France’s left-wing New Popular Front scored big in Sunday’s election. Who are they?

The evening that President Emmanuel Macron announced early elections for the French National Assembly last month, two words were circulating on the internet and in the media: Popular Front.

It was a reference to the left-wing alliance formed in the 1930s to counter rising fascism in Europe and at home. Now a group of France’s main left-wing parties have banded together to fight what they see as a new threat: Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party, which is closer than ever to taking power.

This left-wing alliance called itself the New Popular Front.

“For the first time since the Vichy regime, the far right has been able to gain the upper hand in France,” Socialist leader Olivier Faure recently told a large audience, referring to the French government during World War II that collaborated with the Nazi occupiers.

Mr Macron decided to force elections for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, following an embarrassing defeat last month to Ms Le Pen’s party in European parliamentary elections.

The left-wing group of parties, which had split only months earlier due to personal and policy differences, responded by reuniting. Despite the rushed start, the New Popular Front came in second in the first round of voting, just five percentage points behind the Rassemblement National and its allies, while Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies came in a distant third.

Since then, the New Popular Front has made it harder for the far right to take power. It has built what is known in France as a “Republican Front,” or “dam,” asking its candidates to withdraw from three-party races to reduce the chances of a victory for the National Rally in Sunday’s runoff. More than 130 of its candidates have withdrawn, along with some 80 in Macron’s party, according to French media.

The last polls predict that the strategy could work. The National Rally is still well-positioned to win the most seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, but it may now fall short of the 289 needed for an outright majority.

“Historically, the left has always united when there is a threat from the far right,” said Rémi Lefebvre, a professor of political science at the University of Lille. “That has been the reflex since the 1930s.”

But many in France also fear elements of the left, particularly as the alliance’s largest party, France Unbowed, has a reputation for its inflammatory far-left politics. Some members have also been accused of anti-Semitism, notably the combative and divisive Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a longtime left-wing leader and France Unbowed’s founder.

“They want to create a dam to block the National Rally. But what will happen next?” said Nicole Bacharan, a political scientist who teaches at Sciences Po University in Paris. “They are asking people to take a big leap into the unknown.”

How did the left fall apart and then come back together?

Once powerful in the country under a strong socialist party, the French left has been reduced in recent years to a divided alliance of four parties: communists, socialists, the Greens and France Unbowed. The coalition was first formed in 2022 and was dominated by Mr. Mélenchon’s France Unbowed.

According to other members of the group, Mr Mélenchon, a three-time presidential candidate and former Trotskyist, has been sidelined and no longer has a leading role in the new alliance.

Since the October 7 attack on Israel, Mr. Mélenchon has unabashedly expressed pro-Palestinian views, refusing to call Hamas a terrorist organization and vehemently condemning Israel’s military operation in Gaza as “genocide.” He called a major demonstration against anti-Semitism, attended by two former French presidents, a rendezvous for “the friends of unconditional support for the massacre.”

As attacks and threats against French Jews increase, Mr Mélenchon has been repeatedly accused of stoking growing anti-Semitism.

The alliance, already struggling with internal conflicts, fell apart.

The weaving took place over four hectic days and nights. “We didn’t sleep,” said Pierre Jouvet, secretary general of the Socialist Party and one of the main negotiators. “It was a bit like what sailors do on long crossings, we took micro-naps of half an hour or 40 minutes and we drank a lot of coffee.”

While fear of the far right played a role in the shotgun marriage, pragmatism also played a role. Given the trajectory of the far right, if the left did not function as a unit, it would likely lose many of its seats, said Frédéric Sawicki, a professor of political science at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris.

On the fifth day, they presented a robust program, full of promises and clear compromises for a group that fundamentally disagrees on everything from involvement in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to nuclear energy.

The New Popular Front is campaigning on a platform that would raise France’s minimum wage, lower the legal retirement age to 60, and freeze the price of basic necessities including food, energy, and gas. Instead of drastically reducing immigration, as the far right has promised, the coalition has pledged to make the asylum process more generous and flexible.

The group would also push for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, and “immediately recognize” a Palestinian state. It also pledged to develop government plans to combat both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Can the New Popular Front win?

If a victory for the New Popular Front was ever likely, it is now less likely, as so many candidates have dropped out.

Still, the left could win enough votes to be influential, especially if a coalition government is formed.

The group’s hope is not just to push back the far right, but to take up some of the mantle of the original Popular Front, a real touchstone for the French left. For many, it was the pinnacle of what they could do, but also of their brave resistance to fascism.

The original Popular Front formed a government under Léon Blum, who became the country’s first socialist and Jewish prime minister in 1936. The day after taking office, he introduced a series of laws that dramatically changed the lives of French workers, including two weeks of paid vacation a year and a 40-hour work week.

The government lasted only two years. In 1943, under the collaborationist Vichy government, Mr. Blum was sent to Buchenwald, where he lived in a house outside the concentration camp.

“The Popular Front government did not last long,” said Jean Vigreux, a professor of history at the University of Burgundy in Dijon who has written two books on the Popular Front, “but it changed life.”

Mr Macron, who loathed the far-left movement long before it defeated his party in Sunday’s election, was ruthless in his response to the formation of the New Popular Front, saying Mr Blum “must have turned in his grave”.

He called the front “far left”, given the addition of France Unbowed, and said the party was as dangerous to the French Republic as the far right. Many voters agree. In the last two annual polls on French sentimentconducted annually by Ipsos-Sopra Steria, 57 percent of people considered the party a “danger to democracy” — more than Rassemblement National.

The New Popular Front has refused to nominate a leader who would become prime minister if they won a majority or were part of a coalition government. But many leaders in the alliance have reiterated forcefully that it would not be Mr Mélenchon. He has refused to disqualify himself, however, and has repeatedly stated that he is “suitable” for the job.

Will the resistance against the Rassemblement National be successful?

The Rassemblement National is still expected to win the most seats, but the resistance could prevent the party from winning the absolute majority it so desires.

It could also confuse the public, after months of name-calling from the left and centrists, which led some voters to abstain.

“It will be difficult for voters to understand that they have to vote for people who just a few days earlier were described as repugnant,” said Mr. Lefebvre, a professor of political science.

Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, has criticized the New Popular Front, saying its efforts to keep the right out of power are undemocratic. “You believe it is honoring politics to do everything to stop a movement that I lead, that represents millions of French people?” he said in a television interview this week.

Leaders of the New Popular Front reject this claim.

“It is not a rejection of democracy. It is a strong desire to block the arrival of the far right in France,” Mr. Jouvet said, “because we consider the far right and Jordan Bardella dangerous for France.”

Still, some analysts fear that the “Republican Front,” if successful, could deepen the sense of abandonment described by many far-right supporters, who feel Macron’s government is not hearing their concerns.

“That’s the perverse effect of this,” said Ms. Bacharan, the political scientist. “Far-right voters hear, ‘Power must be kept away from us.’”

Segolène Le Stradic contributed to the reporting from Paris