Day: July 7, 2024

(JTA) — In a surprise outcome, French voters rejected a far-right party with antisemitic roots — but elevated a left-wing alliance that has faced antisemitism allegations of its own.

The country’s most prominent far-left politician, meanwhile, vowed in his victory speech to push to recognize a Palestinian state.

No party won a majority in the second round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, in which all 577 seats of the National Assembly were in play. According to Le Monde, the left-wing New Popular Front alliance won 182 seats while the centrist Ensemble, backed by President Emmanuel Macron, won 168.

“We will have a prime minister from the New Popular Front,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the French far-left leader, posted on X on Sunday night. “We will be able to decide many things by decree. On the international level, we will have to agree to recognize the State of Palestine.”

The far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, won 143 seats, a disappointing result for the party after it led the first round of voting a week ago and appeared to be in striking distance of an outright majority. Instead, centrist and left-wing candidates worked together to defeat National Rally by having their candidates drop out of races where the other party had a better chance of winning.

The result is a setback for Le Pen’s party and a relief to the many Jews who consider it radioactive. The party’s founders include Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has been repeatedly convicted of hate speech and Holocaust denial, and Pierre Bousequet, who served in the Nazi Party’s Waffen-SS. Candidates in this election had also been accused of antisemitism.

But Sunday marked a triumph for Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, who has been accused of dog whistling, echoing antisemitic stereotypes and dismissing the threat of antisemitism. Even as the French government has reported a surge in attacks on Jews — including more than 360 incidents in the first three months of 2024, a 300% increase from 2023 — Mélenchon called antisemitism in France “residual.”

The vote, and result, put many French Jews in an uncomfortable position. Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus said before the vote that he felt “trapped” by the far left, especially as the more moderate Socialists entered into a coalition with Mélenchon’s party. (The leader of France’s center-right party had likewise made waves by endorsing National Rally.)

“We are quite angry and disappointed,” Camus said. “As Jews, we feel betrayed and we think it would have been much better if the Socialist party had not entered into this kind of alliance with the far left.”

Many French Jews say that rhetoric from the far left has opened a door to antisemitism. According to a poll from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Europe, 92% of French Jews believe that France Unbowed has “contributed” to rising antisemitism.

Now, deadlock appears to be in France’s future. Following the race, centrist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who has Jewish roots, said he planned to step down.

The country’s Jewish community of 500,000 has been shaken since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, which has destroyed large swaths of the enclave. France has also seen a spike in antisemitism since Oct. 7. In a recent incident that rocked the country, two teenage boys were charged with raping a 12-year-old Jewish girl and hurling antisemitic epithets at her.

“Many Jews are very shocked by the events since October, but not everybody is shocked by the same thing,” sociologist Martine Cohen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “You have people who are shocked by the ongoing war in Gaza, not only by the trauma of the October massacres.”

A shock for some French Jews came in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, when several far-left politicians refused to explicitly condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel. Le Pen, meanwhile, has sought to detoxify her party’s image, renouncing antisemitism, denouncing the Hamas attack and pushing a pro-Israel position. The party now emphasizes anti-immigration, Eurosceptic stances.

CRIF, an umbrella organization of French Jews, has urged the community to reject both the far right and far left. But ahead of Sunday’s vote, faced with the rise of France Unbowed, some prominent Jewish voices called for the community to vote for Le Pen’s party instead. One striking expression of support for National Rally came from Serge Klarsfeld, a French Holocaust survivor famed for hunting down Nazi criminals and pressing for their prosecution.

“The National Rally supports Jews, supports the state of Israel,” Klarsfeld, 88, said in a nationally televised interview last month. “When there is an anti-Jewish party and a pro-Jewish party, I will vote for the pro-Jewish party.”

Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent French philosopher, also said in the magazine Le Point that he would “consider the nightmare of having to vote for the National Rally to block antisemitism.” Meanwhile, a group of French Jewish community leaders met with Le Pen on Monday.

However, elements of National Rally’s antisemitic history resurfaced during the election. Ludivine Daoudi, a National Rally candidate in Normandy, was forced to withdraw from the second round of voting when a photo surfaced of her wearing a Nazi cap emblazoned with a swastika — after she won nearly 20% of votes in the first round. Other candidates have circulated antisemitic and racist posts on social media.

It is difficult to ascertain how Jews voted nationally, since France bans collecting data on the religion and ethnicity of its citizens. But some areas with large Jewish communities have showcased the dilemma Jews faced in this election.

The Parisian suburb of Sarcelles, for example, handed 27% of its votes to National Rally in the election’s first round — less than the party’s vote share nationwide, but nearly double its support in the district two years ago. In the second round, however, a far-left candidate won the area with more than 60% of the vote.

“What if you are in a constituency where there is no moderate candidate, and you have a choice between Mélenchon’s party and the National Rally?” said Camus ahead of the vote. “What do you do? Do you stay at home? Just say, ‘It’s none of my business?’”

The post Left-wing alliance with history of antisemitism allegations declares victory in France’s split parliamentary elections appeared first on The Forward.

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Post author By Mike Nova
Post date July 7, 2024

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France Rejects Far Right as Left Wins Most but Not Majority of Seats, Leaving Hung Parliament

Post author By Mike Nova
Post date July 7, 2024

People, holding flags and banners, gather at the Republique Square following the second round results of France's legislative election in Paris, France on July 7, 2024.

