Legislative elections in France: how Africans living in France react to the results

The first round of the legislative elections in France took place this Sunday, June 30, 2024. Three weeks after the European elections which saw the surge of the far right in many countries on the old continent.

The French went to the polls this Sunday to elect deputies for the renewal of the National Assembly. This institution was dissolved by President Emmanuel Macron a few hours after the victory of the National Rally in the European elections on June 9.

577 deputies are to sit at the Palais de Bourbon at the end of the second round scheduled for Sunday, July 7. For this first round, the participation rate is estimated at 67%. This is historic according to analysts who are closely following these French elections.

According to the results of the legislative elections, published by the Ministry of the Interior, the National Rally (RN) and its allies came out on top in this first round with 34.2%, followed by the union of the Left under the banner of the New Popular Front with 29.1% of the vote. Emmanuel Macron’s camp, called Ensemble, came in third with 21.5% of the vote.

These results, with the National Rally in the lead, have triggered a mobilisation across France of anti-far right groups calling for its path to be blocked in the second round of these elections scheduled for Sunday 7 July.

These are political parties, movements and associations that are against the immigration project and others of the RN, who are mobilizing so that Marine Le Pen and her friends do not come to power. Also, Africans are worried about the progression of the extreme right. And they do not hide it.

The National Rally’s project, especially the section on immigration, greatly worries Africans and all other foreigners in France. The RN’s victory in the first round of these legislative elections is perceived as a danger for all those people who have made their lives in the country of Charles de Gaulle.

And so, they react and see the future of France in dotted lines. “Of course we are worried. We ask ourselves a lot of questions about our future here. Our children too, most of them mixed race, no longer understand anything,” reacts Joël Viana, 59, IT engineer and project manager.

This Togolese, who has lived in Paris for more than 20 years, confides that for several years now, hostility towards foreigners has become more and more palpable in the streets of France.

“I am very affected by these results, not only me, but also my circle of friends. We did not imagine that the RN could collect so many votes within French society. Many of us are thinking about returning to Africa since racism here is becoming more common and people are free from complexes when practicing it,” he regrets.

The French, he continues, believe that foreigners are responsible for the ills that their society suffers from. “It’s astounding and extremely worrying,” he says.

Although it is not yet a definitive victory, this rise is not good news for Africa and France itself, according to Baki Youssoufou, a business leader and human rights and anti-discrimination activist.

The latter points out that by saying for years that France is right-wing and that even the Left has only focused on immigration laws during all these last years and making this immigration the central point of all the problems in France, we end up making the extreme right rise.

“But considering the vote and how we voted, it’s a tribal vote in the first sense of the term,” Baki Youssoufou emphasizes. Was the RN’s victory a surprise? Yes and no, according to him. A surprise because he believed that the French were well enough aware of the far-right’s policies that would tarnish the country’s image. It’s not a surprise because politicians have spent their time in recent years preparing the ground for this victory.

As the head of a company that fights against deforestation and the search for new energy sources in Africa, this African who lives in Paris says he is worried about this victory of RN in the first round, even if a second round is planned for next Sunday. He is afraid for French and African partners who may have problems with the National Rally in power.

“I am also afraid in the sense of everything that is development and racism. I have fought a lot in my life against discrimination, especially police violence. We know that with the speeches of the extreme right on police and security issues, with an underlying suspicion of Arabs and blacks who would be the source of insecurity, it is scary,” says Mr. Youssoufou.

He also points out that tracking down Arabs and blacks will not be easy, since the latter will certainly not accept it. Which will create problems and scare away investors.

“The second thing that scares me is that in the national police force today up to 80% vote for far-right parties, and when the entire police force votes for a single party, it becomes worrying, because it is in fact a militia,” he says, specifying that these people are armed, trained and they “vote for xenophobes and racists, because most of the leaders of the far right have been convicted of racism.”

“As the English citizens tested Brexit and served as an example for the whole of Europe of what not to do with Brexit, it is clear that today no European people will vote to leave Europe. But at what price?”

And he added: “I’m afraid that France will become the big country where we’re going to test the far right as a government. The economic effects are going to be devastating and those who are going to suffer first are the working classes, including a large part of the 12 million citizens who voted for the RN. Farmers are going to have to fend for themselves and will be even more alone without foreign workers.”

Abdlekerim Koundougoumi, Africa Director of the NGO Internet Sans Frontière, living in France, emphasizes that it is the failure of Macron’s policy that is currently favoring this rise of the extreme right in France. He still hopes that this rise in the first round will be stopped next Sunday during the second round of these legislative elections in the country.

“There is hope because we see socialist movements of the Left or Centrists who call for a blockade against the extreme right. We hope that we will have a balanced parliament and that the extreme right will not have full power,” hopes the man who is also an Associate Researcher at the Institute for Prospective and Security in Europe.

Unlike other Africans, Mr. Koundougoumi says he is not at all afraid of the far right coming to power. Rather, he sees it as an opportunity for Africans to wake up.

“Wake up to better organize, wake up to show their strength, their ability to organize to defend their causes. The only community that suffers, that is not organized, that is not represented on the political and economic level here in France, is the African community,” laments this activist and defender of human rights.

The arrival of the RN in power, he continues, is a signal that Africans must seize in order to be able to organize themselves and become actively involved in politics, especially those who have dual nationality and are Franco-African.

For this member of several African diaspora organizations in France and Europe, Africans in France are also a force. “I am not worried. I think we need to shake Africans up so that they can mobilize to be able to defend themselves and ensure that Africans are no longer the black sheep of all of France’s problems.”

Abdlekerim Koundougoumi believes that if the extreme right comes to power with an absolute majority in parliament, it should be a challenge for Africans instead of being a fear for them. “Since we are accused of all the problems, the time has come to be able to say that enough is enough.”

Jean Célestin Edjongue, Historian, Sociologist, journalist and promoter of the website newsafrica24.fr which talks about Africa and its diaspora, also finds that there are reasons to be worried.

“Because even if the National Rally seemed to soften its positions, it remains nonetheless a far-right party with racist, xenophobic, extremist ideas which do not allow us foreigners to live peacefully,” he argues.

He adds that even though he has lived in France for over 40 years, he has kept his Cameroonian nationality, of which he is proud. He is certain that the second round will still provide a lot of lessons, “because we will have the reality of the facts.”

For him, the triangular contests could prevent the RN from having an absolute majority, and we would enter into a cohabitation with the President of the Republic. “It would be very clever to say how this cohabitation between the extreme right and the Macron camp will end,” he says.

For François Assogbavi, a business leader in the construction and home services sector, another African who has been in France for decades, the rise of the RN worries everyone, including the French themselves. “The power of the extreme right will greatly divide France, even beyond the Africans that we are in France,” he notes.

He points out that even if the National Front has de-demonized itself by transforming itself into the National Rally with polished speeches from its daughter, Marine Le Pen, it has always been a melting pot of everything that carries a xenophobic discourse.

“Beyond the party which is a framework, the racist content remains. With the arrival in power of this party, there will be the liberation of this discourse because these individuals will feel legitimized by the vote,” says Mr. Assogbavi.

In any case, France, the African diaspora and other foreigners are holding their breath and waiting for next Sunday. In the meantime, the RN is savoring its first victory, even if calls are multiplying to block it.