Paris Left-Wing Rally Against the Right Falls Flat

The French people are waking up to the Left's disingenuity. The Left talks the talk of democracy, but they certainly don't walk the walk!

From The European Conservative

By Hélène de Lauzun, PhD

The Left's discourse on ‘saving democracy’ no longer convinces anyone.

One week after an event was held in support of Marine Le Pen, who is the target of legal attacks aimed at preventing her from standing in the 2027 French presidential elections, a rally organised in Paris against the ideas of the Rassemblement National (RN)—a failure, even by the organisers’ own admission.

The rally was supposed to be a ‘response’ to the mobilisation of the Right around Marine Le Pen on Sunday, April 6th. Around thirty associations and trade unions invited the French to meet on Saturday, April 12th, in the Place de la République, an emblematic location for left-wing demonstrations in Paris, to launch an appeal from “civil society.” However, it was not a spontaneous event. The Saturday demonstration was organised by a whole host of well-known organisations from the left-wing and far-left activist scene: SOS Racisme; the Human Rights League; the CGT trade union, and even international organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International. The Magistrates’ Union, notoriously left-wing, was unsurprisingly among the signatories of the appeal. The socialists and communists also lent their support.

Supposed to embody the unity of progressive forces, the rally was in fact a sign of division on the Left. On the day that Marine Le Pen was rallying her supporters, a demonstration was organised by the Greens and La France Insoumise party, contested by parts of the Left, who preferred to meet up a week later.

The stated aim was to “defend democracy” and the “rule of law” following the judgment handed down on March 31st against Le Pen and the RN in the case of the European parliamentary assistants.

The organisers of the demonstration are contesting the right-wing challenge to the judgment, which French conservatives view as an obvious manoeuvre designed to block the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential election. They believe justice is “in danger” due to attacks from the “far Right,” which have just pointed out the obvious bias of judges who, regardless of the case, have done everything to enforce procedures aimed at preventing Marine Le Pen’s candidacy. They indeed requested the immediate enforcement of her ineligibility sentence, despite the appeal process, even though they were under no obligation to do so. The demonstrators denounced an “ideological offensive” by the “far Right,” accused of “politicising the judges” who are “only doing their job.”

But the demonstration, by the admission of its organisers and the mainstream press—often quick to inflate the numbers—did not meet with the expected success. Barely a few hundred people gathered in the huge Place de la République, which seemed very empty that day. “There aren’t many of us here,” lamented one activist interviewed by the communist newspaper L’Humanité. The reason is surely to be found in the Left’s co-opting of the ‘defence of democracy’ and the ‘rule of law’ argument, which no longer convinces anyone. “A crucial struggle, but one that is struggling to find its audience,” wrote L’Humanité, with a certain sense of understatement. 

How can we align ourselves with small groups that profess to ‘defend democracy’ only to secure their own influence? Their objective is clearly still to lock in power and prevent the emergence of an “alternative truth”—the very “alternative truth” they accuse the RN of wanting to defend and spread.