The left-wing parties began negotiations on Monday to find a union for the early legislative elections on June 30, while Raphaël Glucksmann proposed former trade unionist Laurent Berger as Prime Minister in the event of victory.
Building on his 13.8% obtained on Sunday in the European elections under the banner of the PS, Raphaël Glucksmann set out this Monday, June 10, his “conditions” for a possible alliance with the rest of the left for the creation of a “popular front” , the day after the dissolution of the National Assembly decided after the triumph of the RN in the European elections.
On France 2, the MEP ruled out becoming head of government himself. “It will clearly not be Jean-Luc Mélenchon” either, he added, proposing the former general secretary of the CFDT Laurent Berger to this post in the event of a victory for the left on June 30 and July 7.
Hailing “a figure of civil society capable of appeasement”, he described him as “the antithesis of the current president” who “will reconcile the French”. The ex-unionist, a strong man in the fight against pension reform, has so far declined all political proposals.
“As the head of the list who was clearly in the lead on the left”, Raphaël Glucksmann also called for “a clear course: we are not going to remake the Nupes“, he affirmed, while La France insoumise intends to start again on the basis of this alliance of the main left-wing parties which had made it possible in June 2022 to bring 151 deputies to the National Assembly.
The left and its problem called “Jean-Luc Mélenchon”
But the conflict broke down after several disputes, the last of which after October 7 and the refusal of LFI to qualify Hamas as a “terrorist” movement. The union on the left must take into account the “reversal of the balance of power” resulting from the European vote, insisted the essayist, who outlined several “conditions” for an agreement, such as “unwavering support for European construction” , “to the Ukrainian resistance” and “a rejection of the ‘brutalization’ of political life”, subjects known to be tense for LFI, with which it does not hide its deep differences.
“These conditions must be met, I will not change them,” he insisted.
Separate parties for the European election, the PS, the Ecologists, the PCF and LFI met at the end of the afternoon at the headquarters of the Greens to try to find an agreement despite a particularly violent campaign, and while the personality and the The remarks of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accused in particular of ambiguity on the question of anti-Semitism, are extremely divisive on the left.
The First Secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, warned Monday morning that he would “not align with Jean-Luc Mélenchon” as in 2022. The leader of the socialists, however, called for “the constitution of a popular front against the extreme right”, taking up a proposal from the Insoumis François Ruffin.
Having collected 9.89% of the vote on Sunday, a far cry from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s 21.95% in the presidential election two years ago, the Insoumis do not intend to line up behind any line other than the them and the Nupes program.
Among the Ecologists, in disarray for having obtained 5.5% of the votes on Sunday in the European elections, the boss Marine Tondelier estimated that there was “a need to rekindle a flame of hope for voters on the left”.
“Absolute shame”
The number one communist, Fabien Roussel, indicated at the start of the evening that the negotiations were progressing but that Raphaël Glucksmann “was speaking in his own name” regarding Laurent Berger.
Before Raphaël Glucksmann’s intervention, the coordinator of the rebels, Manuel Bompard, had affirmed that “our responsibility is to find the path to union”, calling on his partners to “take into account the force which has materialized” in European countries, particularly in cities and working-class neighborhoods.
Olivier Faure, for his part, intends to associate civil society and unions with this “front”, to “do something new” and “not a reissue” of Nupes. A handful of students from the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) demonstrated in front of the headquarters with signs: “we cannot save the Republic with anti-Semites”.
Earlier, Crif president Yonathan Arfi had judged on X that considering an alliance with LFI was “an absolute shame”.
The deputy François Ruffin, who maintains differences with the LFI leadership, at the initiative of a ‘popular front’, launched a website of the same name to collect the signatures of supporters of a union of the left. Several elected officials from the former Nupes have already signed.
