Le Pen’s fascist RN are high in the polls, but anti-racists are organising (Photo: WikipediaCommons)
Anti-fascists in France are organising to take on Marine Le Pen, who has launched her campaign for the presidential elections in April 2027.
An appeals court cleared a path for her to run this week after it shortened the sentence for her embezzlement of £2.4 million in European Union (EU) funds. It reduced the original five-year ban on public office, ruling that she’d already served her time.
It did put her under “house arrest”, ruling that she has to wear an electronic monitor in public.
But she has appealed that decision, meaning this condition won’t take effect until the court has considered her application.
“The campaign begins tonight,” Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), told the French press on Tuesday. She launched her campaign on social media, with slogans such as, “For France,” and, “Rebirth.”
Le Pen and the RN are riding high, with recent polls putting the fascist party as high as 35 percent.
But anti-fascists had already begun organising against Le Pen and the far right RN. “To be honest, this doesn’t change anything for us,” Mathieu, an anti-racist activist from the Marche des Solidarités group in Paris, told Socialist Worker.
“We can’t rely on the courts to stop the RN. Although the RN is popular in the polls, we think that there is an opportunity for the left in these elections
“But the precondition for that has to be a mass, militant anti-fascist movement from below.”
The RN will hold its party congress in Orléans, outside of Paris, on 24 and 25 October.
Mathieu argued that this has to be a focus for anti-fascists in France. “We are calling on anti-racist activists, militants from left party France Unbowed (LFI) and trade unionists from across the country to descend on Orléans—and to disrupt it.
“We were inspired by the example set by anti-fascists in Germany, in protesting against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Erfurt.”
Tens of thousands of activists from across Germany descended on Erfurt last Saturday, where the AfD was holding its party conference. Although the conference went ahead, it was a humiliation for the fascists.
Thousands of militant anti-racist activists blockaded routes into town, preventing fascists from coming to Erfurt in the first place.
“We want to do the same. But to do that, our work begins today—in every community, school, trade union and workplace,” Mathieu said.
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