France at War with Itself
by Drieu Godefridi for gatestoneinstitute.org
- The French people, the plurality of whom voted "right-wing" in the first round, were astonished to discover, after the second round, a "left-of-center" National Assembly, a parliament that seemingly does not represent the real country.
- The message seems to be the all-too-familiar Marxist concept of Volksrache ("the people's revenge"): arousing hatreds in order to channel them towards the "enemies of the regime", and, in the end, liquidate them. The murder of a policeman, the burning of a synagogue, the death of a delinquent, a war in the Middle East, elections, no elections: everything is used as a pretext for the hate-filled, agitprop vituperation of the minions of La France Insoumise, who, by stirring up hostilities and resentments, particularly anti-Semitic ones, appear to be whipping up violent -- even terrorist -- militancy, in the tradition of France's 18th-century terreur.
- France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos -- the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of Mélenchon's phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West.
Pictured: Mélenchon (C) gives a speech on June 30 while standing on stage next to an Islamist pro-Hamas activist, Rima Hassan (R). (Photo by Victoria Valdivia/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos -- the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon's phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West.
Since the results were announced of France's July 2024 legislative elections, President Emmanuel Macron has been unable to build a majority in the National Assembly, which appears more divided than at any time in the history of what the French call "the Fifth Republic".
The elections produced three blocs, all of which appear to hate each other: the left, coalescing around Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left La France Insoumise ("France Unbowed"), Macron's centrist Renaissance party, and Marine Le Pen's right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally).
Three factors seem to favor France's slide towards an open or latent form of even greater internal conflict.
1. Non-democratic Republic
The purpose of any democratic or republican form of government is to keep its citizens secure from threats foreign and domestic, and to oversee the peaceful transfer of power. In France, the question is whether it is still possible to change the government peacefully through the ballot box.
By having many of his party's candidates stand down in favor of candidates from the New Popular Front (the hastily assembled coalition of left and far left parties led by Mélenchon's La France Insoumise) in the elections, Macron and part of the center-right held in check the democratic will of the French people to transfer legislative power to the forces of the right, which have a majority in the country.
The French people, the plurality of whom voted "right-wing" in the first round, were astonished to discover, after the second round, a "left-of-center" National Assembly, a parliament that seemingly does not represent the real country.
Between the two rounds of voting, we actually witnessed the surreal spectacle of "right-wing" candidates (including former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe) calling on people to vote for communists in order to "block" the "extreme right". Only in France!
2. The most anti-Western political "left" in the world
By maneuvering to save part of his parliamentary group, Macron offered a (relative) victory to the most anti-Western forces on the European political spectrum, the extreme left of La France Insoumise. The antithesis of a governing party, La France Insoumise is part of the Marxist tradition in the strict sense, which envisages violence as a means of acquiring power and as a technique of government.
Not a day goes by without La France Insoumise demanding to govern, demanding the appointment of this or that Prime Minister -- a prerogative of the president alone, according to the Constitution - calling for the impeachment of Macron and threatening to "march on the Elysée" if its multiple demands are not met. These extortionist demands seem to be more like those of insurrectionists attempting a coup d'état.
Mélenchon has been courting radical Muslim voters first and foremost, and is multiplying incendiary declarations in favor of Palestine, and hateful verbal arabesques about Jews. Le Monde, a left-leaning newspaper, wrote:
"Over the past ten years, the founder of La France Insoumise has made a series of remarks that borrow from anti-Semitic stereotypes. To the point of arousing incomprehension even in his own camp and, for the past three months, causing a large part of public opinion to tense up."
The message seems to be the all-too-familiar Marxist concept of Volksrache ("the people's revenge"): arousing hatreds in order to channel them towards the "enemies of the regime", and, in the end, liquidate them. The murder of a policeman, the burning of a synagogue, the death of a delinquent, a war in the Middle East, elections, no elections: everything is used as a pretext for the hate-filled, agitprop vituperation of the minions of La France Insoumise, who, by stirring up hostilities and resentments, particularly anti-Semitic ones, appear to be whipping up violent -- even terrorist -- militancy, in the tradition of France's 18th-century terreur. The demonstrators look as if they are trying to incite violence against the non-submissive segments of the population: Jews, Christians, secularists, secular and moderate Muslims, the "right," the so-called "far right", the "center," the "center-left," and the "bourgeoisie".
3. Is France presently ungovernable?
Through his maneuvers between the two electoral rounds, Macron may well have succeeded in making France ungovernable. While he did indeed block the popular will, he was unable to give the left enough of a majority to get anything accomplished. While countries with a federal system, such as Belgium, are able to survive and function without a central government, this is less true of France.
The problem is not so much the historically frequent divergence between the presidency and the National Assembly, as the parliament's inability to form a majority within itself. It is difficult to form a coalition government when the far-left and the center appear to hate each other, and the center and a part of the right label the right-wing National Rally as diabolical. Without a majority coalition, the National Assembly cannot function, and the French state apparatus becomes necrotic.
For these three reasons -- an inability to change the government through the ballot box, the over-representation offered by Macron to the most extreme party in Europe, and the inability to find a parliamentary majority -- France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos -- the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of Mélenchon's phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).