June 19, 2017 - the PCP Press Office
The second round of the Parliamentary elections in France was marked by a historically high level of abstention, approximately 57%, a percentage which, when added to the blank and null ballots, reaches nearly 61%. This element, associated with a profound discontentment with the repeated and false promises of change in France and in the European Union made by the parties that have rotated in office, reflects the profound discredit of an anti-democratic electoral system which seriously distorts the expression of the people's will. It is a perverse electoral system which makes it possible that the forces which have gathered around the political project headed by Emmanuel Macron, with only 32% of the ballots cast in the first round, may total approximately 60% of the 577 members of Parliament.
In this context, and among other results, the Socialist Party of former President François Hollande suffered a defeat, dropping from 280 to 29 MPs; the traditional right-wing party, despite its reconfiguring from UMP to the The Republicans, also suffers a significant retreat, dropping from 194 to 113 MPs; the National Front totals 8 MPs; the French Communist Party reaches 10 MPs and Unsubmissive France some 17 MPs.
The election results, although expressing a defeat of the political forces that embodied the policies of attacks against the democratic rights of the French workers and people, namely during the Hollande and Sarkozy governments. represent the continuity and even the stepping up of the policies to enhance exploitation and social regression, which are now embodied in Macron, a representative of the interests of big capital who is proclaiming new and more serious attacks against labour and social rights, against public services, the fundamental freedoms, rights and guarantees of citizens, imposing a permanent «state of emergency». This is a policy that seeks to ensure, in partnership with Germany, a new leap forward in the neoliberal, federalist and militarist course of the European Union, against the interests, the rights and the aspirations of the workers and the peoples of Europe.
The PCP, following with great concern the developments of the political situation in France and its repercussions in Europe, expresses its confidence that the French workers and progressive forces will fight against the setting up in that country of an authoritarian power at the service of French and European big capital, and will defend the rights and interests of the French workers and people, on the path to sovereignty, social progress and peace.