PARIS — A coalition of the French left won the most seats in high-stakes legislative elections Sunday, beating back a far-right surge but failing to win a majority. The outcome left France, a pillar of the European Union and Olympic host country, facing the stunning prospect of a hung parliament and political paralysis.

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The political turmoil could rattle markets and the French economy, the EU’s second-largest, and have far-ranging implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability.

In calling the election on June 9, after the far right surged in French voting for the European Parliament, President Emmanuel Macron said turning to voters again would provide “clarification.”

On almost every level, that gamble appears to have backfired. According to the official results released early Monday, all three main blocs fell far short of the 289 seats needed to control the 577-seat National Assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers.

The results showed just over 180 seats for the New Popular Front leftist coalition, which placed first, ahead of Macron’s centrist alliance, with more than 160 seats. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies were restricted to third place, although their more than 140 seats were still way ahead of the party’s previous best showing—89 seats in 2022.

A hung parliament is unknown territory for modern France.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented political situation and is preparing to welcome the world in a few weeks,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who plans to offer his resignation later in the day.

France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal arrives to deliver a speech following the first results of the second round of France's legislative election at Matignon in Paris on July 7, 2024.

With the Paris Olympics looming, Attal said he was ready to stay at his post “as long as duty demands.” Macron has three years remaining on his presidential term.

Attal made clearer than ever his disapproval of Macron’s shock decision to call the election, saying “I didn’t choose this dissolution” of the outgoing National Assembly, where the president’s centrist alliance used to be single biggest group, albeit without an absolute majority. Still, it was able to govern for two years, pulling in lawmakers from other camps to fight off efforts to bring it down.

The new legislature appears shorn of such stability. When Macron flies to Washington for a summit this week of the NATO alliance, he will leave a country with no clear idea who may be its next prime minister and facing the prospect that the president may be obliged to share power with a politician deeply opposed to his policies.

Still, many rejoiced. In Paris’ Stalingrad square, supporters on the left cheered and applauded as projections showing the alliance ahead flashed up on a giant screen. Cries of joy also rang out in Republique plaza in eastern Paris, with people spontaneously hugging strangers and several minutes of nonstop applause after the projections landed.

Marielle Castry, a medical secretary, was on the Metro in Paris when projected results were first announced.

“Everybody had their smartphones and were waiting for the results and then everybody was overjoyed,” said the 55-year-old. “I had been stressed out since June 9 and the European elections. … And now, I feel good. Relieved.”

A redrawn political map

Even before votes were cast, the election redrew France’s political map. It galvanized parties on the left to put differences aside and join together in the new leftist alliance. It pledges to roll back many of Macron’s headline reforms, embark on a massively costly program of public spending and take a far tougher line against Israel because of the war with Hamas.

Macron described the left’s coalition as “extreme” and warned that its economic program of many tens of billions of euros in public spending, partly financed by tax hikes for high earners and on wealth, could be ruinous for France, already criticized by EU watchdogs for its debt.

Yet, the New Popular Front’s leaders immediately pushed Macron to give the alliance the first chance to form a government and propose a prime minister.

The most prominent of the leftist coalition’s leaders, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said it “is ready to govern.”

While the National Rally took more seats than ever, the anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism and racism fell far short of its hopes of securing an absolute majority that would have given France its first far-right government since World War II.

“Disappointed, disappointed,” said far-right supporter Luc Doumont, 66. “Well, happy to see our progression, because for the past few years we’ve been doing better.”

After the party finished top of the first-round vote last weekend, its rivals worked to dash its hopes of outright victory Sunday, by strategically withdrawing candidates from many districts. That left many far-right candidates in head-to-head contests against just one opponent, making it harder for them to win.

Many voters decided that keeping the far right from power was more important to them than anything else, backing its opponents in the runoff, even if they weren’t from the political camp they usually support.

Still, National Rally leader Le Pen, expected to make a fourth run for the French presidency in 2027, said the elections laid the groundwork for “the victory of tomorrow.”

National Rally Parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen speaks to the press and supporters following her party's defeat in the French parliamentary elections on July 7, 2024 in Paris, France.

“The reality is that our victory is only deferred,” she added. But Le Pen’s older sister, Marie-Caroline, was among her party’s losers Sunday, defeated by a leftist candidate and just 225 votes in her district.

Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 28-year-old protégé who’d been hoping to become prime minister, rued that the national outcome “throws France into the arms of the extreme left.”

A statement from Macron’s office indicated that he wouldn’t be rushed into inviting a potential prime minister to form a government. It said he was watching as results came in and would wait for the new National Assembly to take shape before taking “the necessary decisions.”

Unknown territory

Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a majority. France is also more centralized than many other European countries, with many more decisions made in Paris.

The president was hoping that with France’s fate in their hands, voters might shift from the far right and left and return to mainstream parties closer to the center—where Macron found much of the support that won him the presidency in 2017 and again in 2022.

But rather than rally behind him, millions of voters seized on his surprise decision as an opportunity to vent their anger about inflation, crime, immigration and other grievances—including Macron’s style of government.

The sharp polarization of French politics—especially in this torrid and quick campaign—is sure to complicate any effort to form a government. Racism and antisemitism marred the electoral campaign, along with Russian disinformation campaigns, and more than 50 candidates reported being physically attacked—highly unusual for France.

—Associated Press journalists Barbara Surk in Nice, France, and Helena Alves, Diane Jeantet, Jade Le Deley, and Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed to this report.

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