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France’s Socialist Party has sealed a deal to join the first major leftist coalition in years. The pact, led by La Francia Insumisa, of former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was also joined on May 2 by Europa Ecología Los Verdes. After years of divisions, the left is joining forces to try to snatch the parliamentary majority held by Renaissance, the new name of the party of recently re-elected President Emmanuel Macron.
The first pact of a left coalition in 20 years tries to limit the political space of President Emmanuel Macron in the Legislative.
The parties of that political wing, divided for a long time in France, will present themselves in a unified list to the legislative elections on June 12 and 19, after the Socialist Party agreed to join La France Insumisa (LFI) and Europa Ecology The Greens (EELV).
“With the New Popular Union we can win the legislative elections and change people’s lives!” assured the legislator of La Francia Insumisa, Manuel Bompard, referring to the name given to the alliance.
🇫🇷🗳️ #France‘s Socialist Party agreed to join the French left’s first broad coalition pact in 20 years, hoping to deprive #Macron of a majority in June’s parliamentary elections.
FRANCE 24’s French Politics Editor @mperelman gives his analysis ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/gef6nuoTjx
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) May 6, 2022
By agreeing not to field opposing candidates in all 577 constituencies, the coalition of left-wing parties is attempting to set aside long-standing political and personal differences.
The formation is headed by the leader of the extreme left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who after being the third most voted candidate in the first round of presidential elections on April 10, promoted a path to challenge Macron in the Legislative, something what is referred to as “the third round.”
Mélenchon, a eurosceptic leader, thus directs the formation to achieve his declared objective of becoming prime minister and deprive the ruling party of the parliamentary majority that the president has had in his first period of government.
“We are going to campaign together,” Socialist leader Olivier Faure emphasized when he announced that the party’s national committee had decided to join the coalition.
The challenges that the leftist coalition will have to face
The alliance is not without risks. Mélenchon remains a divisive figure among left-wing voters. The Socialist Party, in particular, has been plagued by disputes over whether or not they should support it.
Even Stanislas Guerini, general delegate of the ruling movement, urged Socialists disappointed by his party’s treatment of the extreme left to join them.
“When I see the Socialist Party abandoning its (pro-European) beliefs for a few constituencies, I say to the Social Democrats: join us!” he said.
Divisive but charismatic, French hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has gone from angrily quitting France’s Socialist Party to standing at the head of a rare alliance of the historically fragmented left. https://t.co/WlNYE8tFEp
— The Local France (@TheLocalFrance) May 6, 2022
The nascent coalition would need to win a majority of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament.
In the current composition of the Legislative, the ruling party and its political allies have more than 300 seats, which makes it the favorite to win the majority again. The support is expected to continue, after Macron was re-elected on April 24, for another five years in the Elysee Palace.
The new alliance seeks to counteract the power of maneuver that the president, considered center-right, would have to approve the proposals of his government program. Among them, the controversial project to increase the retirement age from 62 to 65 years.
In the agreement, published on May 2 between the Greens and LFI, the benches assured that among the objectives set to take to Parliament is to reduce the retirement age to 60 years, increase the minimum wage and limit the prices of essential products. .
Macron’s party changes its name and forms alliances
The ruling party is not far behind and is preparing with a change of brand and the formation of alliances with other moderate parties before the elections.
On Thursday, May 5, the official La República en Marcha announced that it will be renamed Renaissance, in an attempt to reinvent itself and “continue to exist” as a formation “popular and open to citizens,” Guerini stressed.
Emmanuel Macron’s movement joins two other parties in the presidential majority under the common label, Together, which includes the centrist Democratic Movement (MoDem) and the conservative Horizons, the latter created by former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.
“We have the ambition to give the president and the future government a stable, solid, dynamic, living majority, to ensure that the five-year period that is beginning is successful,” said the former head of government.
Initial poll projections indicate that Macron’s party is on track to win the election. But the polls were conducted before the leftist alliance was confirmed and before each caucus chose individual candidates.
In recent French legislative votes, the president’s party has always won a majority in Parliament.
If the outcome were to turn out differently this time around, Macron would have no choice but to appoint a prime minister from another political party, ushering in what is traditionally seen as a tense period of “cohabitation” during which they could see each other. presidential powers restricted.
With Reuters, AP and EFE
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