OPINION: The 3-year battle for the soul of the French left has begun

The French Left thinks ahead – it is already fighting the 2027 Presidential election, writes John Lichfield. Or rather, the Left being the Left, it is already fighting itself.

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At the annual Communist Party festival, La Fête de la Humanité, at the weekend, one of the most refreshing and honest leaders of the French Left, François Ruffin, was whistled and booed.
Young supporters of the hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon (who is neither refreshing nor honest) took exception to Ruffin’s attacks on the guru/supreme leader/spiritual guide/sole owner of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed).
After Ruffin had explained why he had broken with Mélenchon, an LFI deputy encouraged the young audience to chant the Italian anti-racist anthem “Siamo tutti antifascisti” (We are all anti-fascists)
Ruffin is no fascist. He is one of the few Left-wing leaders in France who worries about the increasing defection of the white, provincial working classes to the Far Right.
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Mélenchon has, Ruffin complains, written off poorer, provincial, white voters as “smelly, alcoholic, over-weight and racist”. He believes that the Left can only win by appealing to fragrant, young, middle-class anti-capitalists, radical greens and the multi-racial population of the inner suburbs of French cities.
During the anti-Macron demonstration on September 7th, Mélenchon was recorded by the TV programme, Quotidien, saying: “We have to mobilise young people and the “quartiers populaires” (multi-racial suburbs). All the rest, forget it. We are wasting our time.”
Ruffin believes, au contraire, that the Left cannot hope to regain power or moral authority in France unless it reconquers the white, working classes from Marine Le Pen.
In an interview with Le Monde this month, he said: “Losing the working classes is very damaging for the Left. We are not just losing votes, we are losing our soul.”
Ruffin, 48, split with Mélenchon’s LFI – “I could no longer breathe” – between the two rounds of the June-July election. He is a journalist and film-maker turned politician – one of the few political figures in France with a sense of humour. He has a new documentary coming out soon called: “Can we rehabilitate the rich?”.

Is Ruffin planning to run for President in 2027? Probably.
Can he succeed? Probably not.
Ruffin can make people laugh. He encourages people to think. He lacks an essential tool – a political party. So, admittedly, did Emmanuel Macron, when he launched his solo career in 2016. (Curious fact: as teenagers the two attended the same school in Amiens.)
Mélenchon, 73 last month, is definitely planning to run again, even though he once promised that he would not. His strategy in recent weeks – insisting that the Left “won” the June-July election with one third of the seats; refusing all serious negotiation on the radical programme of an allegedly united Left – has been to create chaos, not compromise.
By making the country ungovernable, Mélenchon evidently hopes to discredit all mainstream politics of Left, Right and Centre and engineer a second round Presidential run-off in 2027 between himself and Marine Le Pen. He may even hope to force Macron to resign and bring the election forward.
Mélenchon emerged as the strongest first round contender of the Left at the 2017 and 2022 elections, twice humiliating the centre-left Socialist Party to which he used to belong. His lieutenants are now campaigning for some sort of primary machinery to install a “single Left candidate” (ie Mélenchon) in 2027 (or earlier).
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That is unlikely to happen. The New Popular Front alliance of the four main parties of the Left (LFI, Socialist, Greens, Communists) narrowly topped the poll when they united for the June-July election. That does not mean, even if the ramshackle alliance survives, that they will unite behind a single candidate in 2027.
At leadership level, the once-powerful Socialists are still under Mélenchon’s spell. But the social-democratic-pragmatic wing of the party, discredited by the in-fighting and failures of the François Hollande presidency (2012-17), is finally regrouping and fighting back.
The Socialist pragmatists, leaderless for eight years, have a new would-be champion. New? Not exactly. François Hollande is planning the most unlikely come-back since Lazarus.
He fell to single figures approval during his presidency. Opinion polls now make him one of the most popular politicians in France.
He won a seat in Corrèze, his old fiefdom in the south west on July 7th. He is about to publish a book, Le Défi de gouverner (the challenge of government) which explains how the Left has only won power in France – in 1924, 1936, 1981, 1997 and 2012 – if led by reasonable reformists like Léon Blum and François Mitterrand and, erm, François Hollande.
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The present leader of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, once called Hollande “a traitor” because he campaigned to the left and then governed to the centre. To work his way back to the de facto Socialist leadership, Hollande, 70 last month, is willing to play a long game.
He refused to back his friend Bernard Cazeneuve for Prime Minister this month and supported Lucie Castets, the hapless and hopeless choice of a divided Left alliance. In other words, Hollande is planning once again to campaign to the Left and then govern in the centre. Can he succeed? Never write off François Hollande.
There is another potential left-wing contender for 2027, the Euro MP Raphael Glucksmann who came third in the June European elections. He will have to compete with Hollande for the moderate-left, pro-European vote (just under 14 percent of the total if the European election result is any guide).
The three strands of the French Left, Mélenchonism, Ruffinism, Hollande-Glucksmannism (other strands are available) do have something in common. They are incompatible with one another.
Mélenchon is anti-capitalist, anti-European, pro-Russian and pro-Hamas. He is a Little France nationalist but believes that performative anti-racism is his passport to power.
Ruffin is anti-capitalist and anti-European but sees the iniquities of Russia and Hamas. He preaches a kind of patriotic-protectionist, workerist, welfare state Socialism.
Hollande and Glucksmann represent a return to the managerial, reformist, pro-EU social democracy of Lionel Jospin or F. Hollande mark one.
The problem is that the real fault lines in French politics are no longer Left v Right. They are populist v pragmatic. More precisely, the county is split three ways between the radical Left, the managerial-reformist Centre and the radical or far Right.
One of those fault lines passes through what used to be considered broadly the Left. Hollande and Glucksmann have more in common with Macron than they do with Mélenchon or Ruffin. They would never admit it.
It will take a newer, more charismatic figure than Hollande, a less poisonous figure than Mélenchon or a more pragmatic figure than Ruffin to put the pieces of the Left together again.
Prediction: the next Presidential election, whenever it might happen, will be fought for the third time in a row with no left-wing candidate in the second round.

