You are absolutely right. Today, we see that almost the entire French political class is opposed to the EU-Mercosur treaty project, as are President Macron and the Barnier government.
This is due on the one hand to the specific nature of this treaty, whose announced disadvantages (competition for French agriculture) are perceived as much greater than the anticipated benefits (new markets for our industries and services).
But more broadly, the opinion of the political class has evolved enormously in recent years on these subjects. When I started working on free trade treaties in 2014, the opposition was limited to the radical left, environmentalists and the far right. The right, centrists and socialists were generally in favor of these agreements, with varying nuances.
But the return in recent years of themes of sovereignty and protectionism, combined with greater attention to the harmful effects of free trade on relocations and inequalities, have shattered this quasi-consensus.
