position and always has been, even if it's not expressly fascist) hates the left, their electorate, and the idea of restricting predatory capitalism so much that they will invariably align with fascism, and against sharing. This is because at the end of the day, this so-called "center" has far more in common with the fascists, than it does with socialists, or even just poor people who want a better deal for their families. They both think some deserve to live, and some deserve to die, that some deserve to enjoy opulent wealth, and some deserve to toil in servitude to that opulent wealth. They only disagree about how to sort out who is who, but if you examine the final tally the folks doing the dying are mostly the same in either outlook.
Furthermore, this dynamic is only magnified under the specter of fossil fuel induced climate crisis; when the choice becomes capitalism and mass murder, versus socialism and sustainability, these folks will pick capitalism every time, even if it means working with nazis. Mark my words, we will see many more Macrons in the Pig Empire in the near future.
#FrenchPol #Fascism #Coup #Neoliberalism #FrenchElection #Macron #Barnier #LePen