ALEX LANTIER—The unanimous turn against Mélenchon in the French media, many parts of which once styled themselves as socialists, is a warning. The layers of the affluent middle class drawn from the post-1968 student movement that dominated what passed for “left” politics have shifted far to the right and cast their lot in with the police state. The struggle to defend democratic rights requires above all the struggle for the political independence of the working class from other class forces.