Three weeks ago, just a few days ahead of the European elections, insults were raining down from all sides of the French left, especially between Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party and Socialist-backed candidate Raphaël Glucksmann’s supporters. One can imagine President Emmanuel Macron thinking that the situation was ripe for a political electroshock, the brutal dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale which would make the left implode and, in a super-bold hypothesis, the Glucksmann wing join the presidential majority.

It worked perfectly well… but for the traditional right. Some of Les Républicains’ elected representatives joined the far right after its landslide win in the EU poll, to the great benefit of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. It did not go down that way for the left. On the contrary, its survival instinct produced a miracle: In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, peace and harmony prevailed among Insoumis, Socialists, Communists and members of the Green party. A Trotskyist faction even joined the celebration. When the far right is at the doorstep of power (and when parliamentary seats are in play in a system where public funding depends on the size of your camp in the Assemblée Nationale), it’s relatively easy to silence grudges and desires for revenge.

The French left has always had a soft spot for a glorious past when the stakes are high. So it named its reconciliation “Le Nouveau Front Populaire” (the New Popular Front), in reference to the coalition that won the 1936 elections and remains associated – thanks to famous black and white movies – with social achievements such as the 40-hour work week and paid vacation.

Four days later, this minute-coalition even produced a platform whose economic provisions have made liberal experts’ hair stand on end. It promises, among other things, to lower the retirement age (from 64 to 60), to raise the minimum wage (from €1,398 to €1,600), and to freeze the prices of certain necessities such as food, energy and fuel. Tax on the wealthiest would be raised to offset these expenses, which run in the tens of billions of euros in a country that is already heavily in debt.

This Keynesian stimulus on the scale of a single country deeply integrated into the European economic area would not hold water according to many economists. Their fears are put into perspective by the fact that the chances of victory are still slim compared to those of the far right (those of the outgoing majority are non-existent).

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