The New Popular Front, the alliance of left-wing parties, was united when it presented the motion of censure that overthrew the French Government this Wednesday along with the votes of the extreme right. But the consensus is not so clear about the steps to follow. While the socialists advocate for specific agreements with the rest of the parties – except with the extreme right -, La France Insoumise (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, rejects it and defends the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron before the end of his mandate in 2027. Both, however, ask that the new prime minister be from the left.
The motion presented by the New Popular Front (NFP) accused the former prime minister, the conservative Michel Barnier, of having given in to the “most vile obsessions” of the extreme right. The text was registered after the head of Government, appointed just three months ago, resorted to article 49.3 of the Constitution to approve part of the budgets, very controversial due to the drastic cut in public spending that they imply. This resource allows a law to be approved without the vote of the deputies and has been used multiple times by the previous Executive due to the lack of a majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.
In recent days, Barnier has multiplied concessions to the far-right National Regroupment (RN) party to prevent it from supporting a possible censorship by the left. But the efforts were in vain. Despite obtaining measures such as the reduction of free medical assistance for irregular migrants or the renunciation of raising the price of electricity, Marine Le Pen’s party, which has the most deputies in the chamber, already stated on Monday that it would vote for favor of all the motions, even if they came from the left. “The institutions force us to mix our votes with those of the extreme left,” he justified this Wednesday during the debate of the two motions, that of the NFP and that of the RN itself. The left alliance, he added, is a “simple tool” to achieve the objectives.
A total of 185 deputies signed the motion presented by the left alliance on Monday, an electoral device created in extremis to confront the extreme right in the last legislative elections. The elections, brought forward by Macron after the setback suffered by his party in the European elections, left in July a Parliament fragmented into three almost equal blocks and a priori incompatible. The NFP obtained the largest number of seats with 193 of 577 deputies, but was far from the absolute majority of 289. The presidential bloc, made up of three center and center-right parties, obtained 168, and the RN, 143.
Coming first, the left alliance—made up of LFI, with 71 seats; socialists, with 66; environmentalists, with 38 and communists, with 17—claimed the keys to the Government and presented a common candidate, the high official Lucie Castets. But Macron, after launching several rounds of consultations with political parties, finally ruled out appointing her as prime minister in the name of “institutional stability.” An NFP Executive, the president argued at the time, “would be immediately censured” by the other parliamentary groups. The president, who had already lost his absolute majority after his re-election in 2022, opted for former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. The survival of his Government depended on the RN.
“Its failure was announced. He only attempted compromises with the extreme right, that National Regrouping that has privileged violating the republican cordon sanitaire that was expressed mostly in July,” Eric Coquerel, a deputy from LFI, which dominates the left alliance, denounced during the debate this Wednesday. The so-called “republican front” allowed the RN to remain in third position in the second round of the legislative elections, when it had achieved first place in the first round on June 30.
The president of the socialist group in the Assembly, Boris Vallaud, also regretted the fact that Barnier locked himself in a “humiliating face to face” with the extreme right. The deputy blamed the prime minister for not having respected what he had promised, that is, “a culture, that of commitment.” “At no time, not at any time, did he enter into dialogue with the left-wing opposition and the environmentalists,” he snapped.
From Saudi Arabia, the President of the Republic accused the Socialist Party (PS) of having “lost its points of reference” by agreeing to vote on the motion. But Vallaud was quick to counterattack: “The one who lost his points of reference is Emmanuel Macron, elected twice with our votes against the extreme right and who now makes a pact with it.” The debate on whether or not to support a motion of censure against the Government had already irritated a part of the socialists in the summer. But in a message on X, the party had stated that the majority would censure “any government that continues the president’s policy.” The question is what will happen now.
In an interview in Le Monde published this Wednesday, the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, has advocated appointing a left-wing prime minister “who applies the priorities of the NFP”, but “with a permanent concern for compromise”. The left alliance, he acknowledges, does not have an absolute majority, so he will have to find “majorities text by text.” The socialists propose renouncing the use of article 49.3 in exchange for a non-censorship agreement by the center and the right. “No Government will be able to apply its entire program, and nothing more than its program,” added Faure, in reference to what LFI requested a few months ago. What the socialists are asking for is “the NFP in the Government and the republican front in the Assembly,” he summarized.
The position of the socialists currently clashes with that of LFI, which calls for the resignation or dismissal of Macron, with an early presidential election in the spotlight. The president of the insumisos in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot, denounced on Tuesday that a “non-censorship” agreement with the other political forces would be equivalent to “a form of government alliance with the Macronists.” Such a scenario, he added, would mean “a break with the NFP.” The next few days will finish clarifying the positions within the alliance.
