Political and class struggle turbulence in France

On Dec. 4 France’s parliamentary government failed to win a no-confidence vote, forcing Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign. President Emmanuel Macron remains in office.

Given France’s long history of struggle and class consciousness and its quirky election system, progressives have a voice in the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, which must approve the government’s proposed budget.

Under the constitution of the Fifth Republic, in force since 1958, the government can cause the budget to be adopted by invoking Article 49.3, even though the National Assembly votes against it. But the government then has to survive a no-confidence vote to remain in office.

When the government used Article 49.3 on Dec. 4, it lost the no-confidence vote 321 to 256. The soft fascist party, the National Rally (NR) led by Marine Le Pen, joined the center-left New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire) in the vote. This result was the first time since 1962 the government had lost a confidence vote, although Article 49.3 had been invoked dozens of times.

Political maneuvering after the vote

When the NR came in first in the vote for the European Commission in June, Macron called a snap national election for parliament. If various “left” parties remained divided, Macron’s Renaissance Party might have captured the votes of the soft “left” parties like the Socialists, and together they could freeze out the National Rally from leading parliament. 

Instead, last July the “left” parties in parliament — which in France include the Socialists, the Greens, the Communist Party, the New Anticapitalist Party and  France Unbowed (La France Insoumise), the last one assuming the most militant stance of any major party in France — and a number of smaller parties created the New Popular Front. This coalition cooperated in a large majority of France’s 577 parliamentary election districts, where it ran a single candidate to confront the right wing. 

This coalition, the NPF, was the leading vote getter, though it did not win a majority of seats. Le Pen’s National Rally came in second and Macron’s party, Renaissance, a distant third. Now, Macron cannot call a new vote for the National Assembly until July of 2025, since he called that vote in June of 2024 and must wait a year.

Marine Le Pen on trial

Meanwhile Marine Le Pen,  who has run for president of France three times and is the most prominent member of the NR, along with 26 members of the NR leadership went on trial for fraud on Sept. 30. While the verdict won’t be announced until the end of March, it is expected to be “guilty,” which would make her ineligible to run for public office for five years.

Gabriel Attal, a member of Renaissance, was the politician serving as prime minister at the time of the snap election last summer. Since his party, Renaissance, lost the election, he resigned. Macron kept him on as a caretaker until he could work out a deal with Michel Barnier, a member of a smaller right-wing party called the Republicans, to become the next prime minister.

According to French political tradition, Macron should have offered the position of prime minister to a member of the NPF, since it had gotten the most votes. Instead, he offered it to Barnier, from the right wing.

During the elaborate ceremony marking the re-opening of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which had been severely damaged in a 2019 fire, Donald Trump was seated on the left side of President Macron; Macron’s spouse was seated on Macron’s right next to Jill Biden representing the current U.S. administration at the event. The multi-billionaire Elon Musk could be seen among the dignitaries.

Mass movements in the streets

Farmers and unions in France have kept up their struggles during these political maneuverings. The union confederations CGT and Force Ouvrière are calling for a national one-day strike for higher wages for Dec. 12.

Farmers all over France have taken their tractors, trucks and other agricultural vehicles onto the streets and highways leading to major French cities. They form “rolling blockades,” lining up a group of tractors, which have the right to use public roads, going together slowly down the road while traffic bunches up behind them.

Once the cops started to force the farmers to pull their tractors to the road side, they started towing loads of manure which would spill out onto the roadway and disrupt traffic, according to TV newscasts.

There were 85 farmer demonstrations all over France on Nov. 18, according to the Young Farmers’ Association. (Le Monde, Nov. 19) They were protesting against low prices for what they produce, proposed reductions in state subsidies for farmers’ diesel fuel and a new free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, the common market in South America.

Another tactic farmers use is to build a cinder block wall in front of the central government’s office building in a city to symbolize the government’s separation from peoples’ needs. They then pile manure in front of the wall to make it harder to break it down.

Unions in the streets

The teachers’ unions held a one-day strike on Dec. 5, shutting down two-thirds of the day care centers, elementary and secondary schools across France. They are demanding higher salaries and are furious that the new budget will dock them up to three days of sick pay every time they need to take it.

The railroad unions are opposing France’s national railroad (SNCF) plan to privatize its freight service, saying that this task can be handled by private trucks, which will cause much more air pollution and take away 5,000 union jobs. The railroad unions held a one-day strike of the SNCF’s passenger service on Nov. 21.

The CGT is holding roving demonstrations inside department stores whose management have scheduled to close, claiming they are not profitable enough.

France’s role in Africa

The domestic turmoil in France makes it difficult for the French capitalist rulers to respond to their international losses, particularly in Africa’s Sahel, the area south of the Sahara Desert in Africa.

In addition to Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger ending their military alliance with France, Senegal — a small but culturally influential country — is also breaking its ties.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye announced on Dec. 1 that the French occupation soldiers who had stayed in Senegal since its independence in 1960 have been told to leave.

As of 2023 some 3.5 million immigrants born in Africa lived in France, out of a total of 68 million inhabitants. There isn’t a specific, large-scale “Sahelian community” readily identifiable in France. Due to the colonial history of France in the Sahel region, however, there is a strong diaspora network existing within the Sahelian communities connecting individuals to their home countries and providing support both in France and in Africa.

How this will affect U.S. imperialism is unclear. Paris and Washington compete but are also allies against the people of the Global South. France’s removal from its African bases — just a small one in Cameroon and a fairly large one in Djibouti on the Red Sea remain — is a major setback for French imperialism.