Is this a victory for the Fr*nch working class?
Though Corbyn had a positive tweet about the victory, unless there’s some serious wealth distribution and a non-interventionist foreign policy that includes being successfully anti-NATO and not supporting the genocide (the best you can hope from social democrats) then it feels like just delaying fascism. History suggests in practice the fascism will continue.
/^armchair take; hopefully someone with more knowledge of French political economy can chime in
/addendum: it should be noted that a significant portion of the french working class includes reactionaries that partly make up the base of the far-right. Labour in the imperialist nations can side with their bourgoisie in times of capital crisis (and let’s be honest, even outside an acute crisis this can be true - especially if one benefits from the superexploitation of others).
/edits: clarity
The labour aristocracy is a real problem for any western nation. The need for the party to meaningfully oppose NATO and the ongoing french economic empire are at direct odds with the material conditions of a large portion of the working class. If they stop benefitting from super profits, then the material conditions will go down relatively speaking, if nothing else in the society changed. There would need to be a multi pronged approach so as to accomplish this goal while preserving conditions for the worst off in society (e.g. reducing the wealth share of the bourgeoisie, elimination of unnecessary wealth drains like advertising and NATO expenditure, etc.).
This is not to say the contradiction is unsolvable, just that it is something that needs to be seriously contended with in any given western socialist movement. SD in the core will always need to rely on exploitation of the periphery unless they meaningfully and intentionally provide reparations and develop their own economy to assist in those reparations.
Since I am not French or well versed in this particular left coalition, I don’t know if it has the teeth or the will to do this.
This comes second hand from a francophone friend who followed the news in French(apparently the translations have been awful)
It’s a qualified victory as any popular front is, organizationally it was impressive as it pulled together many different strands of leftism, but that means a bunch of concessions were made. Primarily the NPF supports a two state solution and giving arms to Ukraine. On the whole, still a lot better than Starmer’s labour. Also of note, several major pundits were fear mongering about the NFP and actually suggested tactical voting for NR over ensemble.
