Tomás Ó Flatharta

Everyone on the left in Ireland and across the globe should warmly welcome this French initiative.

The New Popular Front in France, which unites trade unions, ATTAC, the Socialist Party, the Greens, the Communist Party, France Unbowed (Melenchon) and the NPA [NOUVEAU PARTI ANTICAPITALISTE] (the entire significant left) against the fascist National Rally, includes in it’s platform ‘unconditional support for Ukraine against Putin’s aggression’. 

Links :
New French Popular Front – Wikipedia
New French Popular Front website

General Mobilisation Against the far right and Macron, the Popular Front! (NPA)

To defeat Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, and that he answers for his crimes before international justice: unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people as well as the integrity of its borders, by the delivery of necessary weapons, the cancellation of its foreign debt, the seizure of the assets of the oligarchs who contribute to the Russian war effort in the framework allowed by international law, the dispatch of peacekeepers to secure nuclear power plants, in an international context of tension and war on the European continent, and work towards the return of peace.

---

A  June 14 poll shows Marine Le Pen’s far-right, Putin-friendly National Rally at 29.5%, the left-wing New Popular Front at 28.5%, and Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renew at 18%. The winner-take-all district elections for the 577 seats in the French National Assembly will be held on June 30.  Run-offs between the top two if no one wins a majority in the first round will be held on July 7.

---

NPA Declaration – “our activists will be fully committed to ensuring that the Popular Front candidates win”

Link :
France: The NPA-l’Anticapitaliste joins the New Popular Front to confront the far right and Macron

The NPA-l’Anticapitaliste leadership met on Tuesday evening (June 11 2024) and unanimously decided to respond positively to the call from the 7 organizations that initiated the Popular Front Front populaire. At a time when the RN and its allies are in a position to take power, the Popular Front offers hope for the social and political left, against liberal reforms, for anti-racist, environmental, feminist and LGBTI struggles, and for all movements for equal rights.

From tomorrow, our activists will be fully committed to ensuring that the Popular Front candidates win and reverse the deadly dynamic we find ourselves in. Together with our spokespersons, we are determined to play our full part in the campaign, including by putting forward candidates.

Victory against the far right and Macron is only possible if there is a broad mobilisation of the population, particularly in companies, working-class neighbourhoods and young people. The trade union movement, environmental struggles, the feminist movement, the movement in solidarity with Palestine, the decolonial and anti-racist struggles, must feed deeply into the Popular Front programme. They must be its lifeblood.

That’s why we will be supporting and participating in the building of all the demonstrations, mobilisations and strikes, in the streets and in companies, that will take place in the coming days and those that will follow after the elections. The mobilisations are the only guarantee that the Popular Front will pursue a programme that breaks with four decades of liberal policies.

The chaos caused by this predatory system requires a revolutionary break with capitalism and a new, emancipatory hope for the oppressed and exploited. Today, there is an urgent need for unity against fascism and for the construction of a counter-offensive by the working classes. Faced with the danger of fascism, let’s join the New Popular Front!

Montreuil, Tuesday 11 June 2024

NPA – NOUVEAU PARTI ANTICAPITALISTE, NPA-l’Anticapitaliste

---

Against Macron and the far right, unity across the social and political left

Link :
Against Macron and the far right, unity across the social and political left – NPA

The result of these European elections is a thunderclap. With Macron announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly, it is vital that the whole of the left – the parties, the unions and all the organisations of the workers’ movement – meet and mobilise. We propose that, in the towns, in the neighbourhoods and at national level, meetings take place over the next few days, to achieve unity, in the streets to resist, and in the ballot box.

Barely more than half of the electorate voted in these European elections, and yet tonight’s results sound like a wake-up call. As has been predicted for weeks, the far right has won a huge number of votes across Europe and will be able to bring dozens of elected representatives, probably more than a hundred, into the European assembly. The far right is on the doorstep of power in several European countries, where it is not already participating in government coalitions.

In France, the Rassemblement National increased its score by nearly 10% compared with the previous elections, putting the far right as a whole at nearly 40% with racist, authoritarian and homophobic lists. This is not a thunderclap in a serene sky; on the contrary, it is the result of several decades of racist and anti-social policies pursued by various governments on both the right and the left.

It is also the result of the Macron government’s desire to legitimise the Rassemblement National, its ‘best enemy’, while implementing part of its policy, to turn every election into a duel between the presidential camp and the RN. But this blackmail, ‘vote for us or let the far right win’, is working less and less because the rejection of Macron’s authoritarian, anti-social and racist government is increasingly massive.

After the defeat in the 2022 legislative elections, President Macron’s camp is once again suffering the rejection of the electorate and is only managing to muster a paltry 15% of the vote, despite the fact that all the resources of the state were put at the service of the Macronist list and that the President and Prime Minister led the campaign.

The media’s ‘return to grace’ of the social-liberal left of co-management and hollandism is not a good sign. This neo-liberal left, with its labour laws, nationality disqualification and compromise with Western imperialism, has led us into the wall, further demoralising and weakening our social camp and propelling Macron to power.

The votes for Manon Aubry’s and Rima Hassan’s list [France Insoumise] were driven by popular and working-class anger at Macron’s authoritarian ultraliberalism, but also at his complicity in the genocide taking place in Gaza at this very moment.

The challenge for our social camp is to regain the upper hand in a context of economic, social, democratic and ecological crises that are combining and amplifying. All the forces on the left that reject this socially and ecologically destructive system must come together to resist the far right and the Macronism that feeds it at the ballot box and in the streets.

Statement by NPA-l’Anticapitaliste

Sunday 9 June 2024, by NPA – Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste