Polls. Cartoon of 01/07/2024 in CTXT
This time the polls were right.
The far-right National Rally party has emerged as the top vote-getter in the first round of France's snap parliamentary elections held yesterday.
Marine Le Pen 's party won almost 34% of the vote in the first round. The left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP) is in second place, with almost 29%, and in third place, Ensemble (Together), the coalition of President Emmanuel Macron, with between 20.5 and 23%.
The next date for the second round is 7 July and, traditionally, people tend to vote in the second round against those parties they do not want in government, so if these results are repeated, the pundits will be able to keep repeating the mantra that the fault of having fascists in government is always because of something the left has done wrong and not because of the existence of a large number of fascists.
No matter how many etymological twists and turns they want to put on it, what some have renamed the populist right has more than deep-rooted fascist roots.
The far-right has also managed to achieve something quite difficult, and that is that part of those who declare themselves to be progressive social democrats assimilate as supposed "self-criticism" the postulates of the far-right and its traditional racist proclamations (of low intensity on occasions in order to fit in) that condense all its discourse on the problems of immigration related to insecurity, mixed with various pachanguero ultra-nationalisms, denialism in environmental matters plus the usual pack of rubbish typical of its origins.
