The wait was long for left-wing activists and sympathizers, but this Thursday, June 13, after four days of negotiations, the main left-wing parties formalized their electoral and political agreement in view of the early legislative elections. The news broke around 8 p.m., after a day of intense negotiations, threatened several times with collapse in the face of everyone’s demands, but also by disagreements on the merits. “With a government program and unique candidacies in the constituencies of France, the political forces which constituted the new Popular Front are meeting the French on June 30 and July 7,” write the PS, the PCF , Ecologists and LFI in a joint press release.
At the end of the afternoon, the tension was palpable on rue des Petits-Hôtels in 10e district of Paris, in front of the headquarters of the ecologists, the place chosen for the negotiations. Activists from a movement fighting anti-Semitism, denouncing the ambiguities of LFI on Israel, and members of the CGT, faced each other. Dozens of police officers had to form a security cordon around the Green headquarters.
“As long as it’s not signed…”
“It’s a matter of hours.” This Thursday morning, this phrase recurred repeatedly in the mouths of various left-wing leaders, confident of seeing an agreement quickly reached for the constitution of this new “popular front”. “I don’t see how we could not make an agreement with the RN at the gates of power,” an environmentalist parliamentarian slipped to Public Senate, rather calmly, after a final night of discussions between the negotiators of La France insoumise, of the Parti socialist, Place-Publique, ecologists and the Communist Party.
At this stage, according to our information, two points still remained to be addressed: the allocation of some disputed constituencies and the clarification of around “ten” programmatic principles, including a paragraph devoted to the fight against anti-Semitism, calling Hamas a “terrorist movement”. A subject on which the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes) fractured eight months earlier.
But in this kind of talks, where a little thing is enough to set the atmosphere ablaze, it is never a good idea to sell the bear’s skin before having killed it. “As long as it is not signed…”, warned on our antenna, at the start of the morning, the environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot.
24 hours earlier, a first agreement in principle on the “breakdown” of the contingent of constituencies between the different forces was agreed, with a rebalancing compared to the legislative elections of 2022, taking into account the result of the European elections which saw the PS- list Place Publique arrive in front of the other left-wing formations. Most of the 577 constituencies put into play on June 30 and July 7 were therefore distributed as follows: 230 constituencies for LFI, which remains in the ultra-majority in the National Assembly, 175 for the socialists, 92 for the ecologists and 50 for the communists. It remained to select the applications, with one principle: do not touch those leaving.
The breaking point
This Thursday, shortly before noon, it was a socialist parliamentarian we met on the main staircase of the Senate who told us the news: “The negotiations are suspended! “. In the final stretch, the discussions ended up becoming tense. Both around the program, in particular international issues: on the wording used to qualify Hamas, the degree of support for Ukraine and the European project, we are told. But even more on the electoral dimension of the agreement, and the fate reserved for the constituencies which did not fall into the hands of Nupes in 2022, but considered “winnable” two years later.
Contacted by Public Senate, a socialist senator, close to the leadership of the PS, tempered: “Since Monday morning, there have been regular times when negotiations are suspended to allow everyone to take stock on their own. We are indeed in a very tense moment in the negotiations. But nothing surprising in such complex discussions…” More concretely, a socialist senator chokes on the phone: “The demands of LFI and the ecologists on winnable constituencies are simply surreal! We are irrational! »
On Sunday evening, during the European election, the left came first in 256 constituencies, including 151 which already have an outgoing left-wing MP at their head. There therefore remain 105 potentially “winnable” constituencies to be allocated. Using what method? This is where the problem lies.
Hegemony on the left
The socialists want the choice of candidate to be made according to the party that came first in the European elections in the constituency concerned. Opposite, LFI and the ecologists are demanding that the balances of the presidential election and the last legislative elections be taken into account. Because behind the methodological questions, there is also an issue of political leadership, the Socialist Party now being likely to compete with La France insoumise in terms of the number of elected officials.
On the side of the pink party, we believe that the efforts made so far “are already very profitable for LFI”. Some socialists notably demanded the ousting of a handful of rebellious deputies, including almost all of the Parisian elected officials, that of Ersilia Soudais (7th constituency of Seine-et-Marne) accused of anti-Semitism for polemical comments on the Hamas-Israel conflict, Carlos Martens Bilongo (8th district of Val-d’Oise) targeted by an investigation in particular for “laundering tax fraud”, or even Adrien Quatennens (1st district of the North), convicted of domestic violence .
The socialists ended up putting their handkerchief to these demands, we are told, “notably because certain rebels are almost guaranteed to be re-elected on their name alone if they choose to dissent”, deciphers a former minister. “We are not asking for hegemony, simply to be at our right level,” storms the PS senator questioned above. One of her colleagues agrees: “It’s not boutique shopping. It’s about obtaining the maximum number of seats for the coalition if we want to have a chance of preventing an RN majority. Agreeing on which rounds are winnable, and by whom, is a crucial subject. There are territories where only a socialist can win, others where it can only be an environmentalist. The problem is that, on the non-exiting circuits, it is rarely a rebel, because they have already been full or almost full in 2022…”
Home stretch ?
At midday, a race against time begins. Candidates have until Sunday June 16, 6 p.m., to register at the prefecture. However, some of the electoral material, particularly professions of faith, must go to the printer as quickly as possible to be delivered on time. ” In the evening ! », we assure the PS. “We are asking our federations to prepare to submit 577 applications if there is no agreement! All options are on the table,” threatens an elected official from Hauts-de-France.
“We must not forget that in this type of negotiation, there is always an element of theater and staging. It’s a way of raising the stakes,” deciphers, with a smile on his lips, a heavyweight of the Parisian left. On the programmatic agreement, “we will find a formula on which to land”, guarantees a socialist elected official, “but LFI made us waste a lot of time with that…”.
In front of the environmentalists’ headquarters in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the location of the talks, party leaders joined the negotiators. The speeches took place throughout the afternoon in front of an audience of journalists. “This morning I was very, very worried. As I speak to you, I am much more optimistic, and we should normally be able to keep the commitment we made at the start of the week. But as long as this is not done there will always be a risk…”, indicates Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the PCF. An hour later, it was Olivier Faure, the First Secretary of the PS, who assured that “things are progressing very well”.
“Unite, don’t betray us!” », chant in chorus a handful of activists gathered under the windows of the synod. Around 4:40 p.m., a door opens and Marine Tondelier, national secretary of environmentalists, appears. False alarm: “In fact, I’m coming to get some fresh air…” We had to wait almost 4 more hours before the white smoke rose: “The New Popular Front is born,” greeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon , the founder of LFI. The program will be presented by the leaders of the four main parties on Friday June 14, late in the afternoon.
