France local elections: LFI and RN gain despite mass abstention

The most significant fact of the first round of the local elections in France was the very high level of abstention (42.4 percent). The politicians who congratulate themselves on an ‘increase in turnout’ compared to the March 2020 election ‘forget’ to mention that the latter was held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, for several decades we have been witnessing a systematic rise in abstention rates: 21.6 percent in 1983, 30.6 percent in 1995, 36.4 percent in 2014 and 42.4 percent this time around.

[Originally published in French at marxiste.org]

This is one expression – among many others – of the systemic crisis of French capitalism. There is a growing rejection of the entire political system, now extending to the local level.

Abstention en masse

As always, abstention is highest among young people and the most exploited sections of the population. The rejection of bourgeois ‘democracy’ – which goes hand in hand with deteriorating living standards – is stronger among these sections than elsewhere.

According to an Ipsos-BVA survey, “abstention was in the majority among those under 25 (56 percent) and peaked at 60 percent in the 25-34 age group. It still affected nearly half of voters aged 35 to 59 (47 percent), but dropped to 30 percent among those over 60 (and even to 20 percent among those over 75).” Furthermore, “if we look at net monthly household income, the abstention rate exceeded 60 percent in the lowest bracket (under €1,250)”, and “still affected half of voters in the €1,250–2,000 bracket (51 percent)”.

Voter abstention was therefore greatest among the social strata that vote most heavily for La France Insoumise (LFI) or National Rally (RN). Yet, despite this, LFI and the RN achieved significant results in many towns and cities. Political ‘polarisation’ thus manifested itself despite the massive rate of abstention, on the backdrop of an electoral rout for the Macronist ‘centre’ and another poor showing by Les Républicains (the main bourgeois opposition party, LR). This is not surprising, as massive abstention rates and political polarisation are two related phenomena, rooted in the same rejection of the official political system and the old ‘governing parties’.

In the ‘centre’, the poor results for the Macronists and LR are benefiting the Socialist Party (PS) and its partners on joint lists, which are often the Greens and the French Communist Party (PCF). This is also linked to the long-standing municipal roots of these parties.

However, the leaders of the PS, the Greens and the PCF were banking on the LFI getting a bad result. They were preparing to declare that LFI was, once and for all, completely discredited and disqualified from the 2027 presidential election. Yet the first round of the municipal elections showed the opposite: LFI has enormous potential – if it manages to mobilise the social strata that abstained en masse on Sunday.

Vote LFI!

We, the PCR, called for a vote for LFI’s lists on Sunday, and we are calling for the same on 22 March. Where LFI stands against other ‘left-wing’ lists, we call for a vote for the LFI lists, as in Paris. In other cases, we call for defeating the right and the far right.

In an article published last December, we took a stand against the suggestion that the LFI and the PS’s lists should be merged between the two rounds. We are well aware that in Toulouse, for example, many young people and workers are in favour of this merger, despite the fact that the youth reject the PS, because they want to defeat the outgoing right-wing mayor, Jean-Luc Moudenc. The same dynamic is at work in other major cities.

We understand this perfectly well, but we draw attention to the following fact: La France Insoumise merging with the PS would undermine its credibility among other (massive) sections of our class.

The problem is not merely the merger of LFI’s lists with those of the PS; it is also the way in which these mergers are presented and justified. Talking about ‘anti-fascist fronts’ with the PS, as the LFI’s leadership does, is not the right way to address the millions of poor people and workers who, electorally, waver between abstention and voting for the RN. They don’t vote for the RN because they sympathise with the programme of ‘fascism’ (the very idea is a slander against our class), but because they hate the PS (for excellent reasons) and the ‘government parties’ in general (ditto).

This large section of the working class, numbering in the millions, is undoubtedly the key to the April 2027 election. Yet LFI will struggle to make significant gains among them due to its misguided approach.

For example, in the working-class town of Lens, the RN’s vote rose from 22.7 percent in 2020 to 46.5 percent this Sunday. In the greater area around Lens, the RN won the working-class towns of Harnes, Loison-sous-Lens and Drocourt. A detailed analysis of the first round would show that this phenomenon is far from confined to Lens. Among the RN’s working-class electorate, the merger of LFI and the PS in several major cities across the country cannot strengthen LFI’s authority and credibility.

Instead of forming so-called ‘anti-fascist fronts’ with the PS (which, in most cases, do not even stand against the RN), Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement must break with the PS and with the right wing of reformism in general on the basis of a radical programme. This is the only way to win over a significant section of the millions of exploited and oppressed people who want to ‘shake things up’, who detest the old governing parties and who, if they do not abstain in April 2027, will choose either RN or LFI.

On this issue, we have published a lengthy document entitled: ‘The Rise of the RN and the Tasks of the Labour Movement’. We refer our readers to it.

France 2026 = Germany 1932?

To conclude, let us note this: in a statement published on 9 March, the LFI leadership asserted (in order to put pressure on the PS) that the “refusal to enter into any united front in 1932 already produced the most terrible defeat for the left and the victory of the worst racist adversary in history”.

This reference to Germany in 1932 – the year before Hitler’s victory and the crushing of the German labour movement – is absurd. The current situation in France bears no resemblance to Germany in 1932. Then, the Nazis had a mass base among the ruined petty bourgeoisie and organised hundreds of thousands of armed petty-bourgeois who, every day, attacked the organisations of the working class.

Incidentally, the ‘united front’ advocated by Trotsky (but rejected by the German Stalinist and Social Democratic leaders) was by no means an ‘electoral’ front. The backbone of the ‘united front’ advocated by Trotsky was the formation of workers’ militias to fight against the fascist hordes.

The RN is a formidable enemy of our class. But one cannot seriously organise the struggle against this party (and the right in general) on the basis of erroneous analogies with Germany in 1932.

We must start from the following fact: a clear majority of the RN’s electorate now consists of workers embittered by the past betrayals of the PS, the Greens, the PCF and all the ‘government parties’, against the backdrop of the crisis of capitalism and the ongoing regression of living conditions.

From a political and electoral perspective, the struggle against the RN requires a clear and decisive break by LFI with the right wing of reformism, on the basis of a radical programme.