Franch News

The Independent Australian did this interview with me. The French presidential elections: fascism and how to fight it. Q Why has Marine Le Pen just stepped down from the leadership of the Front National ? John Mullen: She needs to widen her appeal massively is she is to win the second round. Freeing herself from the decisions of her party’s committees allows her to be more flexible tactically. So, for example, she is producing “anticapitalist” leaflets aiming explicitly at persuading those who voted Left to vote for her, by claiming to be in favour of tax cuts for the poor and support for French industry.  Q Will it help her win the second round ? JM Le Pen obtained seven and a half million votes in the first round, and would need at least nine million more to win the second round. Around 58% of French people believe the FN to be “a danger to democracy”, so such a turnaround is highly unlikely. As I write the opinion polls give Macron at 61% and Le Pen at 39%. But it is ...

First round election results in France The fascist, the banker, and the radical  Left The first round election results for the French presidential election confirm the deep political crisis in the country, which will no doubt deepen at the legislative elections in June. The banker The highest vote (23.9%) in the first round went to Emmanuel Macron, ex-banker and high flying former economy minister from Hollande’s “Socialist” government. Politically, he is a more empty-headed version of Tony Blair. He stood in the election as an independent but garnered support from many Socialist party bigwigs who had abandoned their own official candidate (Benoit Hamon) as too left wing. Macron openly declares that entrepreneurial attitudes are what will save the day. France needs to become “a country of start-ups”, he claims, and his official slogan is “France should be an opportunity for everyone”. He has expressed his admiration for Thatcher’s policies in Britain in the 1980s, and is cheerfully...

Excitement in the French Elections: The Meaning of Jean-Luc Mélenchon John Mullen As the French presidential elections draw near, the result is getting ever har der to call. The fascist and the Blairite (Le Pen and Macron) are hovering around 22.5 % in voter intention polls for the first round, which would push the two of them through to the second round run-off. But close behind are corrupt Thatcherite François Fillon for the Republicans, who is at around 19% (having lost a lot of ground in the last two months) and Red-Green Jean Luc Mélenchon, also around 19% (having gained six points in recent weeks). Well behind, at around 9%, is official Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon, who is on the Left of his party, but much hampered by the unpopularity of that party after five disastrous years in office, and abandoned by a series of high-profile Socialist leaders. A third of French people are still undecided about their vote and the complex play of likely “tactical voting” makes the...

Marine Le Pen and the dangers of fascism in France. John Mullen The presidential elections are taking place in France at the end of April and the beginning of May (the two most popular candidates from the first round go through to a second round run-off). It looks highly likely that the fascist candidate, Marine Le Pen, will come top in the first round and thus get to the second round. She will probably then lose, but with well over thirty per cent of the vote, double that her father got in the second round in 2002. How can fascism be so popular in France, a multicultural country characterized by massive workers’ struggles in recent years? And what specific dangers are we facing? The National Front has one member of parliament and two senators, 358 regional councillors and around 1500 local councillors, with majority control on 11 town councils. In the 2012 presidentials 6.4 million voted for Marine Le Pen; in the departmental elections of 2015, 5.1 million people voted FN. The party ...