What the Left can Learn from the French Election

In the wake of the French Presidential Elections, left-leaning political parties have lessons that need to be learnt for next time.

Harry Sanderson
10th May 2022
Image Description: French Flags waved outside the Louvre, Paris. (Image Credit: Flickr).
Emmanuel Macron has won the French Presidential Election in what will seem to many onlookers as a mirror image of the previous election in 2017. Once again, the far-right contender Marine Le Pen was defeated in an election which featured similar rhetoric surrounding immigration, unemployment and globalisation, not to mention a notably Islamophobic discourse. However, this election is certainly not as similar as it may seem, and is emblematic of the global failure of Centrist politicians to counter the threat of the growing far-right, unable to provide answers for the systemic problems that these parties have taken advantage of to gain support.
Emmanuel Macron's Victory Speech

The big difference in this election is that in 2017 Macron was on the rise, having virtually emerged out of nowhere to gain 66% of the vote, but this time Le Pen is the insurgent candidate while Macron’s vote has dwindled to 58.5%. The election has been a reflection of the decline of Centrist politics in France more generally, with the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties that once dominated French politics receiving just 1.75% and 4.78% of the vote respectively in the first round, being cast into political obscurity by their more radical counterparts. Whilst most of the media coverage in the UK has been focused intently on Le Pen, it is important to note that she was a mere 1% away from failing to reach the second round.

Snapping at her heels was the left-wing challenger Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who made a modest improvement on his strong performance in 2017. Like Le Pen, Mélenchon is often described as a populist, a word which has been so often used in political commentary that its meaning seems to have been muddied. The broad consensus in mainstream progressive media is that populism and far-right nationalism are one in the same, with headlines such as ‘How can liberals defeat populism?’ familiar to the pages of the Guardian, whilst The New European warns of ‘The political dangers of turning to the alluring waters of populism’. 

What people fail to understand is that populism is not a political ideology but a discursive strategy, as described by the political theorist Chantal Mouffe. It creates a narrative which appeals to ordinary people who rightfully feel that their concerns are being disregarded by the elite groups of the establishment, and in its discourse focuses on addressing the interests of the people as a whole rather than a select few. It would therefore seem that populism would be the natural tool of the left. The majority of western left-wing parties, including the French Partie Socialiste, however seem to subscribe to a strangely right-wing view of electability: that an appearance of professionality and moderation is more important than political messaging that directly challenges the elites and the status quo that so many are fed up with.

The majority of western left-wing parties seem to subscribe to a strangely right-wing view of electability

As a result, populism has been largely spurned by the mainstream left, whilst the opportunistic far-right have spotted an opportunity for success. Le Pen achieved this by capitalising on the failures of both Hollande and Macron to address systemic inequalities and poverty in France, creating a skewed version of populism that focuses people’s frustration at immigrants, Muslims and ‘the woke’ rather than at specific economic policies and vested interests in politics. In recent years the Latin American left has successfully reacquainted itself with populism, leading to electoral successes in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia among others. The European left must catch up to this soon, rather than perpetually subjecting itself to the unavailing task of trying to seem like a slightly less objectionable version of the parties of the right, and the cost of living crisis is the perfect opportunity for this should it be taken.

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  1. A good summary of the issues involved in this election and the way that similar stories are covered. Keep it up!

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