Far-right forces have gained ground across Europe, particularly in Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In fact, the Netherlands has a new government, a coalition between far right and right, and the far right came first in the first-round of France’s snap election. But fearful of the prospect of a neo-fascist and xenophobic party in government, French voters came out in record numbers and rallied not behind Ensemble—the centrist coalition led by President Emmanuel Macron—but behind the coalition of left forces calling themselves the New Popular Front (NFP), delivering in the end a blow to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) which had made historic gains in the first round and topped the poll with 33.15 percent of the votes cast. NFP came in first in the run-off election, with 188 seats, but falling short of majority.

France’s snap parliamentary election results help us to make sense of the surge of the far right and offer valuable lessons for the left all over the world, including the U.S. where a centrist democrat and a wannabe dictator face off in November.

First, it is crystal clear that the main reason for the rise of Europe’s far right, authoritarian, and ethnonationalist forces is the status quo of neoliberal capitalism. The neoliberal counterrevolution that begun in the early 1980s and undermined every aspect of the social democracy model that had characterized European political economy since the end of the Second World War has unleashed utterly dangerous political forces that envision a return to a golden era of traditional values built around the idea of the nation by fomenting incessant and socially destructive change.

France’s snap parliamentary election results help us to make sense of the surge of the far right and offer valuable lessons for the left all over the world.

True to its actual aims and intent, neoliberalism has exacerbated capitalism’s tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer, reduced the well-being of the population through mass privatization and commercialization of public services, hijacked democracy, decreased the overall functionality of state agencies, and created a condition of permanent insecurity. Moreover, powerful global economic governance institutions—namely, the unholy trinity of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization—took control of the world economy and became instrumental in the spreading of neoliberalism by shaping and influencing the policies of national governments. It is under these conditions that ethnonationalism, racism, and neofascism resurfaced in Europe, and in fact all over the world.

In France, the rise of the far right coincided with President François Mitterand’s turn to austerity in the 1980s as his government fell prey to the monetarist-neoliberal ideology of the Anglo-Saxon world. Once Mitterand made his infamous neoliberal turn, the rest of the social democratic regimes in southern Europe (Greece under Andreas Papandreou, Italy under Bettino Craxi, Spain under Felipe Gonzalez, and Portugal under Mario Soares) tagged along, and the eclipse of progressivism was underway.

Less than two decades later, reactionary political forces had emerged throughout Europe as extreme neoliberal economic policies had paved the way for the emergence of political tendencies with an eye to exploiting the catastrophic social and economic impacts of neoliberalism by tapping into a huge reservoir of public anger and discontent with the establishment. Indeed, as neoliberalism tightened its grip on domestic society, far right forces gained more ground. The surge of Marine Le Pen’s RN occurs against the backdrop of Macron’s obsession with converting France into a full-fledged neoliberal society.

A crucial lesson offered by the results of France’s snap election (as well as by Labour’s victory in UK) is that economics remains the rule of the day. Political forces that seek to promote multiculturalism and social rights while pushing at the same time the neoliberal economic agenda will, in the end, get the short end of the stick.

Initially, Macronism was a strategy of trying to appeal to a wide range of center-left and center-right voters by defending secular social rights and even making gestures to LGBTQ people but always with an eye to transforming........

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