Protest Posters of New Popular Front

In the summer of 2024, as France’s right-wing National Rally (RN) was nearly elected to Parliament in a majority. Out of concern for this shift, sitting prime minister Emmanuel Macron disbanded parliament and called for snap election. That only allowed political parties three weeks to campaign.

In an effort to stop a right-wing party committed to an anti-immigrant, austere, platform a coalition of broadly left political parties including the socialist and communist parties along with feminist and antifascists organization banded together to stop Marie Le Pen’s National Rally from taking power. Called the New Popular Front (NPF)… In a stroke of good instincts, typically moderate Macron aligned with NPF.

To the shock of the Western world, The NPF won the majority of votes, not enough to lead parliament. For several weeks, the French parliament debated and voted on how to move forward. I was there during that time to capture some of the action. While there, I took several photos of these posters above. Most of the posters directly message to the campaign (Provide Example) while a fews others are more indirectly related to the political and social context of Marseilles. I spoke with several residents who describe Marseilles as uniquely progressive in France, and that seems readily apparent as I visited wide swaths of the city. From downtown areas to the touristy areas even all the way out to the suburbs it was almost impossible not to find posters, signage, and images dedicated to left-wing political beliefs and values.

In the U.S., there’s a growing left movement. Because this is so new to many active people, there’s a common statement: There’s no real left in this country. To a degree this is true, but there’s a key difference between why France still has a left movement ready to enter parliament within mere weeks while the U.S. doesn’t even have a communist or socialist party. For the U.S., modern U.S. left, we share the same beliefs as our French counterparts. We also don’t want a fascist government, we want good wages and women’s rights, and immigrant rights. But where we get stuck is the propaganda and just stay there. We stop maintaining institutions. It was impressive to see the reach of these images. They didn’t shy away from who could this message could resonate with. They formed a coalition, but didn’t negotiate away power before they had it. There’s a lot that the modern U.S. left can learn from what the New Popular Front has accomplished.