Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to name a prime minister from the left-wing alliance has exacerbated divisions within the Socialist Party. Following Monday’s announcement, the French president began another round of consultations with political leaders, but excluding Marine Le Pen’s far-right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI), the most powerful party in the New Popular Front. The left-wing bloc, which won the most seats in the second round of the legislative elections in July, has said it will not engage in further talks with the president. But this decision does not generate consensus in the Socialist ranks, where there is an increasing number of disagreements.
There are two main disagreements, and these will become even more evident during the Socialist Party’s summer university, which is being held from Thursday in Blois, south of Paris, with the movement’s activists and leaders. The first is whether to continue talks with Macron, which would mean breaking with the partners of the New Popular Front (NFP), which, in addition to the Socialists and LFI, brings together ecologists and communists. The second is what to do if there is a possible vote of no confidence in the new government. Should it be voted automatically or not?
Following Monday’s announcement, Macron urged the Socialists, Greens and Communists to “cooperate with the other political forces” – that is, with the other parties in the presidential camp – and announced a new round of consultations. “The work continues, the door is open. I welcome all those who want to work for the best interests of the country,” he insisted on Tuesday. The head of state, who will no longer be able to represent himself in the 2027 presidential elections, is betting on creating a majority coalition with deputies from the centre, the left and the moderate right.
The NFP, which claims to be in control of the government after coming first in the legislative elections, refuses to participate in these new consultations. “I refuse to be an accomplice to a parody of democracy,” he declared. Olivier Faurethe first secretary of the Socialist Party, in a television interview. He continued: “The socialists will not be the complements of a Macronism that is coming to an end and will censure any attempt to prolong Macronism.”
For Faure, the party – which practically disappeared during the Macron years – is now stronger within the left-wing coalition. But not everyone sees it that way. Two other internal currents believe that it is necessary to have a certain influence in the appointment of the future prime minister and, above all, to break with Mélenchon. His party, LFI, has the most seats in the coalition (72), although it is closely followed by the Socialists (66), who have gained new strength.
Turning the page on Macron and Mélenchon
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In the previous legislature, the Social Democrats had only 27 deputies. And in the European elections, their candidate, Raphaël Glucksmann, came third, ahead of LFI. In an interview with the weekly The Point In mid-August, the Socialist candidate had declared: “We must turn the page on Macron and Mélenchon.”
Voices calling for a break or strongly opposing Mélenchon have always existed within the Socialist Party. In the last legislative elections of 2022, for example, former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve left the party after the formation decided to join the New Progressive Ecologist and Social Union (NUPES), led by LFI. His name has been mentioned in the polls to form the future government, although at the moment, nothing has been confirmed.
Faure, elected leader in 2018, is questioned by two minority currents of his party “The party is on the verge of breaking up”, wrote on social network X Hélène Geoffroy, mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, near Lyon, is one of the leading voices of the dissent. “We cannot be complementary to La France Insoumise,” she added, in response to the statements of the first secretary. During a meeting of the party’s executive body on Tuesday, the politician asked for clarification of the movement’s strategy and suggested organising a vote to define its line. Otherwise, she argued, it will be the far right that will come to power in the next legislative elections.
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen who heads the other current opposed to Faure, wondered about his part in Franceinfo: “The president is going to appoint a prime minister. I don’t know who it will be. So, should the attitude be one of systematic censorship? Or are we trying to find ways and means of implementing left-wing policies?”
Tensions are growing. There are doubts about whether to take part in the march called against Macron’s “authoritarian drift” on September 7. LFI, ecologists and communists will attend. The socialists, for the moment, have repeated that the initiative comes from the Mélenchonistsand that they do not consider it a priority. There is also tension over the position that should be taken in the event of a vote of no confidence in the next government. In a message on X, the party stated that the majority will censure “any government that continues the president’s policy.” The question is how each one defines a continuation of this policy.
Dissensions within the Socialist Party are not new, but they were relegated to the background during the legislative elections, which Macron brought forward after the victory of the far right in the European elections. The second round of the elections plunged France into limbo, with a parliamentary chamber divided into three blocs, all far from the majority of 289 deputies. The NFP, hastily created to confront the far right, won 193 seats out of the 577 in the National Assembly. The presidential bloc, made up of three centre and centre-right parties, won 166; and the far-right National Rally, 126.
The left-wing alliance is now claiming the keys to the government after winning first place, but Macron on Monday definitively ruled out naming its candidate, Lucie Castets, as prime minister. An NFP government, he argued, would plunge the country into “institutional instability” since it would be directly overthrown by a vote of no confidence. The head of state is now continuing his consultations with a full agenda, which includes a trip to Serbia on Thursday and Friday. The political situation, meanwhile, remains blocked.
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