French Popular Front Led by Austerity Politicians Won’t Stop Fascists!

“Unity!” shouts one person. “For what purpose?” a worker asks. “To help the robber baron rich steal from the poor in a nice way so that the fascists don’t help the robber baron rich steal from the poor in a bad way!” they reply.

“That’s not the kind of unity I’m looking for!” says the worker.

“Unity!” shouts another. “For what purpose?” asks a worker. “To mobilise a united working class on the streets to fight for a better life for workers and show there’s a real alternative so people don’t look to the fascists!”

“That’s more like it!” says the worker.

The much praised French “New Popular Front” is supposed to offer us all an example of “left unity” and a way to fight the system and stop the rising far right. But just like the worker above we have to ask: “Unity with who and for what purpose?”

If the left is to unite under whose banner are we to unite? What are the aims of the alliance? Let’s look at some of the leading politicians in this New Popular Front. It’ll help clear this up.

Raphaël Glucksmann of the “Socialist Party” (PS) is one of the architects of the New Popular Front. He supports the Israeli genocide in Palestine and is one of the pioneers of the NATO expansion against Russia.

But the PS have mistreated the French working class at home many, many times. They are like the British Labour Party - a party of establishment goons who have duped the working class over and over and pushed demoralised workers into the arms of the far right National Rally.

François Hollande, a former French president, is running for a seat for the Socialist Party. Hollande launched vicious attacks on the working class when he was in power. He started an imperialist war in Mali and passed a reactionary labour law against which millions of French workers took to the streets.

The labour law allowed French bosses to hire and fire workers with greater ease. Hollande used the entire power of the state, including police attacks on worker protests, to do the boss’s dirty work.

He was so hated after this conflict he decided not to run again - until he had the cover of this new political front that is!

Hollande was neoliberal politician Emmanuel Macron’s mentor: After he was previously elected, he brought Macron, who was then an investment banker, into the presidency as an adviser and later appointed him as the economy minister. They worked hand in hand.

Hollande and other leaders of the New Popular Front are also campaigning against left winger Jean Luc Mélenchon, with whom they are supposed to now be allied! Hollande has publicly called on Mélenchon to shut up: “If he wants to help the New Popular Front, he has to stand aside and shut up!”

Unity for what purpose and under whose banner? Seems like the same old PS bullshit to us!

These Labour party style politicians make sweet promises then they get into power, betray workers, create demoralisation and pave the way for the growth of the far right. So what should working class socialists do when offered an alliance with snakes like these?

The wrong approach is to follow Mélenchon and just bow to the bullying of the former austerity Ministers of the PS. Another false path is to gloss over the reality of the New Popular Front and just talk about “mobilising from below to pressure them!”

Electing former traitors to disappoint workers is not a good strategy. Thinking that any amount of protest “from below” can make these snakes anything other than what they are is magical thinking. They’ll wait out protests and then do what they always do.

Yet this magical thinking is the line from the Socialist Workers Network, their website argues:

“Unity of the left – the New Popular Front – is a step forward in the fight against the far right,” but that it needs “a strong movement from below to ensure that it wins.”

Wins what? Put the likes of Hollande back in the driving seat of the French boss state and think that his betrayals won’t make fascism an even more powerful opponent? The SWN article continues:

“The limitations of the New Popular Front mean that some groupings on the Revolutionary Left like Lutte Ouvrière and Revolution Permanente have dismissed it and will be standing their own candidates.

This overlooks the role played by ordinary people on the left in pushing for left unity in the face of the fascist threat. So long as that pressure from below remains, we can go forward.”

They are forgetting the ABC’s of the united front. Socialists should take the call for unity from workers very seriously but should use it to pressure and expose the likes of the PS - “You want unity? Great - let’s take to the streets and raise workers’ confidence to challenge the neoliberal system and the fascists!”

Working class socialists should be honest about politicians like Hollande and the role he has played and will play in French politics while defending themselves from bullying from the soft left under the banner of “unity” by responding: “yes, we want unity but in the streets!”

Drag the reformists out of the TV studios, the governmental debating chambers and into the struggle where they show their true weakness. On the terrain of political alliances and parliamentary arithmetic these insects appear like giants and the real left just offer them a convenient mudguard.

The election of one real working class socialist voice is more important than the election of 10 PS representatives. You can guarantee that real socialists will organise workers to fight whereas the PS representatives will sabotage the workers’ fight.

The revolutionary left has to be strong enough to resist blackmail from liberal and reformist snakes. Electing Biden won’t stop Trump - it just heaps another round of betrayals into the lap of Trump so he can use them to return to power. Electing Labour in Britain won’t stop the Tories.

It just delays their access to power for one electoral cycle and guarantees their return. We have to fight to escape this trap and when the call goes out for “unity!” we have to be like the smart worker who asks “Unity with who and for what purpose?”

Socialist parliamentarians can stand on their own political program and at the same time give their votes case by case to help the wider left against the right. But independence matters when the soft left coalesces with the system and workers need to fight.

The same goes for France, the US, Ireland, or anywhere else.