Penelope Duggan is a member of the bureau of the Fourth International and editor of International Viewpoint, and a member of the NPA in France. She is also a Fellow of the IIRE in Amsterdam with particular responsibility for women’s programmes.
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.