While Liberals across the West are cheering the left-wing victory in the French parliamentary election, Sunday’s result will strengthen Islamist and anti-Israel forces in the heart of Europe.
Thousands of demonstrators waved Palestinian and red communist flags in central Paris to celebrate the strong showing by the left-wing New Popular Front.
The NFP, an alliance of Communist, Green, and Socialist parties, won 182 seats, beating Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) into third place with 143 seats. President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble bloc came second with 168 seats. No single alliance managed to get an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 650-member lower house of the parliament, raising the fear of a hung parliament.
Without securing seats for an absolute majority, the French left is confident of forming the next government with the likely support of Macron’s pro-EU lawmakers.
In his ‘victory’ speech, the leading figure of the left-wing alliance, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, pledged to recognize a ‘Palestinian state.’
“We will have a prime minister from the New Popular Front,” Mélenchon later wrote on Twitter/X. “We will be able to decide many things by decree. On the international level, we will have to agree to recognize the State of Palestine.”
With Mélenchon and his Marxist allies on the verge of power, France’s tiny and beleaguered Jewish minority fears for its future. The Times of Israel reported Monday:
[…] Sunday marked a triumph for Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, who has been accused of dog whistling, echoing antisemitic stereotypes and dismissing the threat of antisemitism.Even as the French government has reported a surge in attacks on Jews — including more than 360 incidents in the first three months of 2024, a 300% increase from 2023 — Mélenchon called antisemitism in France “residual.”The vote, and result, put many French Jews in an uncomfortable position. Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus said before the vote that he felt “trapped” by the far left, especially as the more moderate Socialists entered into a coalition with Mélenchon’s party. (The leader of France’s center-right party had likewise made waves by endorsing National Rally.)“We are quite angry and disappointed,” Camus said. “As Jews, we feel betrayed and we think it would have been much better if the Socialist party had not entered into this kind of alliance with the far left.”Many French Jews say that rhetoric from the far left has opened a door to antisemitism. According to a poll from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Europe, 92% of French Jews believe that France Unbowed has “contributed” to rising antisemitism.
Much like Germany and the United Kingdom, the surge in Antisemitism is fueled by mass-migration from Arab and Muslim-majority countries.
The victory for the French left will only contribute to the rising tide of imported Antisemitism. Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the NFP promised to open French shores to illegal immigrants coming from North Africa and the Middle East.
“French Left wants to welcome migrant boats and create special status for climate refugees,” The Telegraph (UK) reported last week. The European Left sees immigrants from failed third-world countries as potential allies in their ideological war on Western values and institutions.
The mainstream media and European political elites are apparently ‘relieved’ to see an alliance of Communists and radical leftists avert a right-wing victory in France.
“The NFP is made up of communists, greens, socialists and Melenchon’s far left France Unbowed,” Germany’s state-owned DW TV reported Monday. “As the EU’s second-largest economy and the bloc’s biggest military power, the uncertainty in France could have wider impacts, but some leaders in other European capitals were nevertheless relieved by Sunday’s results.”
National Rally leader, Marine Le Pen, remained defiant in the face of a disappointing election result, vowing to increase her party’s support base ahead of the French presidential election in 2027.
“The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and, therefore, our victory is only delayed,” she said Sunday. “I have too much experience to be disappointed by a result where we double our number of deputies.”
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