Op-ed published in the Libération on 11 June

Yes, of course, these results are overwhelming almost everywhere, especially in France. With extreme right-wing parties adding up to some 40% of the votes cast, France has clearly been weakened by these European elections and could soon be even weaker, tragically so, if the early elections that Emmanuel Macron decided to call on Sunday were to give power to the Lepénistes in less than a month’s time.

This dissolution is a gamble that is more than risky but, apart from the fact that there were few other options, what is now done cannot be undone. The clock is ticking, and rather than wasting time debating the relevance of this choice, it is now a question of not letting the party win which yesterday wanted to get out of the euro, asked for the anointment of Mr Trump and Mr Putin and applauded the Brexit by describing the European Union as a ‘prison for the people’. If Marine Le Pen and her protégé had been elected in 2017, the 27 countries of the Union would not have been able to deal with the pandemic, or to borrow to boost our economies or to support Ukraine against its aggressor.

What we escaped then tells us what we must, at all costs, avoid today, but how?

First of all, it is up to the President of the Republic, the man who gambled on the dissolution of the Assembly, to define the priorities to which he wants to devote the end of his term of office and thus create, with the right and the left, a climate of national consensus that is essential if the Rassemblement National is to fail. It is up to Emmanuel Macron to take the initiative of starting a new page, but nothing can be done without the political left.

The policial left must unite on a programme that all its constituent groups can accept. It is by closing ranks that it must go into battle by mobilising all its voters against a far-right victory. The left must, in other words, accept the compromises necessary for their unity, but must at the same time commit to withdrawing in the second round for all the candidates from the right and centre who would remain in the race against the RN and who would have committed, for their part, to withdraw for the left wherever the latter would be in a position to win.

If it wants to be itself and give itself every chance of filling up to the brim with votes, the left must lead a joint fight against the far right together with all republicans, but many of its figures and at least one of its constituent groups will not want to do this. They will say that there can only be withdrawals between the left and certainly not between the left and the right, even if they are republican. Even on the moderate left, this is obvious to many activists, but what is happening today, not just in Europe but throughout the world?

Some right-wing parties are agreeing to govern with the new extreme right that is on the rise. Little by little, they are coming together and merging, gradually giving rise to new right-wing parties that are nationalist and reactionary, increasingly illiberal and very similar to those created by Donald Trump in the United States and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

Against these right-wingers, all the forces attached to freedoms, social protection and European unity, those who are Europeans are being led to join forces in movements or coalitions ranging from the centres to social democracy, via the Greens and some of the utopian lefts. Not only have coalitions of this type just shaken up Narendra Modi in India and sent the nationalists back into opposition in Poland, but this is also the reality in the European Parliament. In Strasbourg, social democracy, the centre and the right align their forces, with the frequent support of the Greens, to be in permanent compromise and to decide together on the policies to propose, defend and implement.

This coalition will be renewed in the coming term of office. If it were not, the alternative would be everything that must be avoided: the emergence of an alliance of the two extreme right-wing parties and a section of the right-wing – an alliance that must now be countered in France. Without even going so far as to form the democratic coalition in which it takes part in Strasbourg, without going any further than withdrawals between democrats, the French political left can, in other words, no longer continue to refuse in Paris what it is right to do in Strasbourg.

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