THIEVES’ argot for a safecracker is “a Peterman.” The word’s origins are contested: one version has it that the term derives from Scotland’s Peterhead prison from which the notorious safecracker Johnny Ramensky, alias Johnny Ramsey, escaped five times.

Another has its origins in the term saltpetre (potassium nitrate), the key ingredient in gunpowder. A more likely origin is in the French verb “peter” — to blow up, or more crudely, to fart.

President Emmanuel Macron is today a Peterman par excellence. His reckless decision to call a general election in the impossibly short time of two weeks leaves just a few days before the French people get to pass judgment on their political class.

And the French bourgeoisie, frightened by a left-wing challenge, are divided over which right-wing formation will serve their narrow class interests best, with tycoon Vincent Bollore reputedly driving moves to unite the right.

Corriere della Sera in Italy reported on his role in talks between the French right aimed at playing again an Italian-style right-wing coalition of conventional bourgeois, “identitarian and far-right factions.”

Macron’s miscalculation arises from the failure of his cobbled-together political vehicle to outpoll Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), previously called the National Front, in the elections to the European parliament.

His calculation — that with the left-wing parties failing to present a united list of candidates in the EU elections and divided on policy and personalities — he could play again on the broad opposition to RN to create a temporary consensus around his own bloc, which can perhaps be described as an alliance of neoliberals posing as centrists.

He calculated that the two-stage electoral process — the French traditionally vote with their hearts in the first round for the party closest to their politics and in the second to defeat the party they most oppose — that the supporters of the various left-wing formations, Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed, the French Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the Greens would scatter their votes and fail to enter the second round.

The first impediment to this strategy was the swift renewal by the left of its alliance from the last parliamentary election now rebadged as the New Popular Front (NPF).

A first minor explosion had little effect when Raphael Glucksmann, who heads what remains of the Socialist Party, tried to impose five conditions on the NPF, only to be ignored by most people in his own outfit while temporarily sidelining himself.

His opposition to Melenchon has been enabled somewhat by the France Unbowed leader’s own maladroit mini-purge in a manner that alienates, as usual, his potential coalition partners and especially women on the left upset by his patronage of a wife-beating party consigliere and, not incidentally, by the former Trotskyist’s characteristic arrogance.

Rival in the hauteur stakes is Francoise Hollande, who, following Glucksmann, attacked Melenchon, who has now been compelled to step back a bit.

This was followed by really a big bang when what remains of the Republicans — the traditional Gaullist party of the French right that found itself a junior partner to Macron last time round — blew apart.

Eric Ciotti, the president of the Republicans, unilaterally announced an electoral alliance with Le Pen. The first effect of this was to strengthen the potential of RN as an election winner — something the Republicans’ leadership in general fear will see them disappear as a credible national party of government, and which throws a spanner into Macron’s strategy.

Ciotti’s bizarre reaction to the dissent expressed by his fellow party leaders, who promptly sacked him, was to lock down the party head office and take to social media — he had control of the X account — proclaiming that he was in control and that his sacking was out with the rules of the party.

The Republicans porte-parole, or press spokesman, Guilhem Carayon came out with the claim that “with Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella [RN’s 28-year-old frontman] we share 90-95 per cent of the same ideas.” True enough, but not arithmetically or politically consistent with the Macron strategy, which was further destabilised when the courts gave the leadership of the party back to Ciotti.

This one is still playing out but it is certain that the Republicans no longer exist as a coherent national force and have divided against each other in many constituencies.

Meanwhile, Eric Zemmour’s party Reconquest blew apart. This spectacularly reactionary outfit was founded by Zemmour in 2021, originally on a wave of speculation that Zemmour, a right-wing journalist and advocate of “traditional values,” might become the presidential candidate of the Republicans.

Instead, he formed Reconquest, rapidly enrolled a claimed 100,000 members, took in hand the weird Generation Z youth movement and attracted a handful of sitting deputies and MEPs.

In this new situation, Reconquest unravelled and, in what seemed an age away, Marion Marechal — granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the ancient and unashamedly fascist founder of the National Front — had broken with her family and lined up with Zemmour.

Euro MP Marechal had been charged with negotiating with RN but, without consulting Zemmour, she appeared on national television to announce an alliance with RN. In turn, Zemmour took to television to expel her and her followers from Reconquest, and although an uneasy peace has resumed, the spat has weakened Reconquest’s chances to lead in many constituencies.

The first reaction of the swiftly reuniting left was to join, at the initiative of the trade unions, rallies against the extreme right throughout the country. Left-wing newspaper l’Humanite reported 177 mobilisations in 95 of Frances’s 96 departments.

“What unites the inter-union [the alliance of the CGT, CFDT, UNSA, FSU and Solidaires] is the awareness that we will not beat the RN without responding to the social aspirations of the country. This is why we have put forward proposals in our platform, starting with the revaluation of salaries, pensions and social minimums, the repeal of the pension reform, the cancellation of that of the unemployment insurance and investments in public services,” said Sophie Binet of the CGT union.

On domestic questions, a broad agreement on policy is more or less settled although budget questions will be a divisive issue if an NPF prime minister emerges from the elections.

In this connection, Hollande, the president of France for the Socialist Party from 2012-17, has decided to run in his old Correze constituency, sparking speculation that he might put himself forward as a unifying candidate for prime minister.

The NPF has managed to agree on a common policy on international affairs that will not satisfy every element. Its compromise formula probably doesn’t go far enough to satisfy Glucksmann, who took an aggressively pro-Nato line during the European elections, tried to make this a precondition for unity and will return to this whether or not the left wins a majority.

Instead, the Socialist Party has to swallow the demand for a putative NPF government that is pledged to work “towards the resolution of the conflict, towards the ‘return of peace’.”

In the face of potential disharmony over the Gaza conflict, French Communist Party national secretary Fabien Roussel said: “Faced with the war escalation decided by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the ‘genocidal risk’ that this poses to the Gazan people,” he denounced the “culpable impotence” of Westerners, and particularly of France, and called for the release of the hostages and for France to demand an “immediate ceasefire” and a resolution of the conflict on the basis of “all UN resolutions on the subject.”

The latest opinion poll shows that RN could win between 235 to 265 seats in the National Assembly, a massive increase on its present 88, but less than the 289 needed for an absolute majority.

RN’s frontman Jordan Bardella has called for an absolute majority and made an astute call for a reduction in VAT to 5 per cent, something that might be difficult to implement within the EU but a working-class vote-winner nevertheless.

Macron’s formation could lose half its deputies, from 250 to possibly less than 155 while NPF parties lead in between 115 and 145 constituencies. Accurate predictions are made difficult by the extreme volatility of the electorate and by the unpredictable nature of the second round where voters from the bloc that fails to make the runoff behave in contradictory ways.

The present political crisis represents yet another disaggregation of the French Establishment that flows, as it does in so many capitalist countries, from the irreconcilable contradictions that neoliberalism imposes. The issue remains, in France as much as anywhere, whether the working class can impose its interests against those of capital, and what form that might take.

Nick Wright blogs at 21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com.