Up until the European elections on June 9, I said: No to the National Rally and to the New Popular Front, these twin parties, one supposedly of the left and the other supposedly of the right, both equally Putinian, and equally destructive to our common European home.

Up until this past Sunday, July 7, the day of the second round of France’s legislative election, I stuck with my position of equivalence: Neither Bardella nor Mélenchon, neither of their absurd, demagogic, disastrous programs, both of which would scuttle republican principles, should be countenanced.

Now, the National Rally is, if not defeated, then at least contained.

The French—through one of their reflexes of political wisdom that comes to them at history’s critical hours and who I won’t insult by qualifying them as conservative—said no to the more or less human face of Le Pen-ism.

It’s now the other faction, Mélenchon’s, which is at the gates of power.

And that faction is, for now, the one that incarnates the main threat to the Republic, democracy, and France, and which must be opposed with full force.

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The first task, in the coming days and weeks, perhaps months, will be to pursue the battle of ideas.

My readers know how many articles I’ve dedicated, in the last 10 years, to this Tartarin, this Tartuffe, this Marxist-Leninist buffoon, who is, first, hungry for power, showing the same relationship to the “International” as a frog does to his pond.

And I’ve shown, in Solitude d’Israël (forthcoming in English as Israel Alone), the slow decline and then, since Oct. 7, the shocking acceleration that has made of his party a truly antisemitic party, a carrier of the ideological virus of antisemitism on the French left.

But that is visibly not enough.

We must show, and show again, that the man who presented himself, on the night of his victory, next to furious antisemitic Palestinian Rima Hassan, who flaunts her public ties to the ugly regime of the Syrian butcher Bashar Assad, is no Leon Blum and even less so is he François Mitterrand, who despised him—as I can personally attest. Rather, what Mélenchon represents is the return of Jacques Doriot, the communist leader who in 1940 became a collaborationist.

We must hammer home how the furious, infected people around him, who never cease to proclaim their sympathy for the worst Palestinian terrorists and their sovereign contempt for the Jews of France, think like Édouard Drumont, talk like Édouard Drumont—and that thinking and speaking like Drumont is, in France, not an opinion but an actual offense, a crime.

The second task is incumbent upon Mélenchon’s allies.

Think of the Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure who pawned himself and the legacy of Leon Blum through his sordid deal with Mélenchon—just like the right-winger Eric Ciotti who went to Le Pen, and sold off, to save his skin and his seat, the heritage of General de Gaulle.

Think of the center-of-the-road European Parliament member Raphaël Glucksmann, a political up-and-comer who let himself get stripped of his magnificent EU victory by a Raminagrobis who believed himself to be a new Robespierre and let his dogs cover him in insults.

A special place in the roll of dishonor is reserved for former President François Hollande who knew better than anyone how Mélenchon is the most cunning, the most devious, the most cynical, the most technical of the demagogues—and then, at 8:05 p.m., let this nasty pro-Chavez moron complete his hostile takeover of the French left.

The ecologists who, with their 33 elected members, will not make a bad showing in the new Assembly—why infect their noble cause with a demagogue’s hate?

And I’m not even mentioning the others like François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain, and Alexis Corbière who discovered, a little too late, the fox for whom they have been the crow.

All, once their astonishment subsides, must regain their fighting spirit and cast off their electoral pact, put together on the fly to create a “new” Popular Front, which was a profanation of the old one. It was a political mistake.

Now that their mistake has been made, there would be some saving integrity in saying that an alliance of convenience is not and should not be a death pact—and now that the danger on the right has passed, it is necessary to confront the danger on the left.

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The third task falls to President Macron, who despite what’s being said has come out rather well in this election. Macron must not cave in to intimidation and bluffing.

No, he is not “obliged” to choose his prime minister from the rancid pool of Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party.

France Unbowed, with its 75 deputies, is neither the largest French party nor the only component of the New Popular Front, which is itself quite far from having full legitimacy to govern.

Mélenchon and his minions can say what they like, and try to take control of the moment.

They can believe—as they no doubt do—that the real doesn’t exist, and is only a substance to be manipulated.

The president, guarantor of the institutions, has the duty to keep this collection of factious, hateful, resentful antisemites away from power, and to keep them from spreading the “sad passions” that they carry into the body of the state.

Thus, and only thus, can the motor of chaos, driven by the opposing antisemitic magnets of the left and the right, be broken.

The French people wish to save themselves, not to explode the state and its protections.

Now is the time for our masters of the art of politics to use their talents to preserve our hopes for a fair and effective state that protects the equality of every citizen against those who are driven by impassioned hatreds.

The moment of truth has arrived. French republicans and democrats are now being called to rise to the occasion.