It’s 24 April 2022. Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected for a 2d time period with 58.54% towards Marine Le Pen. In entrance of the Champ de Mars in Paris, the French president broadcasts: “Many of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas I hold, but to put up a barrage against the far right. And I want to tell them that I am aware that this vote places an obligation on me for the years to come.”
Two years then, that “barrage” has damaged. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement Nationwide (RN) is using upper than ever within the polls.
“The situation has changed dramatically and in the wrong direction”, says Jean-Marie Fardeau, head of VoxPublic, an affiliation which helps electorate’ projects and is helping carry them to the eye of decision-makers. “In recent years, the ideas and rhetoric of the far right – namely on immigration, insecurity, etc – have become a central part of public debate, pushed by a part of the media and certain political parties.”
Worse nonetheless, age the federal government has no longer succeeded in stemming the stand of RN, it’s been proactive in passing rules supported by way of it. One instance is the draft immigration legislation promulgated on 26 January 2024, regardless of the censure of a 3rd of its articles by way of the Constitutional Council. In December 2023, the French rights ombudsman Claire Hédon denounced a invoice that undermined the “guarantees currently provided to protect the fundamental rights of foreign nationals”, calling it a “breach in the protection of rights and freedoms”.
“This immigration bill represents a serious turning point. While the fact that the right is chasing far-right voters is nothing new, it was less expected from a president who was elected partly thanks to voters from the left who intended to block the far right”, says Jean-Marie Fardeau.
A fragmented civil folk
By contrast background, the far-right specialist Jean-Yves Camus now not believes {that a} accumulation motion will come from civil folk. “In anti-racist circles, there was great relief on the evening of the second round of the 2002 presidential election, when Jacques Chirac won 82% of the vote to beat Jean-Marie Le Pen. Subsequently, many activists thought that the battle was won, that the far right would never come to power. That was a mistake. Many of those people got involved in other struggles, such as the environment and trade unionism. This was useful, for example, for the movement against pension reform in 2023 and another in defence of public hospitals, but less so for the fight against the Rassemblement National.”
This research is partially shared by way of Jean-Marie Fardeau: “We now realise that the direction of movement was not fixed. And that progress can be reversed, particularly when it comes to the rights of foreigners and LGBT+ people.”
‘15 years now, society has been conditioned to an anxiety-provoking, authoritarian discourse based around security, coupled with a liberal economic system that increases inequalities and generates little in the way of hope’ – Jean-Marie Fardeau, VoxPublic
But France has negative inadequency of electorate’ actions, collectives and associations. “The main networks are still very active, and they are even complemented by a lot of new, highly promising initiatives with know-how about innovative modes of action”, says the VoxPublic delegate. “That’s the case with the women’s movement and the environmental movement. In reality, the problem is not a lack of initiative, but the difficulty of reversing a completely unfavourable balance of power. For 15 years now, society has been conditioned to an anxiety-provoking, authoritarian discourse based around security, coupled with a liberal economic system that increases inequalities and generates little in the way of hope.”
A repressive condition for social actions
Civil-society actions also are hampered by way of a common condition of repression and a shrinking of the democratic length. “It is increasingly hard for associations that challenge the established order to make themselves heard. Whether we’re talking about environmental issues, with the protests against giant reservoirs or the Toulouse-Castres A69 motorway, or defending the rights of foreigners, or supporting the people of Gaza, for example, we’re seeing major attacks on public freedoms and the right to demonstrate.”
Followed in Would possibly 2021, the so-called legislation for “general security while preserving freedoms” embodies this pattern. Introduced by way of the French executive as making a “continuum of security” by way of giving extra prerogatives to municipal cops and facilitating the usefulness of technical manner (drones, frame cameras, video surveillance), a number of of its provisions have been in the long run censured by way of the Constitutional Council as a result of they have been deemed too liberticidal. As an example, a putative offence of “provoking the identification of the forces of law and order”, which provoked masses of 1000’s of nation to display in France, was once dropped, as was once the blanket usefulness of drones.
Any other piece of law with an oversized affect was once the so-called “separatism” legislation, thought to be by way of many prison professionals to be probably the most securitarian legislation of Macron’s first time period. Amongst alternative issues, this made it more uncomplicated to dissolve associations. Since 2021, the legislation permits the federal government to dissolve all associations or de-facto teams “that provoke violent acts against people or property”. This was once impaired in June 2023 to justify the break-up of the environmental motion Les Soulèvements de los angeles Terre – a primary within the historical past of the 5th Republic. The Council of Situation, France’s very best administrative courtroom, then annulled the break-up.
In the end, the untouched coverage course was once additionally mirrored in an aim to gag one among France’s maximum venerable associations: the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (Human Rights League, LDH), based in 1898. In April 2023, the federal government wondered positive “positions” taken by way of the LDH, following the deployment of citizen witnesses to report the heavy-handed policing and tracking of condition demonstrations in Sainte-Soline. Inner minister Gérald Darmanin publicly wondered the order subsidies granted to the LDH.
Profitable the cultural combat
In concept, hyperlinks with political events must additionally allow the guidelines put ahead by way of civil folk to return to fruition: “We know that MPs keep a close eye on what the voluntary sector produces, in terms of ideas and proposals”, explains Jean-Marie Fardeau. “There is a certain permeability, particularly with the left-wing parties. But we feel that associations are placing less and less hope in the parties, which these days are too preoccupied with their electoral strategy. Civil society is also afraid of appearing partisan and being captured.”
That isn’t to say the delegitimisation of the middleman our bodies that manufacture up civil folk. This pattern has amassed day in recent times with quite a few rules designed to get to the bottom of social and trade-union our bodies, founding with the “Macron ordinances” in 2017, which made it more uncomplicated to barter within the office and not using a union consultant.
“We do what we can, but the steamroller is powerful and we don’t always manage to push back against the legal instruments”, sighs the VoxPublic delegate. “In 2020, the dissolution of the Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France went through easily, even though it was a disaster for Muslims. It is a case of ratchets: once they click past, it’s very difficult to go back. So we have to be ready for a cultural battle that will last for years.”
With the aid of Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung EU
