Macron’s Gamble and Melenchon’s Victory

The political keys of modernity originated in France, and today French politics continues to provide a map for understanding the challenges of modernity and, in particular, the strategies of the left in the face of these challenges, especially the challenges posed by the boom of the new fascism.

The reactions in X of the political left around the world to the results of the second round of legislative elections in France, congratulations to the New Popular Front and Melenchon, are proof of what we are saying.

On July 7, France summed up one of the most important questions in world politics: how to stop the rise of the extreme right in liberal democracies. In the USA, by means of Italy, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Argentina, etc., the far right already know what it means to govern a large portion of countries with liberal democratic political systems and have entrenched themselves as a government option in almost every other country, including, of course, Germany and France.

Each far-right phenomenon has its own genealogy and its own national political characteristics, as was the case with fascism, but like them, they also share common elements. Moreover, just like the old fascisms, the new ultraphenomena have their own international positions, which, in the case of Europe, can range from Meloni’s Atlanticism, which brought her legitimization of her post-fascist party by European powers, to the pro-Russian sympathies of Viktor Orban, who recently challenged his European partners by visiting Putin in Moscow. Orban’s move had repercussions in Europe.

In Spain, the far-right Voice party abandoned Meloni’s group in the European Parliament to join Orban’s Putinists, and some analysts speculated whether Marine Le Pen, who wants to lead the European far right based on a geopolitical will, different from Salvini’s, would be behind this operation, more in favor in this case of mutual understanding with Putin and an end to political and military dependence on the USA.

Either way, despite their differences, the new extreme right share, as we say, their illiberal character in the context of crisis of democratic political systems, in which the political-ideological axes have shifted to the right in the European context of war, racist anti-migration policies, social cuts, and absolute media degradation, where the Fox paradigm (a lie is legitimate to the extent that it generates as much or more political and social effects than the truth) has generated the rule rather than the exception.

Faced with the reality of the rise of extreme right-wing forces, the existing powers combined a dual strategy that had just failed in France. The first of these is co-optation. Italian Meloni’s commitment to NATO would be the best proof that fascists are acceptable in Europe (unlike Tsipras or Podemos at the time or Melenchon today), as long as they accept NATO, and in fact it was a secret that if the result of the European elections had been different, an Italian post-fascist, respected in Europe for knowing how to discipline Putin’s “past” of her partners in Italy, would have been able to take her seat in the European Commission. Here is a brief description of the extreme right’s method of co-optation: if they accept NATO, fascists will not be a threat to our political systems and therefore acceptable as a political family.

The second strategy is what we might call “extremocentrism.” Implementing it requires powerful media, which emphasizes that the big problem with democracies is “extremes” and “polarization.” This is what began to happen in France after the success of the New Popular Front, led by Melenchon, who, with a program and a communicative style filled with ideological proteins, managed to bring both the extreme right-wing Le Pen and the centrism of Macron to its side. Establishment media reactions began to unfold after the victory of the New Popular Front became known and Melenchon indicated the need for the Front to form a government in his country. They declared that Melenchon is not the leader of the French left, despite the fact that he represents their strongest party; they portrayed him as an extremist, or even a Putinist or antisemite. Obviously, the European powers are going to work to reach an understanding in France between Macronism and the minorities of the New Popular Front (Social Democrats, Greens, and even Communists).

The truth in all of this is bitter, but it is what it is. The best and most effective response to halting the rise of the extreme right is not to involve it in a military, political, and ideological system of subordination to US interests, such as NATO, given the military regime associated with it. Same with sponsoring extreme right-wing projects that do not take up the challenge of the ideological struggle that the extreme right represents. However, the great powers are not going to accept this reality and are going to fight it. Hence, Melenchon, like Carthage, must be destroyed.

The French left, led by France Unconquered, not only provides an ideological alternative to the extreme right when it talks peace, supports the Palestinian cause, defends taxes for the rich, raising the minimum wage, or demands the repeal of anti-immigration laws that have built a highway for the advancement of the extreme right. The French left also represent the best opportunity to preserve liberal democracy as the lowest common denominator in our societies. And that’s exactly what they’re not going to forgive Melenchon for.