Whoever wins the French presidential election is determined to remove them and limit their powers.
Even before the result was announced tomorrow, the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who emerged as the surprise king, called on voters to make him prime minister in the June legislative elections.
Melenchon, an ardent opponent of both Emmanuel Macron and Marin Le Pen, has vowed that if he succeeds, he will force anyone who wins the keys to the Elysee Court tomorrow into an awkward parliamentary “coexistence” that will thwart their reform efforts. , which the left opposes.
The 70-year-old leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), who has vowed to step down after his third presidential bid, said that if his party won a majority in the National Assembly, it would make the election a “third round”. It would also resolve the dilemma for those voters – especially the left – who felt politically orphaned by the outcome of the first round two weeks ago. Many of the 7.7 million people who voted for Melenchon said they would abstain tomorrow.
Last week, as Macron, 44, and Le Pen, 53, crossed France, trying to attract nearly 50 percent of the electorate who did not vote for either, the LFI was engaged in frantic talks with environmentalists and communists to form a single bloc. opposing the ultimate winner. Polls released on Friday show Macron is still the frontrunner, but the legitimacy of his second term will be called into question if he does not secure a landslide victory.
The legislative vote is traditionally conducted along party lines, but Melenchon is determined to do so in person. “I ask the French to elect me prime minister. I ask them to elect a majority of the deputies from La France Insoumise. And I call on all those who want to join the People’s Union [of the left] to join us in this beautiful battle. “
He reminded voters that the prime minister, not the president, had signed government decrees. “I would be prime minister not by the grace and favor of Macron or Mrs Le Pen, but because the French wanted him,” he said, adding that this would make the president “secondary”. He ruled out any talks with the new president.
“If it doesn’t suit the president, they can go because I won’t,” he told BFMTV.
Melenchon’s ambitions were heightened after he garnered just 421,308 votes behind Le Pen in the first round on April 10, which saw the collapse of traditional left and right parties. The other three left-wing candidates – the Environmental Party, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party (PS) – garnered just over 3 million votes in total. That would give him a place in the second round if they supported his campaign.
The result angered many Melenchon supporters, especially young people and those in working-class areas, leading to protests at universities in Paris, including the Sorbonne and Sciences Po, although 41% of 18-25 years old – more than 4 million voters – abstained. in the first round.
The campaign for 577 seats in the French lower house will begin on May 10. Macron’s centrist La Republique en Marche (LREM) currently has 263 seats, while the conservative opposition Les Républicains has 93; centrist Moden, 52; PS, 25 and La France Insoumise only 17.
Campaign posters on display at Henin-Beaumont, Pas-de-Calais. Photo: Yves Herman / Reuters
Melenchon insisted that his Union Populaire leads in 105 constituencies and that a majority of 290 is “possible”. “If I’m not fighting for this victory, what can I do: say ‘come on, give them all the power’?” I do not want Mrs Le Pen to win the country and I do not want Macron to retain power. I say there is a third round. The French have to decide who is the head of government, “he said in an interview last week.
Melenchon will need the support of the entire left-wing electorate in France, about 11.8 million of whom voted in the first round if there is a chance of winning a majority in parliament after the June 12th and 19th elections. Melenchon rejected proposals for any alliance with the PS.
Manon Aubrey, an LFI MEP, spent last week in talks with left-wing parties to form an alliance for the legislative election. “There are obstacles, but there is a common desire to form an alliance around a program,” Aubrey told the Observer.
Asked about the PS, she added that the party will have to give up its “neoliberal position”. “We set a number of conditions on the table and the ball is in their field. The question is, are they ready to come against us? ”
Antoine Bristiel, a political analyst and director of the Observatory of Opinions of the Jean-Jaure Left Foundation, said Melenchon had made a political masterpiece by learning the lesson from 2017, when he failed to unite the left after the presidential election.
“After 2017, he failed to maintain high-level support for the next election, and this time he wants to do it differently,” Bristiel said.
“He is trying to consolidate his main support and he has realized that the way to do that is from a position of strength.
“The question is not how many deputies he will take, but whether he can get the environmentalists and communists behind him before the legislative elections, thus creating a political force. Honestly, he doesn’t want PS to join him; he believes that the party does not represent much now and will die alone, so joining it would be more negative than positive. “
Laurent Joffrin, a former director of Libération, said LFI partners would be expected to “obey” rather than be allies, and to join Melenchon’s policies, including the withdrawal from Europe.
“These positions are not those of the voters of the non-Melencholist left and even less of the more centrist electorate.
“This is the eternal problem of the radical left: it has a chance for power, but in no way wants to come together to achieve it,” Joffrin wrote.
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