Thousands of people turned out in France on Sunday, June 23, for feminist demonstrations against the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which is expected to come out on top in June 30 snap elections, as parties sought to shore up support with days to go.
Protesters wearing violet marched from the Place de la République square in central Paris to Place de la Nation in the east, bearing signs with messages such as "Push back the far right, not our rights." Other rallies took place in around 50 other cities such as Toulouse.
The leaders of France's biggest labor unions, Sophie Binet (CGT) and Marylise Léon (CFDT), marched alongside feminist organizations such as Family Planning and Nous Toutes. "If the RN comes to power, there will be no more Ministry for Women's Rights, which means no more specific public policy in favor of gender equality and women's rights," stressed Clémence Pajot, of the National Federation of Information Centers on Women's and Families' Rights (FNCIDFF).
France's two-round election system makes it difficult to predict which party could ultimately claim a majority in the Assemblée Nationale, handing them the prime minister's post which is second in power to President Emmanuel Macron.
The RN has garnered unprecedented levels of support after a decades-long "de-demonisation" push to distance its image from its roots, including a co-founder who was a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS paramilitary. But the core of its message remains hostility to immigration, Islam and the European Union.
Senior RN lawmaker Sébastien Chenu gestured towards Muslim and Jewish voters Sunday by vowing not to ban the ritual slaughter of livestock to produce halal or kosher meat. "Everyone will be able to keep eating kosher meat if they want," Chenu told Jewish broadcaster Radio J. He added that a historic far-right policy of barring the kippa in public spaces – in the footsteps of an existing law forbidding the full-body burka worn by some Muslim women – was not top of the RN's agenda, saying its priority was to fight "the Islamist threat."
In Macron's camp, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal acknowledged that the European Parliament result – where the ruling coalition scored just 14% – was "a message to us that we have to do better with our methods, with our governance" of the country. If his party defies the odds to come top in the legislative polls, he vowed "change," including a turn to "seeking out coalitions with the French public, with civil society" in an interview with broadcaster RTL.
Macron's alliance would open up to "all who want to come, from the conservative right to the social-democratic left," Macron's former prime minister Edouard Philippe told broadcaster France 3.
Attal also hammered his mantra about the threats from "extremes" on the left and right, saying both promised a "tax bludgeoning... a shredder for the middle classes." The RN especially is "not ready to govern (...) it's a party of opposition, not a party of government," Attal said.
In a sign of the disquiet abroad over Macron's snap poll gamble, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that he was "concerned about the elections in France," though "it's up to the French people to decide."
The left-wing NFP alliance continued to show strains Sunday, after parties hastily re-knitted ties sundered over differing responses to Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel and the ongoing retaliation by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Divisions are particularly stark over whether their candidate for prime minister should be Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of La France Insoumise (LFI) – the largest party in the grouping, some of whose members have been accused of anti-Semitism. Mélenchon should "shut up," former Socialist president François Hollande said Sunday, as "people reject him more strongly" than the RN's leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. "Do we want the left to win, or do we want to be stoking conflict?" he said.
Mélenchon said on Saturday that he aimed "to govern the country." He told a rally in the southern city of Montpellier on Sunday, "I will never give up the honour of being a target."