Macron: a landslide with 15%?

Submitted by Matthew on 14 June, 2017 - 11:09

The socialist newsletter Arguments pour la Lutte Sociale reports on the first round of France’s legislative elections (11 June).


The dominant feature of the first round is not the triumph of Macron, but the majority [51%] abstention, for the first time in a legislative ballot in France.It looks like the lowest-income groups and the youth have massively abstained.

From the start the newly elected assembly will be one suspended in mid-air.That trait is accentuated by the second main feature, which is the success of [Macron’s] En Marche candidates, even where they were complete unknowns. They form what will clearly be a clientele, and not a parliamentary group.In proportion to the electorate (thus not counting the unregistered) it was 15% for Macron. Can the Fifth Republic regenerate itself from what must be designated by this oxymoron: a minority plebiscite?

It was helped by the presentation, almost everywhere, of France Insoumise [Mélenchon] candidates using the same personalised method, which did not enable Mélenchon to reproduce his score of 23 April, but helped the Macronists or the right win through in a majority of constituencies.In the second round, where PCF candidates, or non-Macronist Socialist Party candidates, or Ensemble, are present, vote for them.The France Insoumise candidates present in the second round must be considered case-by-case.

The claimed nature of this organisation, as a “movement” aimed at ending parties, directly based on an inter-classist ideology, rules out a blanket vote for it by serious worker militants from voting indiscriminately for it. It is therefore necessary to pick out the situations in which it is possible to draw them into unity against the smashing of Labour Code and for the defence of civil liberties.In the majority of constituencies, where the second round is between Macronists and the right, the strongest possible abstention is the best demonstration to deprive the next assembly, the government, and the president of legitimacy.

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