By Gérard Florenson
The New Popular Front was created in a matter of days. It took even less time to show itself as the best apprentice of the “Republican withdrawal”. As it showed by withdrawing plenty of qualified candidates for the second round in favor of the right and even ministers of the current government. The beneficiaries include some of the men and women who have brutally attacked social triumphs by reducing pensions and the rights of unemployed people, and who have campaigned with the extreme right against immigrants. All these good people have obtained the license of democracy. Macron, who has just suffered an electoral blow, could not have wished for a better gift, while those who voted for the Popular Front to reject both the National Regroupment and the government’s policies are getting a reality check.
The result will undoubtedly be to keep some seats, but at what price?
Fascists have every right to mock the compromises reached by all sides and to present themselves as the only real opponents of the regime, even more now that within the Popular Front, some calmly contemplate the possibility of a government of national unity.
Faced with these excesses, we must be clear: not one vote to the extreme right, nor to the right, nor government’s candidates.
Unfortunately, none of the parties, none of the leaders of the Popular Front, heeded this elementary warning. Their excuse is to block the path of the main enemy, as if this lackey government against which we demonstrated and went on strike were nothing more than a secondary adversary.
But the most outrageous thing is silence, which amounts to approval of Philippe Poutou, candidate of the Popular Front in the Aude, and of the “anti-capitalist” NPA, who seem to have forgotten that class borders exist. This is not the only example of opportunistic deviations within its “Fourth International”, but this one goes further than all the others.