In the second round of the presidential election this Sunday, the French electorate faces a choice between an authoritarian, reactionary incumbent and an ethno-nationalist. La République En Marche’s Emmanuel Macron or Rassemblement National’s Marine Le Pen. Macron’s candidacy comes on the back of a first term in which the President further dismantled the French welfare state while undermining basic civil liberties and targeting religious and ethnic minorities. Le Pen’s candidacy has roots in a long tradition of French fascism; her party and her family rose to prominence out of sects of French society that opposed President de Gaulle’s acceptance of Algerian independence after a bloody, eight-year-long decolonisation struggle. How does the right hold so much power? An era of centre-left politics has reached its logical conclusion.

In the lead up to the first round on the 10th April, Macron’s place in the run-offs was essentially guaranteed. One spot remained among a field of eleven candidates. Despite a definite expansion of the far-right’s support since 2017, the splitting of their base between Zemmour and Le Pen opened a huge opportunity for a leftist to seize the final place. Historically, this would have fallen to the candidate fielded by the social democratic Parti Socialiste (PS), one of two major governing parties since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. However, after the collapse of PS since the historically unpopular Hollande presidency, the centre of gravity has shifted towards Mélenchon and La France Insoumise (LFI), around whom labour, environmental and social movements have coalesced to form the new strongest electoral force on the left. Instead of accepting the dominance of LFI and forming an electoral coalition under Mélenchon’s leadership, the Parti Socialiste ran Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo in a doomed attempt to recover from the slide into irrelevance.

“It is telling that perhaps the final influential act of PS was to roll the dice on an ethno-nationalist winning the levers of state power”

Mélenchon’s campaign reached a new high of 22%, yet fell short of the second round by just 1.2%. Meanwhile, the decline of Parti Socialiste has proved terminal, with the former powerhouse receiving only 1.7% — missing out on state reimbursement. Had the centre-left party endorsed the more radical La France Insoumise, France would not be under the threat of a Le Pen Presidency. It is telling that perhaps the final influential act of PS was to roll the dice on an ethno-nationalist winning the levers of state power.

Caving to the right is the inevitable consequence of a contradiction that has plagued the governmental French left for decades. Macron and La République En Marche’s ideology illustrate the true nature of the Parti Socialiste, which has been the party of Jacques Delors and Michel Rocard since its 1983 technocratic turn. Having been Economy Minister under Francois Hollande’s PS government in the 2010s, Macron has inherited the economic principles of the ‘Second Left’, prioritising the overhaul of labour protections and social safety nets in the name of ‘modernising’ France. Since the Mitterrand PS government abandoned the radical ‘Common programme’ that had fuelled its 1970s rise, the enactment of austerity measures when in power has destroyed the Parti Socialiste’s own support base. In this sense, Macron’s victory was merely an outgrowth of the once-mighty Parti Socialiste’s death throes. As many public-sector employees and working-class voters turned to abstention, La République En Marche (LREM) took the wealthiest segment of voters fleeing the PS.

“They have legitimised the concerns of ethno-nationalists and brought fascist discourse into the political mainstream”

Trusting the preservation of progressive values to the political realignment occurring around LREM’s new coalition of asset owning, highly educated wealthy and upper-middle-class voters has manifestly failed. Macron can no longer claim the mantle of centre-left defender of liberal ideals of tolerance. Five years of state-led attacks on French Muslims’ civil liberties have put pay to any such illusions. Having brought in ‘anti-separatism’ laws infringing on freedom of association, while overseeing the dissolution of the anti-discrimination group ‘CCIF’, the overall thrust of Macron’s Presidency has been an institutionalisation of attacks on Muslim citizens’ rights. In government, LREM has actively stirred up Islamophobia. The party legitimised the concerns of ethno-nationalists and brought fascist discourse into the political mainstream. It should be of no surprise that a period of French political history in which the Minister of Higher Education has called for McCarthyite inquiries into ‘Islamo-leftism’s’ infiltration into academia, is also an era in which an ethno-nationalist candidate like Zemmour can shape national discourse to the point at which fascist beliefs like the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory are openly espoused by the major centre-right party.

Aided by such policies, the far-right has only increased its momentum. While Le Pen’s first round results earlier this month saw an expansion of her 2017 tally by 2%, in reality, she has made much larger gains. With the help of Zemmour’s 7% of voters, Le Pen is expected to greatly exceed her previous second round performance when she lost with 33% to Macron’s 66%. Polls have the Presidential hopeful, who has promised to ban Muslims from wearing headscarves in public, climbing to a projected 46%.

Out of this debacle, La France Insoumise has a clear mandate to rebuild the French left around their democratic socialist programme. After the Greens’ and the Communist Party’s fall below the 5% threshold for the state reimbursement of campaign fees, the lesson of these elections has been the need for a union of the left. Drawing on the heritage of the radical Union de la Gauche of the 1970s, the future of the left lies in a broad coalition led by LFI — uniting labour, environmental and social movements.