Lindsey German on the continuing democratic fallout

There’s a great split screen video on the Guardian website which shows on the one side ecstatic supporters of France’s New Popular Front, as they came top in the country’s general election. On the other side we see the well-heeled supporters of Marine Le Pen’s RN, predicted to be the winners but in fact pushed into third place, shocked and miserable at the result.

The delighted scenes from Paris on Sunday night, as huge crowds chanted ‘no pasaran’ (they shall not pass) and sang The Internationale, demonstrated one very important fact: that the left had defeated the fascist party’s plan to form a government and they had done so in a way that galvanised a whole movement to fight for a range of issues, from lowering the retirement age to increasing the minimum wage to solidarity with Palestine.

It’s a remarkable turnaround from what was expected and a tribute to the mass campaigns which French socialists have described in recent weeks. Trade unionists, campaigners and activists have been on the streets to ensure that they did as much damage to the RN vote as possible. And it has given confidence to the many millions in France and internationally who hate everything Le Pen stands for and fear the rise of the far right and fascism across Europe.

It was therefore important that the left parties united to see off Le Pen and to weaken France’s President Emmanuel Macron, both of which they have succeeded in doing. Of course elections are only one snapshot of opinion and do not represent a long-term defeat for the fascists, but they do represent an unexpected setback. Now the movement that delivered the votes for the NPF needs to stay organised and on the streets, challenging the neoliberal policies of Macron and the racism and Islamophobia epitomised by RN.

Macron called the snap election in response to the RN’s strong vote in the Euro elections last month. He hoped that the left would be forced to rally behind his own party to strengthen his majority for fear of the fascists winning. But the NPF instead was able to gain the single largest number of seats (although well short of an overall majority in the French National Assembly) and to deny the RN its hoped-for victory.

The RN increased its number of seats but nowhere near enough to do what it hoped, which was to form a government and prepare the ground for a Le Pen presidential win.

There are of course many problems with the result: the RN is still strong even if defeated here. Macron’s own party lost nearly 100 seats but will try to manoeuvre to get a government he is comfortable with and to exclude the far-left La France Insoumise and its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. The Socialist Party increased its vote share from last time. Macron is hoping to play for time to do deals and to defuse the radicalism which has grown in recent weeks. There is talk of a left-right coalition or even a technocratic government.

The left needs to organise to prevent this becoming business as usual and allowing the rise of the RN to seem inevitable. It needs to capitalise on the deep political crisis which is now affecting France and to ensure that the fascists are weakened and the left strengthened. This means deepening the movement, building inside working-class areas and unions, and stepping up the fight against Islamophobia and against the RN.

But Sunday’s victory was an unexpected and welcome development for the left and should be built on.

Election results point to struggle

Here we are still digesting the impact of Thursday’s votes in the general election. There really are some very good votes for the left of Labour: not just those five independents who won including Jeremy Corbyn who came in at just shy of 50% of the vote, but also the very many other remarkable outcomes. In Birmingham pretty much all the Labour-held seats are now marginals, challenged by independents who came very close. In Leicester, Labour lost two out of three seats. In London, there were very strong votes for Greens and independents, not least in Keir Starmer’s and Wes Streeting’s seats. Starmer’s vote fell dramatically – unheard of for a leader with such a landslide. Michael Lavalette has described the make-up of his campaign which won 21% of the vote and got as much as Tories and Liberals combined.

Those campaigns that did well were rooted in Palestine but brought in other issues and they came out of movements which galvanised large numbers of people. Those on the left who stood without doing this work found themselves much less successful.

This is one lesson for us as we struggle to grow and to challenge the high votes for Reform in some working-class areas especially in the north. Reform came second to Labour in many Merseyside seats and in the northeast. To combat them we need to confront their policies directly but also to create a positive alternative to Labour which can undercut Reform’s support.

Keir Starmer must be shocked by the Palestine votes and has already started paying lip service to improving his image on it without doing anything fundamental. But that shows the power of protest. We need protest across the board. Instead of building council housing, Labour is making it easier for developers to build unaffordable housing on green belt. Starmer’s first priority was to send David Lammy on a European trip to set up a defence pact. He will be parading at the Nato summit in Washington this week. Meanwhile Rachel Reeves tells us there is no money for anything.

We have to link these issues and the rest with the Palestine protests and send a message to Starmer that the left is heartened by election results here and in France – and that the fightback starts now.