About Author A.W. Gaffney is a physician and writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Dissent, Jacobin, and In These Times. He blogs at www.theprogressivephysician.org.
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.