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#John Lichfield
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Comments (2)

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Philip

2024/09/18 12:15

dxpack, I recently saw an article by Litchfield in which he was denounced as a leftist. If he is getting hit from both sides, he must be doing something right.

dxpack

2024/09/18 10:43

Life would not be complete without center-right Brit Lichfield’s insight into the French Left.

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At the annual Communist Party festival, La Fête de la Humanité, at the weekend, one of the most refreshing and honest leaders of the French Left, François Ruffin, was whistled and booed.
Young supporters of the hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon (who is neither refreshing nor honest) took exception to Ruffin’s attacks on the guru/supreme leader/spiritual guide/sole owner of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed).
After Ruffin had explained why he had broken with Mélenchon, an LFI deputy encouraged the young audience to chant the Italian anti-racist anthem “Siamo tutti antifascisti” (We are all anti-fascists)
Ruffin is no fascist. He is one of the few Left-wing leaders in France who worries about the increasing defection of the white, provincial working classes to the Far Right.
Mélenchon has, Ruffin complains, written off poorer, provincial, white voters as “smelly, alcoholic, over-weight and racist”. He believes that the Left can only win by appealing to fragrant, young, middle-class anti-capitalists, radical greens and the multi-racial population of the inner suburbs of French cities.
During the anti-Macron demonstration on September 7th, Mélenchon was recorded by the TV programme, Quotidien, saying: “We have to mobilise young people and the “quartiers populaires” (multi-racial suburbs). All the rest, forget it. We are wasting our time.”
Ruffin believes, au contraire, that the Left cannot hope to regain power or moral authority in France unless it reconquers the white, working classes from Marine Le Pen.
In an interview with Le Monde this month, he said: “Losing the working classes is very damaging for the Left. We are not just losing votes, we are losing our soul.”
Ruffin, 48, split with Mélenchon’s LFI – “I could no longer breathe” – between the two rounds of the June-July election. He is a journalist and film-maker turned politician – one of the few political figures in France with a sense of humour. He has a new documentary coming out soon called: “Can we rehabilitate the rich?”.
Is Ruffin planning to run for President in 2027? Probably.
Can he succeed? Probably not.
Ruffin can make people laugh. He encourages people to think. He lacks an essential tool – a political party. So, admittedly, did Emmanuel Macron, when he launched his solo career in 2016. (Curious fact: as teenagers the two attended the same school in Amiens.)
Mélenchon, 73 last month, is definitely planning to run again, even though he once promised that he would not. His strategy in recent weeks – insisting that the Left “won” the June-July election with one third of the seats; refusing all serious negotiation on the radical programme of an allegedly united Left – has been to create chaos, not compromise.
By making the country ungovernable, Mélenchon evidently hopes to discredit all mainstream politics of Left, Right and Centre and engineer a second round Presidential run-off in 2027 between himself and Marine Le Pen. He may even hope to force Macron to resign and bring the election forward.
Mélenchon emerged as the strongest first round contender of the Left at the 2017 and 2022 elections, twice humiliating the centre-left Socialist Party to which he used to belong. His lieutenants are now campaigning for some sort of primary machinery to install a “single Left candidate” (ie Mélenchon) in 2027 (or earlier).
