There are few among us who have never cited some version of the opening of Polonius’ famous advice about clothing: “The apparel oft proclaims the man.” Usually we don’t connect it to the end of the thought: “And they in France of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that.” As France begins a new political season, Shakespeare might well reaffirm that her politicians know better than anyone else that clothes make the man, especially when the man pretends to lead a revolution.
Following Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the presidential election two months ago, his party, La République en Marche, and its allies won a solid majority of seats -- 350 of 577 -- in June’s legislative elections. The traditional parties on the right and left of the political spectrum, Les Republicains and the Socialists, finished respectively with 112 and 30 seats. But this election represents their last hurrah. Like picnic leftovers under a simmering summer sun, both parties are rapidly decomposing. The left and right in France continue to disagree over how to maintain confidence in their traditional ideologies.
Setting aside En Marche, the one party not riven by internal dissent is the fledgling La France Insoumise (Defiant France). Seventeen Defiant Ones won seats, including the party’s leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon. Composed of former members of the Socialist and Communist parties, as well as splinter groups from France’s hard left, La France Insoumise has risen from the rubble left by the Socialist collapse. According to a recent IFOP poll, a large majority now views Melenchon’s party as the principal force on the left.
Which brings us back to the clothes that make the man and the woman. At the ceremonial opening of the legislative session at the Palais Bourbon -- the home of the National Assembly -- the male contingent of Les Insoumis arrived tieless. As one member, Alexis Corbiere, explained, “the people” are entering the august chamber. “In any case,” he added helpfully, “this what we mean symbolically.”
In order to place this symbolism in its proper historical context, Melenchon spoke to the press shortly before the opening of the session. Wearing the red tie that had become his trademark during the presidential campaign -- unlike Donald Trump, Melenchon buys his red ties at discount stores in his downscale neighborhood -- the former history professor explained his decision by citing his country’s revolutionary past: “Just as there were the sans-culottes, there will now be the sans-cravates.” With that, Melenchon undid his tie and joined his fellow sans-cravates.
A little bit of revolutionary symbolism goes a long way in France, especially on the eve of Bastille Day. Hailing mostly from the city’s working and artisanal classes, the sans-culottes took their name from the ankle-length trousers they wore, distinguishing them from the knee-length breeches worn by aristocrats. As one of their members declared, they represented the “victors of the Bastille.” While they quite literally burst onto the historical stage on July 14, 1789, they did so again more fatefully in 1793, when they forced their way into the foreign and domestic policy debates in the National Convention. The sans-culottes emphasized the revolutionary values of equality, liberty, and fraternity, but they also plumped for direct and violent action when they deemed their representatives had gone astray. Tellingly, along with the trousers and red bonnets they wore, the sans-culottes identified themselves by the pikes they carried and, on occasion, used to display the heads of decapitated enemies of the people.
Of course, Melenchon and his fellow insoumises, which can be translated as insurrectionaries, are carrying smartphones, not sharp pikes. Moreover, they have no intention of rehabilitating the national razor, or guillotine, in order to shave the country’s five o’clock shadow of corrupt politicians and feckless technocrats. But their use of symbols, while not subtle, resonates at a time of widespread public disenchantment with traditional political parties. This remains the case even though, commentator Guy Konopnicki notes, the great tribunes on the French left -- figures such as Jean Jaures, as well as Communist deputies -- all made a point of wearing ties to the National Assembly. It was, he argues, the sartorial means of honoring the workers who voted for them.
Nevertheless, it was an untied Melenchon who staged a striking photo-op on July 3. Rather than attending the extraordinary session at Versailles convoked that day by President Macron, his party instead held a rally at the iconic Place de la Republique. Standing in front of the towering statue of Marianne, the personification of the Republic, Melenchon denounced Macron’s “pharaonic excesses” and declared: “We are in rebellion and refuse to go to Versailles.” Dismissing Macron’s address as an “interminable shower of truisms,” Melenchon depicted a clash not just between two worldviews, but also between two worlds: “We are all in our proper world: some at Versailles, others at Place de la Republique.”
More substantively, the LFI’s raison d’etre is to replace the Fifth Republic, which the party describes as a republican monarchy, with a Sixth Republic endowed with a powerful and unicameral legislature reminiscent of the revolution’s First Republic. During his presidential campaign, Melenchon vowed that his first act would be to call a Constituent Assembly in order to midwife this new republic and its constitution into being. (He even considered selecting members of the assembly by the drawing of lots, a procedure familiar to the ancient Athenians and anathema to every republic since.) In addition, Melenchon vowed that his government would pull France out of not only NATO, but, given his promise to reject Brussels’ monetary and fiscal rules, effectively out of the European Union as well.
Given the conjunction of Melenchon’s visibility and the Socialists’ invisibility, La France Insoumise has a historic opportunity to redefine the French left. For the moment, though, these revolutionary blueprints will remain on the drawing board. In the short term, Melenchon’s party will have a greater presence at public places and boulevards than in the Palais Bourbon. As the political scientist Gael Brustier notes, Melenchon’s party has one foot squarely in the National Assembly, and the other in the street. Just how well it continues to straddle these two worlds will be seen come September, when Macron’s government reveals its plans for liberalizing workplace rules. Pikes are not on the agenda, but neither is peaceful confrontation. With or without his red tie, even Melenchon’s famed oratorical skills may fail to bridge the gap.
