Clifford D. Conner’s latest book is The Tragedy of American Science. He previously authored A People’s History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks and Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution.
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.