Two months to the day after the legislative elections that it believes it has won, France Insoumise is organizing its response in the streets and calling for demonstrations in dozens of cities against Emmanuel Macron’s “coup de force”.
The desire for revenge was increased tenfold by the appointment of Michel Barnier to Matignon on Thursday. A right-wing Prime Minister, proof that “the election was stolen” for the rebellious patriarch Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who urged his troops to “the most powerful mobilization possible.”
The initiative launched at the end of August by two student and high school unions was immediately taken up by LFI, which made it the central element of its new triptych: “censorship, mobilization, dismissal”.
While waiting for the Assembly to reopen, in an attempt to bring down the government and the head of state, the first round is therefore being played out in the streets. The organizers have announced “150 mobilization points across France”, starting with Paris where the meeting point is set for 2:00 p.m. at Place de la Bastille. The leader of the Communist Party Fabien Roussel will also be there, while the leader of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier will march in Lille.
But apart from the leaders and activists, how many will there be? Before Michel Barnier’s appointment, the authorities were expecting a low turnout, around 15,000 people in total, including 2,000 in the capital. A figure that has since been revised upwards, with now more than 30,000 demonstrators, including 4 to 8,000 people expected in the capital, according to police sources.
– Rallying opinion –
“The mobilization tends to strengthen further with strong activity on social networks and all media supports,” underlined one of these sources.
It should be noted, however, that the start of the university year is “still a long way off” and that “the major trade unions have not taken up the call for demonstrations, concentrating on later dates.”
The CGT quickly distanced itself and set its own date for the social return to work, October 1. “A union is not a political party,” justified its number one Sophie Binet, while hoping “that the day (September 7) will be a success.”
Another notable absence is that the Socialist Party did not relay the call to demonstrate, even though some of its local federations will participate. The New Popular Front, which claims victory in the legislative elections with its 193 deputies, will therefore not be at full strength to protest against the “denial of democracy” that it nevertheless denounces in unison.
A difficulty in acting in concert already illustrated by the request for the dismissal of the President of the Republic: the resolution proposal, tabled by the Insoumis deputies at the beginning of the week, was indeed initialled by the 72 members of the LFI group, but only six ecologist elected representatives and three overseas representatives joined it.
To break this isolation, the radical left party is trying by all means to rally public opinion to its cause. In addition to Saturday’s demonstrations, a petition to support the impeachment procedure of Emmanuel Macron has collected nearly 260,000 signatures in one week.
gbh/sl/tmt
