Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

France can no longer ignore the menace of left-wing violence

Police in France arrested nine people on Tuesday evening in connection with the death of a 23-year-old student in Lyon last Thursday. Most of those in custody are members of the "Young Guard," an extremist splinter group of Antifa. Among them is reportedly a parliamentary assistant to an MP from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI). For many years Melenchon – along with swathes of France’s left-leaning mainstream media – have turned a blind eye to the activities of the Young Guard They are being questioned about the events that led to the death of Quentin Deranque. Hours earlier Deranque, a nationalist, had been providing security to a feminist group who were protesting about the appearance of Rima Hassan at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon.

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

Will bromance bloom between Trump and Jordan Bardella?

Life has never been so good for Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old president of Marine Le Pen's National Rally. A recent opinion poll had him as the runaway favorite to win the 2027 presidential election. One man who believes in his credentials is the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Now out of prison and promoting the book he wrote during his 20-day incarceration, the center-right Sarkozy said that Bardella reminds him of a young Jacques Chirac. Despite Sarkozy’s conviction for criminal conspiracy, he retains a large and loyal fanbase among the metropolitan boomer bourgeois, a demographic that the National Rally has traditionally struggled to attract.

bardella

Monday

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The grievance games of the left

In the first week of October 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France’s perennial man of the Marxist left, former leader of La France insoumise and present chief of Nupes (Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et social), an alliance of hard-left, left and green parties, invoked the jours d’octobre that commenced on October 5, 1789 with the Women’s March from the Parisian marketplaces to Versailles and ended with the more or less forced departure of the royal family for the capital city in the early morning hours next day after several members of the Palace guard had been decapitated and their heads impaled on pikes. It is unclear what that revolutionary year, and the events of October 5-7, have to do with twenty-first-century France.

revenge

Wednesday

Micah Mattix

The failure of Marine Le Pen

Following her second-round loss to Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential elections last month (it was her third loss on the national stage), Marine Le Pen has announced her candidacy for the National Assembly. She hopes to win Pas-de-Calais’ eleventh constituency in June — a seat she won in 2017 — to oppose Macron’s policies in the French parliament, along with her National Rally (RN) colleagues. But she is unlikely to have much leverage. In the last parliamentary elections, the National Rally (then the National Front) won eight seats out of 577. The latest poll by Harris Interactive has them winning 65 to 95 seats this year, compared to 338 to 378 seats for Macron’s re-branded Renaissance party, which would give Macron an absolute majority.

Tuesday

Bill Wirtz

Marine Le Pen takes on the king of Europe

Last Sunday marked the beginning of the French presidential vote; the runoff election will take place on April 24, and incumbent president Emmanuel Macron winning again is no sure thing. If she plays her cards right, challenger Marine Le Pen has a legitimate shot at becoming the next president of France. Macron emerged victorious in the first round with 27 percent of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 23 percent. For the nationalist Le Pen, it is the second time she has qualified for the runoff, and thus the second time she is running against Macron. In 2017, she lost to Macron 66 percent to 33 percent, crushing once again the ambitions of her National Rally party. This year, however, will be a much closer call.