Lucas-Balla DANFAGA GRENIER

social and media affairs enthusiast, member of the French Socialist Party

On 7 July, the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front, NFP) surprisingly finished first in the French general elections, winning more than 180 seats. However, in the results, it appeared that the NFP experienced locally very different levels of success, especially in rural areas where the Rassemblement National (National Rally) is now occupying a hegemonic position, leading to some interesting dynamics.

From its creation in the aftermath of the European elections (in what has been the largest alliance of left-wing parties in modern French history, including the Socialist Party, radical left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI), the Greens and the Communist Party) and President Macron’s decision to call on snap elections, the NFP has been nothing short of tensions, as its realisation was a high-stakes matter to truthfully emerge as an alternative to the Macronist regime, which has caused many divisions among the French population, and to halt the rise of the far right and its potential access to power.

The question of the strategy to adopt during this very short campaign was crucial, considering that during the last two years, many members of La France Insoumise and its historical leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon had become quite polarising for many French people, to the point where many leaders from Macron’s party called on creating’ a barrier’ against LFI to reduce its potential number of elected MPs and its chances to reach a majority.

This barrier against France Unbowed, and overall, against the NFP has been particularly popular in the electoral campaign in rural areas, where LFI has great difficulties emerging (in the last parliamentary term, 40 per cent of its MPs came from the Paris area, by far France’s most urbanised area). At the same time, the National Rally became the main political force in these areas (coming up on top in 93 per cent of France’s municipalities in the European elections), driven by an anti-elitist fear of social downgrade, which was expressed by a great part of the local populations.

These controversies did reach a boiling point when François Ruffin, an LFI MP from the rural area of the Somme and one of LFI’s main figures, who rose to public fame as one of the main spokespeople of these rural populations and their harsh social and daily life conditions, claimed that Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his ambitions for the position of French Prime Minister, resulting in him catching a lot of media attention, were ‘an obstacle to the NFP’s victory’, and especially in rural areas, where levels of distrust towards political leaders and left-wing politicians are particularly high.

Eventually, on 7 July, NFP came out on top in these elections, and Ruffin was re-elected as an MP independent from its original LFI, where he sat for over seven years since his first election in 2017.

It is important, however, to underline that Ruffin’s victory did not come without difficulties, as he needed an important popular mobilisation to make up for the 10-point backlog he suffered compared to the National Rally in the first round. In fact, many NFP candidates in rural areas who faced similar situations, with the National Rally being far ahead, and who could not count on Ruffin’s notoriety were not able to win.

One of the main takeaways of these general elections for the Nouveau Front Populaire, is that to gain power one day eventually, French left-wing parties need to re-engage heavily in ‘rural areas matters’, by addressing more often specific issues to these territories, such as mobility (93 per cent of travels in French rural areas are done by car, this same number reaches 64 per cent in the Paris region),      ‘medical deserts’ or the economic decline these territories are facing and continue the whistleblowing on the National Rally so-called ‘social project’, which remains based on discrimination and, in fact, perpetuates social injustice. 

Sociologist Benoît Coquard, who has written several publications in the sociology of living in the ‘French declining countryside’, explains that “people from rural areas do not vote for the National Rally only for the fact that they are living in these areas, but because people tend to be more likely to live in these areas if they belong to the working class”.

Photo credits: Shutterstock.com/Jean-Marc Richard