Legislative in France | Demonstrations against the far right, tensions in the left-wing coalition

(Paris) “We love France, not R’Haine”: several hundred thousand opponents of the far right marched across France on Saturday, at the call of unions, associations and of the New Popular Front, the union of left-wing parties shaken by accusations of “purge” within LFI.

In the campaign after the “stunning” of the dissolution, Gabriel Attal, for his part, revealed the first measures of the majority’s program, in the event of victory. With a leitmotif: strengthening the purchasing power of middle-class French people.

Across the country, 640,000 people demonstrated, including 250,000 in Paris, according to the CGT union. The authorities, for their part, counted 250,000 people in France, including 75,000 people in the capital, 11,700 in Marseille, 6,800 in Bordeaux and 4,000 in Lille.

Figures far below the mobilization of 1^er May 2002, when more than a million people took to the streets to say “no” to the National Front after Jean-Marie Le Pen qualified for the second round of the presidential election.

“All children of immigrants”

Saturday, from Bayonne to Nice, from Vannes to Reims, the anti-RN mobilized against the prospect of a victory for the RN in the legislative elections with the hypothesis of an entry of its boss, Jordan Bardella, into Matignon .

The same slogans resounded in the processions: “Bardella get lost, the Republic is not yours”, “youth piss off the National Front”, “no neighborhood for fascists, no fascists in our neighborhoods”.

“We are all children of immigrants,” said Jean Cugier, a 43-year-old PE teacher in Marseille, who came to demonstrate against “the withdrawal into oneself that the far right is proposing.” “I am here to defend women’s rights, equality between peoples, ecology too,” noted Marie Chandel, 58, employed in National Education in Paris.

In Marseille, young people, families coming with their children and elderly people demonstrated in a festive atmosphere, some of them holding the French flag.

The demonstrations took place largely peacefully apart from a few brief episodes of tension.

Twenty people were arrested, including nine in Paris, according to police sources. Five members of the forces were slightly injured. Some damage took place in the capital, notably in two bank branches.

21,000 police officers and gendarmes had been deployed throughout the territory.

“Restore the flame”

Five unions CFDT, CGT, UNSA, FSU and Solidaires had called for mobilization.

The left-wing leaders marched in the lead in Paris. Without a word on the deep differences which are shaking the New Popular Front, after the decision of La France Insoumise not to reinvest several figures opposed to Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

” We are ready […] we will give you back the flame. And not that of the National Front, that one we are going to extinguish,” launched the boss of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier.

“There are differences between us, but when the essential is at stake, we have no right to do anything other than come together,” added the boss of the Socialists, Olivier Faure. Mathilde Panot, close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, assured: “we are in the process of writing history”.

In Amiens, the rebellious François Ruffin still urged “not to return to resentment”. “Jean-Luc Mélenchon is fabulous when he withdraws,” he tackled.

Discontent within LFI broke out on Friday evening.

A close friend of the rebellious leader, Adrien Quatennens, convicted of domestic violence, was reinvested. On the other hand, Danielle Simonnet, Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière – historical figures of the movement opposed to the Mélenchonist line – were brutally dismissed, replaced by candidates unknown to the general public.

“A purge”, denounced the first, the second accusing Jean-Luc Mélenchon of “settling his scores”.

“Investigations for life do not exist” within our movement, scathed the tribune in 20 Minutes, also calling into question their “loyalty”.

In the meantime, Olivier Faure assured that he wanted to “settle the scandalous eviction” of these deputies, without further details.

Another potential subject of discord within the New Popular Front, the former socialist president François Hollande, favorable to the union of the left against the extreme right, announced his candidacy for the legislative elections in Corrèze.

Polls: the RN in the lead

The majority continues to occupy the land. Its leader, Gabriel Attal, unveiled in the regional press a series of measures to strengthen purchasing power.

He confirmed, in the event of victory, a reduction in electricity bills of 15% “from next winter”, promised the establishment of complementary “public” health insurance at 1 euro per day for those who are not not covered.

The head of government also proposes to increase the amount of the so-called “Macron” bonus, paid by companies to their employees up to 10,000 euros, instead of the current 6,000, “without charge or tax”.

On 8 p.m. on France 2, he castigated the “unrealistic and unrealizable” projects of the National Rally and the New Popular Front which would lead the country to “economic ruin”.

On the right, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy criticized Eric Ciotti’s decision to join the RN because it carries the risk, in his eyes, that the contested boss of LR becomes a “supplementary” of the far-right party. He also highlighted the lack of experience of Jordan Bardella, 28, to be prime minister.

While the Euro football tournament started in Germany, the striker of the French team Marcus Thuram called for “fighting so that the RN does not pass”, a rare position for a high-level athlete.

The French Football Federation (FFF) for its part asked to “avoid any form of pressure and political use of the French team” and hoped “that its neutrality be understood and respected by all”.