After the defeat of Kamala Harris in the American presidential election, the French left is examining its conscience to avoid suffering the same fate in 2027.
But this turns to the settling of scores and trials in “softness” or lack of radicality.
If Emmanuel Macron took note of it and the far right rejoiced, Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election has unexpected consequences on the French left. Since this Wednesday, November 6 in the morning, after the victory of the Republican candidate was made official, the allies of the New Popular Front have drawn conclusions from the defeat of Kamala Harris while settling their scores, some accusing the others of lacking radicalism or of not having the correct reading of the failure of the Democrat.
Those who sow trouble are the Insoumis. According to them, if Kamala Harris failed to get elected to the White House, it is because she chose to pursue “Joe Biden’s neoliberal policies”because she was missing “a large-scale plan against the climate change “ or because she refused “to defend peace and international law, and in particular to denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza”. Also, “the political lessons of this election are clear. Without a disruptive project incorporating the massive aspirations for social and fiscal justice, the fight against racism, the relocation of jobs, particularly industrial ones, the left cannot beat the far right” , write the LFI deputies in a press release.
“The USA could not choose the left: there was none. When there is no longer a left, there is no limit to the right. (…) France can open another path. A counter-model. Non-alignment, international law, social justice, ecological planning”also believes Jean-Luc Mélenchon on X.
But their former ally François Ruffin has another interpretation of the Democrat's defeat. According to him, if Kamala Harris lost, it is because she abandoned economic issues and abandoned the working classes. “When the left abandons the workers, we should not be surprised that the workers abandon the left”said the Somme MP this Thursday morning on RTL.
“How can you be so off base?”
But those who did not have the rebellious reading of Kamala Harris' defeat saw themselves sometimes frankly challenged. Also, when the European deputy at the head of Place publique, Raphaël Glucksmann, reacted on X to Trump's victory by estimating that his election “is one of those tipping points that shape history. We are now, in Europe, alone facing our destiny”LFI deputy Antoine Léaument replied: “How can you be so off the mark not to see that it is the political line that you support in Europe and in France that led, in the USA, to the defeat of Trump? It really amazes me such a lack of political sense.”
According to this same LFI deputy, it is also the lack of radicalism of this social democratic left which is a problem. “Trump made Trump and Kamala Harris made Hollande. (…) There is also a concern in France that some want to follow this path on the left, a soft, flexible path, which in the end brings the extreme right to the We cannot tolerate this in France, so we will have to wake up. he commented on LCP. The former socialist president responded to him. “It's not because Kamala Harris wasn't left-wing enough that she lost. It's because there is a trend in the United States – and not just in the United States – for nationalist, protectionist theses”he assured.
The reaction of the Insoumis to the election of Trump is to hit the rest of the left and the environmentalists! Distressing! Pathetic
Yannick Jadot
So rightly, ecologists and socialists felt targeted and responded, sometimes angrily. The message from environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot did not go unnoticed. “The reaction of the Insoumis to the election of Trump is to hit the rest of the left and the environmentalists! Distressing! Pathetic”he wrote on X. “That they wish the worst for the United States is not surprising! That they wish the worst for the left and France by claiming to replace the far-right Caesarism with another Caesarism is suicidal!”, “The Insoumis since this morning explain that weak centrism without conviction, without project and contemptuously, it scares away voters Yannick Jadot visibly you feel targeted. Explain to us why. continued provocatively the elected representative of Bouches-du-Rhône Sébastien Delogu (LFI).
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The boss of the socialists Olivier Faure felt that the moment was “reaction”, “the affirmation of a project for France and the European Union” and not “moral lessons”. “Faced with the shift in the international order, the European left must claim its own path. Internationalist, humanist, democratic, environmentalist. There is only inevitability in resignation.”
