(C) Common Dreams
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France's Macron made key mistakes and demonized the left, says bestselling economist Thomas Piketty [1]

['Natasha Turak']

Date: 2024-07-02

Protesters gather during an anti-far-right rally after French President Emmanuel Macron called legislative elections following far-right parties' significant gains in European Parliament elections in Paris on June 15, 2024.

French President Emmanuel Macron is facing a reckoning after the country's far right made historic gains in the first round of a snap parliamentary election.

The National Rally, led by firebrand Marine Le Pen, and its allies secured over 33% of Sunday's vote in a staunch rebuke of Macron's centrist and globalist policies. If they go on to win an absolute majority during the vote's second round on Sunday, Macron's power will be severely weakened.

Calling the election was a high-stakes gamble for the French president who came to power more than seven years ago. He characterized the race as a choice between nationalism and demagoguery on one side and liberal values and a strong, united European Union on the other — but many now think his gamble backfired.

Thomas Piketty, bestselling French economist and economics professor, pointed to what he described as one of Macron's biggest mistakes: neglecting and demonizing France's left wing.

"What I am a bit concerned with is that the current government has tried to demonize the left in recent weeks, days, months — although Macron would never have been elected without the left," Piketty, author of the book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," told CNBC's "Street Signs Europe" on Monday.

"Without the left vote in favor of Macron against Le Pen in 2022 and 2017, he would not be president, and he never really tried to do something together in the end with the people who made him president."

Piketty described France as having three main voting blocs: the far right, the centrist business bloc and the left. He described Macron's centrist party, Renaissance, as getting votes in "the very fancy places of the country" where there are concentrations of business elite, saying "they thought they could remain in power just catering" to that bloc.

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[1] Url: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/02/french-elections-macron-made-key-mistakes-vilified-the-left.html

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