{"id":713562,"date":"2022-06-23T09:40:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T09:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2022\/06\/france-left-nupes-melenchon-macron-left-wing-alliance\/"},"modified":"2022-06-23T10:25:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T10:25:15","slug":"frances-left-unity-is-proving-short-lived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/06\/23\/frances-left-unity-is-proving-short-lived\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s Left Unity Is Proving Short-Lived"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

In France\u2019s parliamentary election, left-wing parties more than doubled their number of MPs, helping to deny Emmanuel Macron a majority. Yet the smaller forces who backed Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s coalition are already pulling back from any longer-term pact.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n Leader of left-wing coalition NUPES and leader of France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Melenchon (C), and MP Manuel Bompard (L) outside the French National Assembly in Paris on June 21, 2022. (Julien de Rosa \/ AFP via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s left-wing alliance elected 142 MPs to France\u2019s National Assembly on Sunday. In some ways this was a success: the broad left more than doubled its number of MPs and helped strip President Emmanuel Macron of his majority<\/a>, though it also fell way short of the 289 seats needed to make M\u00e9lenchon prime minister. In the last such election five years ago, M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s France Insoumise had taken seventeen seats, barely more than the number needed to form an independent group; this time, there were seventy-two, making up half of the overall left-wing bloc.<\/p>\n

That alliance of parties is known as Nouvelle Union Populaire \u00c9cologique et Sociale\u00a0(NUPES). Formed in May, it brought together forces that have often had significantly divergent agendas. By the terms of their pact, they will collaborate in parliament to pursue the policies in their common program \u2014 largely based on the one M\u00e9lenchon ran on in April\u2019s presidential election \u2014 but maintain their independence where they differ. Among other NUPES forces, the once-mighty Socialist Party<\/a> won twenty-eight seats on Sunday, the Greens twenty-three, and the French Communist Party twelve.<\/p>\n

NUPES\u2019s candidates and program were largely drawn from France Insoumise, with M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s 22 percent score in the presidential contest affirming his leadership role on the Left. Yet there are already questions as to how long the alliance can last.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Keeping NUPES Together<\/h2>\n \n

On Monday afternoon, M\u00e9lenchon declared that \u201cNUPES should constitute a single group in Parliament.\u201d \u201cYesterday,\u201d he went on, \u201cI had the impression that that was what Julien Bayou and Olivier Faure had in mind,\u201d referring respectively to the leaders of the Green and Socialist Parties.<\/p>\n

But there was immediately a chorus of pushback<\/a> from three key members of the electoral alliance. The president of the Socialist Party during the last session of parliament, Val\u00e9rie Rabault, tweeted that \u201cthe Left is plural, [and] is represented in its diversity in the National Assembly . . . to want to suppress this diversity is an error, and I oppose it.\u201d<\/p>\n