Kmflett's Blog

The French electoral system is different to the UK and so are French politics. However there is still left and right and while the National Rally does not equate exactly to Reform the far right politics are similar.

The first round of the Mayoral Elections took place on 15th March. All candidates who got above 10% can go to a second and final round on March 22nd. However any candidate who got over 50% on Sunday was elected.

The far right advanced further although the second round of voting will confirm how far. The left, France Unbowed, also polled well in some places and may win some Mayoral positions in larger cities.

The Paris result above is a typical but still underlines a political dilemma for the left.

The Socialists have run Paris for 25 years and the candidate, also backed by the Communist Party and the Greens looks well placed to win on March 22nd. The far right don’t do well in Paris but their candidate here Knafo still got over 10%. If this vote combined with the centre right Horizons and the main stream right Republicans the Socialist might be defeated.

However if the Socialists worked with France Unbowed that would be less likely. Here there are issues. As in the UK the centre-left is not keen on working with the left (but this varies from place to place). France Unbowed is promoting a policy for March 22nd of the Republican or anti-fascist front to stop the FN. There are questions. Firstly if as is mostly the case the Socialist candidate is in the lead, the more left candidate standing down means the centre-left is winning and more radical ideas are off the agenda. That doesn’t help to fight the FN in the longer run. Secondly where France Unbowed is in the lead, will the Socialist stand down for them? We ‘ll know on 17th March when these decisions have to be made.

There is another important point. On 14th March 100,000 marched against fascism in Paris with smaller but still good sized marches around France. Fascists have been stepping up physical attacks on left wing events and activists. A crucial part of fascist politics is to control the streets. The protests aim at stopping that.

When it comes to anti-fascist electoral fronts and left candidates standing down in that context the issue is whether that helps the broader fight against fascism or not.

These of course are for the movement in France but they have strong echoes in the UK with the March 28th Together Alliance march against racism and then local elections on May 7th