A caller to a French radio station on Monday morning said he supported Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. However, he added, he wouldn’t vote for them in an election. Why? asked the host. The man said he feared that if the National Rally came to power the far-left would turn France ‘into a real mess’.
I have heard similar anxiety other middle-class French people who are tempted to vote for Le Pen’s party. They may not agree with her economic policies but they do share her concerns about mass immigration and insecurity.
But what frightens them most is the far-left, which as a history of violence going back to 1789. In 2023 the constitutional historian Christophe Boutin explained that violent disorder ‘is in the DNA of a certain French left’. He blamed ‘the myth of the Revolution… and a Marxist doctrine according to which capitalism can only end in violent revolution.’
This history accounts for the difference between the British and French far-left. The people being arrested at Palestine Action protests in London are predominantly middle-class, as are the members of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, and the counter-protestors at demonstrations against migrant hotels.
Some of today’s far-left in France are middle-class, getting their kicks from confrontations with the police. One such was Antonin Bernanos, who was jailed for his part in torching a police car during a protest in Paris in 2016. The 23-year-old Bernanos was the great grandson of the celebrated Catholic writer Georges Bernanos.
But there are also many working-class extremists on the far-left in France. Three years ago a man who had stood as a National Rally candidate in the legislative election was attacked by a mob of far-left extremists in Bordeaux. Six of his assailants belonged to a notorious gang of hooligans who follow the city’s football club. Olympic Marseille also has a few thuggish far-left supporters, although as with Bordeaux they prefer the name ‘antiracist’ to ‘hooligan’.
The far-left in France is arguably the most organised of any western country. Two years ago a journalist called Anthony Cortes published a book about his time living undercover with a far-left organisation. He dispelled the myth of spaced-out hippies and crusties. Today’s far left is a disciplined and determined mix of anti-fascists, Trotskyists, anti-capitalists, anarchists and eco-warriors.
It is believed that the far-left sabotaged France’s rail network on the eve of last summer’s Paris Olympics. It was an audacious and well-planned guerrilla operation, for which no one has yet been brought to book.
‘Sabotage’ was one of the words on the lips of Laurent Nuñez on Tuesday morning. In an interview the Paris police chief said his force were braced for ‘blockades’ and ‘sabotage’ on a day of protest on Wednesday billed as Bloquons tout (block everything).
The protest movement was initially the inspiration of a small collective of white-collar Millennials whose rallying cry was ‘It’s Nicolas who pays’. Fed up with working hard only to be taxed to the hilt, these Millennials called for a day of protest on September 10.
But it has since been hijacked by hard-left unions and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise. ‘We will block everything to get Mr Macron himself to leave,’ Mélenchon said last week, adding that he wants a peaceful protest. ‘The anger is legitimate and deep-seated…the powerful need to see it and hear it.’
Intelligence points to upwards of 100,000 protestors taking to the streets today, among whom will be violent elements from Antifa and Black Bloc. Around 80,000 gendarmes and police officers have been mobilised across the country, some to patrol the streets and others to guard what Nuñez described as ‘key areas of interest’. These include fuel depots, nuclear power plants, railway stations, airports and public transport. ‘We are expecting shock operations,’ said Nuñez.
One centre-right senator, Claude Malhuret, has warned that September 10 threatens to become a day of ‘absolute nihilism’. He pointed a finger at the far-left and accused them of ‘practically calling for riots’.
No far-left politician has called for riots or violence of any description. But they have urged people to take to the streets in what they hope will be a show of force. It will underline that the left still ‘own’ the streets in France. It was the case seven years ago during the Yellow Vest protests. What started as a peaceful howl of despair from the silent majority was soon hijacked by violent far-left agitators. They came to Paris not to protest against the cost of living crisis but to fight the police and pillage brand shops.
So it is with today’s Block Everything protest. Most ordinary working- and middle-class people who were thinking of coming out to express their dissatisfaction with the political class will stay at home. Why run the risk of getting caught up in a riot?
Indeed, why the run the risk of voting for Marine Le Pen when it will only provoke the far-left extremists?
Comments