Posts Tagged ‘French Politics’
French Parliamentary Elections: Poll Gives Macron a Majority (310 – 350 seats), Left Alliance (135 – 165), Classic Right (50 -70), Marine Le Pen (20-40).


Poll says the Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale, NUPES, (La France insoumise, Parti Socialiste, Parti Communiste Français , EELV and allies) will not win the June Parliamentary elections but will be the leading opposition force in the French National Assembly.
Macron, heads a repackaged party, now called Renaissance (formerly La République en Marche) with his allies in the “Ensemble” bloc, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), which already belonged to the presidential majority during the first term, and Horizons, the political party created by former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe (not without tensions between Renaissance and the former Mayor of Le Havre).
The newly elected President has entered the fray with attacks on Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, prime target of Emmanuel Macron in the legislative battle Le Monde.
In a speech aimed at mobilising his troops on Tuesday, the head of state stepped up attacks against the leader of the new union of the left, who has become the number one opponent.
Macron attacked NUPES as
“an “extreme left” , which would be “united on one thing, degrowth” , “not even agree on nuclear power” (a reference to the PCF’s backing for nuclear energy and the other parties’ opposition to it) . And “who chose communitarianism rather than universalism” (meaning NUPES opposition to anti-Muslim prejudice).
The issue of Europe Union has been used by Parti Socialiste elderly figures such as José Bové, Jean-Paul Besset and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (all former French Green MEPS) to accuse NUPES of anti EU sovereigntism if not worse. In fact the coalition wants to alter existing treaties to change the EU ” from a “liberal and productivist” project to one instead “in the service of…ecology and solidarity”. It is interesting hat in echoing some of these attacks the President had said only a few days ago, he was ““favourable” to a “revision of the treaties” of the European Union.
In a not distant vein of appropriating NUPES themes, Macron now talks of ecological planning planification écologique) boosting pubic services such as education and health and of mesures to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Followers of the French media will have read an heard even more unbridled rants against NUPES from Marine Le Pen.
One of the Tendance’s favourite French authors disagrees: she welcomes the creation of NUPES as something we were waiting for.
Note: of interest to every serious Trainspotter, The Lambertists (historic Trotskyist group best known member the late ‘Pierre Lambert’ (real name Pierre Boussel; June 9, 1920 – January 16, 2008), through their own mini-front have signed up to NUPES. The POI have joined NUPES and will campaign for them. “En 2022, le POI Parti ouvrier indépendant (POI) rejoint, à l’occasion des élections législatives, la Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale pour laquelle il mène campagne sur son hebdomadaire Informations ouvrières” .
See above Informations ouvrières.
Their deadly rivals, POID Parti ouvrier indépendant et démocratique, (who split from POI in 2015) have not yet responded…….They have their own candidate in the Loriot: Le Parti ouvrier indépendant démocratique présente un candidat dans la cinquième (Pithiviers/Fleury)
Great hopes and expectations on the French Left for the Nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale (Nupes).

The launch of the Nupes, “Great hopes and expectations that haven’t been there for years”.
Gauches aux législatives
Au lancement de la Nupes, «c’est un immense espoir qui ne s’était pas produit depuis des années»
Libération.
“Saturday at Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), a strange thing played out before our eyes: heads that had been looking at each other out of the corner of their eyes for ages found themselves in the same room and under the same flag. The lefts have officially made a fuss. Sorry ! We no longer say the lefts but The new popular ecological and social union (La nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale, the Nupes) which uses a red, green, mauve and pink “V” sign which means “victory” but which is also the Greek letter “Nu”, evoking the beginning of the acronym and which can be made with one’s fingers. Result: the candidates for the legislative elections strolled through Aubervilliers making “V”s. “
The meeting was streamed live. Apart from speeches by the National Secretary of the Parti socialiste, Olivier Faure, the Communist leader Fabien Roussel and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (La France Insoumise, LFI), and the LFI chief negotiator of the new coalition, Manuel Bompard, there were contributions from rank and file supporters engaged in social and trade union campaigns:
Even just watching it on the direct broadcast the rally, the “convention nationale” was intensely moving.
Apart from a number of alliances involving the Communists supporting La France insoumise (they backed Mélenchon for President in 2017) one should note that this unifying initiative extending to the Socialists (PS), Julien Bayou (EELV), Audrey Pulvar (PS) et Clémentine Autain (LFI). In this departmental contest, in Saint Seine Denis (the district including , in 2021 there was this;
Julien Bayou (EELV), Audrey Pulvar (PS) and Clémentine Autain (LFI) have joined forces for the second round of the regional elections in Île-de-France within a Union of the Left list.
One should also note this:
Some people, outside France, (Jacobin’s resident Bordigist) have claimed that the support from the French Socialists (Parti Socialiste, PS) for this alliance signals have just now backtracked on their “neoliberalism” – perhaps not familiar with the country’s politics to know of the 2017 PS Presidential candidate, Benoît Hamon, who campaigned in that contest around these themes.
“Hamon wanted to give all French citizens a basic income, believing that the availability of work will decrease due to automation. He supported a 35-hour workweek, and less if a worker chooses in exchange for state compensation, and supports the legalisation of cannabis and euthanasia. He also argued for sizeable investments in renewable energy, aiming for renewable sources to provide 50% of French energy by 2025, and wants to protect the “common goods” (water, air, biodiversity) in the Constitution. Hamon was also very critical of the neoliberal “myth of infinite economic growth“, which he blames for “destroying the planet” and argues is a “quasi-religion” among politicians, saying:[30] “There is an urgency to change now our way to produce and consume. […] We can negotiate with bankers, but we can’t negotiate with the planet.
Hamon got 6,36% of the vote in the 2017 first round. He left the PS and created the eco-socialist movement, Génération·s . It is part of NUPES, although Hamon himself has largely retired from politics but he has welcomed the move to left unity, “Benoît Hamon salue le projet d’union des gauches.“
On feature which commentators have noted is the playing down, and near absence, of Mélenchon’s previous ‘left populist’ rhetoric about the ‘caste/elite/oligarchy’ and the need to “federate the people” against them…
This is a serious examination of the electoral and social basis of the new alliance: La possibilité d’une brèche. Stathis
Has this presidential election had opened a period of upheavals, a breach into which the forces of the left of the radical left may intervene.
For such a possibility to materialise, historical experience teaches us that two conditions must be met: a crisis within the dominant bloc, which releases forces hitherto stuck in the hegemonic system; the emergence of an alternative, that is, a force capable of contesting positions of power with the dominant bloc. These conditions immediately refer to a third: popular mobilisation, the only one capable of overcoming the reaction of the dominant classes to any challenge to their interests and capable of permanently reversing the balance of power.
Stathis, when talking of a Gauche de rupture, a serious break not just with existing state policies, but treaties and structires, does not take into account Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s announcement that while he is campaigning to be French Prime Minister he is not likely to put himself forward for election of the Assemblée Nationale. Many PMs (6 out of 25 in the 5th Republic – yes it sounds a lot to me as well….), he notes, have not been MPs but directly called by the President. Libération helpfully notes the LFI leader’s age, 70, and suggests that he is preparing the way for new figures from his Rally/Movement to take over the reins of responsibility. Pourquoi Jean-Luc Mélenchon ne se représente pas aux législatives.