How French feminists defeated the far-right National Rally

“This Sunday, we must cast a feminist vote […] We can’t afford to lose what we’ve secured through force and struggle.” In a speech delivered in Paris in front of thousands of people, climate activist Claire Nouvian alluded to French lawmakers’ decision to enshrine the freedom to abortion in the French constitution and stressed that progressives couldn’t let the far-right National Rally (NR) dispute it.

The National Rally’s position on abortion is ambiguous. One of its leaders, the young and charismatic Jordan Bardella, ensured that the party wouldn’t challenge women’s rights, but some of the party’s members have compared abortion to genocide or taken part in anti-abortion protests.

Feminist activists knew that denouncing the performative feminism of the far-right wouldn’t be enough though. Coming out of the European elections on June 9 with 31.5 per cent of the vote, the National Rally welcomed Macron’s decision to dissolve the parliament and entered the new election campaign with confidence. That’s why a couple of hours after the dissolution, while left-wing leaders worked on building a union, an opposition campaign led by feminists started on social media – specifically on Instagram.

Instagram has long been the social media platform of choice for French feminists. The visual nature of the app makes it convenient to share infographics, social commentaries, and memes. Feminist accounts have similar audiences, they follow each other and are regularly in touch. That’s why when the dissolution was announced, they organised quickly. Perrine, who runs @perrineam.agency and manages several activists, was central to the online mobilisations. She connected creators with 10,000 to 500,000 followers to share infographics and call-to-actions using the co-post feature. It was a way to centralise the production of posts and maximise visibility – and a wise decision in light of the fact activists only had three weeks to get their message out before the vote.

Part of the campaign remained strictly online. Progressive activists and journalists worked on countering the far-right’s de-toxification strategy, exposing quotes and pictures of NR candidates exhibiting racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, or sexism. That content went viral and helped rekindle a historical transpartisan alliance called the republican front. In times of crisis, the republican front has stood against the National Front, now known as the National Rally, defined as anti-democratic and incompatible with French republican values.

This facilitated the work of Anna Toumazoff, who runs the meme page @memespourcoolkidsfeministes. After the first round of the elections, she quickly collected the email addresses of candidates who ended up in third position and refused to leave the race. Toumazoff and other activists urged these candidates to not split the vote and unite behind the contender most capable of beating the far-right, sending out hundreds of emails and DMs which subsequently led to the withdrawal of dozens of candidates. The republican front is ultimately the reason why the National Rally failed to have a majority in parliament, but without the pressure of feminist activists and their followers, it wouldn’t have worked.

Meanwhile, other activists like Mathilde Caillard, known for her techno dances during protests, used thirst-trapping as a political strategy. On one occasion she shared information on top of a video of her dancing, gaming the platform’s sexist algorithm for the benefit of the cause. Alongside her video, more than 28,000 people used the sticker “hot people vote for the Front Populaire” on selfies posted on Instagram stories. Additionally, Anna Toumazoff told her followers to text their right-wing exes to convince them to change their vote. Dating apps were also flooded with supporters serving pick-up lines like “you’re just as cute as the New Popular Front programme” to make their matches vote left.

The online campaign wasn’t going to be sufficient though. That’s why feminist organisers joined the network and redirected people towards real-life actions. Lumir Lapray, who coordinated a campaign in the US to raise the minimum wage and defines herself as “a lover of suburban France, fake nails, politics, and Britney,” organised online workshops to train supporters on door-to-door canvassing. In an Instagram reel, she gave a “little tip” when canvassing. “I ask people, ‘If tomorrow you were the President of the Republic and you had a magic wand, what would you do?’”

Rose Lamy, who runs @preparez_vous_pour_la_bagarre (meaning “get ready to fight”), used her large platform to welcome feminist organiser Caroline de Haas on a live session to discuss tools and strategies to use locally. Caroline has worked on numerous electoral campaigns, so she coordinated most of the actions. She embodies the long tradition of feminist organisers mobilising women to empower left-wing parties. We don’t see them on the podiums in front of the cameras or on national news shows, but they’ve historically been fundamental to left-wing electoral wins.

After watching the live session, I joined a few WhatsApp groups and got the opportunity to chat with grassroots campaigners who told me they had never seen such enthusiasm. One of them said their WhatsApp group went from having 30 members to between 200 and 400 in just a few days. While doing door-to-door canvassing in Lille, I met a feminist supporter who had come from Brussels to help. She used the interactive map created by Lou Welgryn and @indivisibles.fr, an Instagram page run by Julie Henches and Elliot Lepers, to figure out which constituencies needed support. In just a few clicks, she got access to the local campaign’s WhatsApp group as well as the email address of the New Popular Front candidate. Now that the campaign is over, the page was re-purposed to collect email addresses for future elections.

The victory of the Popular Front was a welcome surprise for all the activists involved. Caroline de Haas explained that what happened is historical. She said that in just three weeks, “a giant school for activism” was created, and tens of thousands of supporters were trained to beat the far right. However, as the far-right aren’t going anywhere just yet, activists have stressed that it’s crucial to keep the momentum going.