France is being redrawn before our eyes – writes John Lichfield – the old political maps of Left-Right-Centre no longer make sense. Politicians are trying to re-invent them.
The new maps are even more confusing and dangerous than the old ones. They will shape France’s most important post-war presidential election next year.
Is Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI)Far Left or Hard Left?
Neither says Jean-Luc. We are the expression of a “New France” which is young and multi-cultural and above all multi-racial.
Is Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National “Far Right”?
No, says Marine, the RN is “neither Right nor Left”. It is patriotic and on the side of “the people”.
Nationalist-Socialist maybe? Absolutely not. How dare you.
Her number two, Jordan Bardella, takes a somewhat different view. He favours the demolition of the moral boundary between traditional Right and Far Right – the obsessive theme of the hard-right 24-hour TV news channel CNews (of which more later).
Is Emmanuel Macron’s Centrist party Renaissance part of a “central bloc”, covering all the pro-European parties, including the ex-Gaullist Les Républicains and even maybe the Socialists?
Yes, says the Justice Minister, Gérald Darmanin. He thinks that the RN can only be defeated in next year’s presidential election by a single, agreed candidate of the consensual centre, embracing everyone from the Socialists to the Gaullists.
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No, says the Les Républicains leader Bruno Retailleau. He says that Macronism is a failed variant of the Centre-Left and incompatible with the values of the Right (even though he agreed to be Macron’s interior minister for more than a year).
There have been several examples in recent days of these efforts to redraw or, at least relabel, the political map.
Let us begin with the right wing CNews, the most watched 24-hour TV channel in France.
A panel discussion on the municipal elections 10 days ago spoke of the rise of Bally Bagayoko, the first black man to be elected mayor of Saint-Denis, just north-west of Paris. One of the panel participants launched into rambling analysis in which he spoke, inter alia, of “tribal leaders”, “dominant males” and the human race being part of “the family of the great apes”.
“Racism!”, critics screamed. “Nonsense”, CNews replied. This was just an abstract discussion about politics and human nature.
To which I and many others ask: “Would such forced comparisons with apes and tribes have been used if Saint-Denis had elected a white mayor?”
This is not the first time that CNews has been accused of tooting racist dogwhistles. What was notable this time was the immediate chorus of support from parts of the Centre-Right.
This included the newspaper Le Figaro, doubtless influenced by the fact that Bally Bagayoko belongs to Mélenchon’s LFI. Le Figaro’s columnists have argued for weeks that the real no-go-zone in French politics is now Mélenchonism, not Lepennism. By demonising the LFI, they evidently hope to contribute to the de-demonisation of the RN.
It’s not a difficult task. Mélenchon provides them with plenty of ammunition.
The LFI organised an anti-racism rally to support Bagayako in Saint-Denis last weekend which turned into a festival of Mélenchonist isolationism. The crowd was urged to boo not just CNews but President Macron and the Socialist Party.
Mayor Bagayako is a former basketball coach and more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. He rejects the hard-left word racialisé (racialised) to describe himself. Other speakers did not. They said that the “real people of France” were taking power and a “New France” was rising.
In other words, this was an anti-racist rally which called for a “new politics” based partly on race.
The Communist Party leader, Fabien Roussel, courageously condemned Mélenchon’s approach in an article in Le Monde on Monday. He said France should be seen as “one country without distinction of race or religion”. The LFI approach, he said, would abandon the white, working class to the Far Right.
Roussel is correct but a little late. The days when the white working class voted Communist are long gone. He represents an “old” hard Left which has about 3 percent in the polls. Mélenchon who cultivates the multi-racial inner suburbs and insults provincial and rural France has 12 percent.
What does all this mean for our “new map” of France?
1. The LFI is no longer part of the same “Left” as the Socialists and the Communists and the Greens. The boundary between Mélenchon and the Socialists is now more impenetrable than the boundary between the Socialists and the Centre. The chances of a left-wing president next year are close to nil.
2. The “moderate” Right is torn between those who lean towards the pro-European Centre and those hate Macron more than Le Pen. The boundary between the Centre-Centre Right and the Hard or Far Right goes somewhere through the middle of Les Républicains. That implies that the likely RN candidate Jordan Bardella will have around 44 percent of the vote in Round Two next year before he even starts campaigning.
3. The tattered Centre stretches from the Socialists to half of Les Républicains but they refuse to see themselves as one bloc and may continue to do so. Assembling the other 56 percent of the First Round vote, including parts of the Centre-hating LFI, will be a nightmare. It may just be possible – if a half-way plausible candidate emerges.
I cling to the view that a 31-year-old Bardella is unelectable. The emerging new map of French politics suggests that may be wishful thinking.
