The two main components of the New Popular Front, which clash over negotiations around the Prime Minister, accuse each other of undermining the alliance. Within the movement, the attitude of the rebels is increasingly irritating.
Published on 11/12/2024 16:42
Reading time: 3min
Will the New Popular Front definitely fracture? In recent days, spats have multiplied between LFI and the socialists, against the backdrop of negotiations around the new Prime Minister. Jean-Luc Mélenchon accuses Olivier Faure, the boss of the PS, of destroying the NFP by having participated in discussions at the Élysée. On Wednesday, December 11, the socialist responded by accusing the rebel of weakening the collective. Tensions between rebels and PS reached peaks.
“We are reaching unprecedented levels, it’s desperate,” alarms an environmentalist executive. The NFP boat is taking on water, under the helpless eye of the other parties of the left alliance. “Stop the fire”asks a communist senator. But for the rebellious Paul Vannier, those responsible for the crisis are at the PS. The MP believes he knows what pushes Olivier Faure to go into a standoff with LFI. “Probably because there is a PS congress and unfortunately, the socialists are still caught up in these strictly internal issues, he analyzes. Olivier Faure is struggling to maintain his position and finds himself in a sort of verbal one-upmanship. I believe that it is not understood by the French.”
Paul Vannier minimizes tensions with the PS, but warns his partner and rival. “Each time, the socialists wanted to distance themselves, take a step aside, put themselves on the edge of the alliance, continues the rebel. I hope that our partners will return to some form of reason and will be faithful to the commitment they made to the voters.”
The prospect of a new dissolution next summer thus seems to be the only thing which now prevents the NFP from exploding. Each camp knows what it has to lose if the left enters new legislative elections divided. “Honesty obliges me to tell you that it necessarily matters, admits a PS deputy. Everyone is shaking.” No one wants to take responsibility for the rupture, after having been elected on a common program. But within the NFP, the attitude of the rebels is increasingly irritating.
“LFI is painful and everyone is fed up.”
a close friend of the head of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelierat franceinfo
On Tuesday, the NFP appeared publicly divided, all the parties of the New Popular Front went to the Élysée, except the rebels. “LFI puts itself in a strategic corner to provoke a lasting crisis”, annoys a PS deputy. The rebels do not hide it, their goal is for Emmanuel Macron to leave before the end of his mandate. A Communist Party executive believes that LFI is in fact looking for a pretext to break away, with the ultimate objective of a single candidacy from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But “the future of the left cannot be summed up in the future of Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, sweeps away a socialist senator.
