| Three days after the European elections and Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of the National Assembly, the French political landscape is a field of ruins. The far right is on the cusp of taking power in the upcoming snap election, the leader of the old Gaullist party Les Républicains (LR) wants to ally with Marine le Pen for a bowl of soup, the presidential camp is in disarray, and the left is trying to unite within a “Popular Front” with as yet uncertain contours. Mixed feelings prevail in (part of) the country: anxiety about the abyss that could open up in two and a half weeks, and the unhealthy certainty that this was inevitably going to happen anyway. A hundred reasons can explain the rise of Le Pen’s Rassemblement national, and all of them will be valid, but one is essential: When someone is offered a ladder, they usually end up climbing it. By regularly organising deadly face-offs with the far right since the 2017 presidential election, with the aim of destroying the opposition, Emmanuel Macron has legitimised the RN as a credible adversary and paved the way for their reign. Here is an observation that reminds us of an essential and reassuring fact: The political word still carries weight. It drives the dynamics of a society, ensures its cohesion and sets its frameworks. It chooses to include and protect, or to reject and divide. Perhaps it’s time to quote the Italian political thinker Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, the new world is slow to appear, and in this chiaroscuro emerge monsters”. | 