That is unlikely to happen. The New Popular Front alliance of the four main parties of the Left (LFI, Socialist, Greens, Communists) narrowly topped the poll when they united for the June-July election. That does not mean, even if the ramshackle alliance survives, that they will unite behind a single candidate in 2027.
At leadership level, the once-powerful Socialists are still under Mélenchon’s spell. But the social-democratic-pragmatic wing of the party, discredited by the in-fighting and failures of the François Hollande presidency (2012-17), is finally regrouping and fighting back.
The Socialist pragmatists, leaderless for eight years, have a new would-be champion. New? Not exactly. François Hollande is planning the most unlikely come-back since Lazarus.
He fell to single figures approval during his presidency. Opinion polls now make him one of the most popular politicians in France.
He won a seat in Corrèze, his old fiefdom in the south west on July 7th. He is about to publish a book, Le Défi de gouverner (the challenge of government) which explains how the Left has only won power in France – in 1924, 1936, 1981, 1997 and 2012 – if led by reasonable reformists like Léon Blum and François Mitterrand and, erm, François Hollande.
The present leader of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, once called Hollande “a traitor” because he campaigned to the left and then governed to the centre. To work his way back to the de facto Socialist leadership, Hollande, 70 last month, is willing to play a long game.
He refused to back his friend Bernard Cazeneuve for Prime Minister this month and supported Lucie Castets, the hapless and hopeless choice of a divided Left alliance. In other words, Hollande is planning once again to campaign to the Left and then govern in the centre. Can he succeed? Never write off François Hollande.
There is another potential left-wing contender for 2027, the Euro MP Raphael Glucksmann who came third in the June European elections. He will have to compete with Hollande for the moderate-left, pro-European vote (just under 14 percent of the total if the European election result is any guide).
The three strands of the French Left, Mélenchonism, Ruffinism, Hollande-Glucksmannism (other strands are available) do have something in common. They are incompatible with one another.
Mélenchon is anti-capitalist, anti-European, pro-Russian and pro-Hamas. He is a Little France nationalist but believes that performative anti-racism is his passport to power.
Ruffin is anti-capitalist and anti-European but sees the iniquities of Russia and Hamas. He preaches a kind of patriotic-protectionist, workerist, welfare state Socialism.
Hollande and Glucksmann represent a return to the managerial, reformist, pro-EU social democracy of Lionel Jospin or F. Hollande mark one.
The problem is that the real fault lines in French politics are no longer Left v Right. They are populist v pragmatic. More precisely, the county is split three ways between the radical Left, the managerial-reformist Centre and the radical or far Right.
One of those fault lines passes through what used to be considered broadly the Left. Hollande and Glucksmann have more in common with Macron than they do with Mélenchon or Ruffin. They would never admit it.
It will take a newer, more charismatic figure than Hollande, a less poisonous figure than Mélenchon or a more pragmatic figure than Ruffin to put the pieces of the Left together again.
Prediction: the next Presidential election, whenever it might happen, will be fought for the third time in a row with no left-wing candidate in the second round.