France’s Socialist, Green, Communist and far-left parties have joined forces in an unlikely but historic alliance ahead of legislative elections on June 12 and 19.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .After a first-round presidential election that saw far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon fall just short of a place in the final, France’s reinvigorated left wing has set its sights on winning a lower-house majority – and the cunning Mélenchon on the job of prime minister.
After days of sometimes heated debate, France’s leftist foes buried the hatchet last week, agreeing on a leftist coalition ahead of June’s parliamentary polls.
The Greens (Europe Écologie-Les Verts or EELV), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party all signed off on a May 4 accord with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI), with only the Trotskyist New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) begging off from the deal.
The agreement sets out a joint slate of campaign proposals and apportions shares of constituency nominations to all the allied parties, who have pledged to field a single coalition candidate in each of France’s 577 legislative districts next month.
The deal marks the first time in 25 years that the French left has come together to contest the first round of the legislative elections in lockstep. In 1997, the so-called Plural Left joined forces to win a legislative majority, elevating Socialist heavyweight Lionel Jospin to the post of prime minister for five years while conservative rival Jacques Chirac held the French presidency, a power-sharing scenario known in France as “cohabitation”.
Next month’s election results will decide how the history books treat this new leftist coalition, but proponents are already eager to liken it to previous iterations:
The Popular Front of 1936, for one, is still remembered fondly as a fount of social progress – including paid vacation, the 40-hour workweek (down from 48) – under leader Léon Blum.
The Common Programme of 1972, another leftist meeting-of-the-minds, proved fundamental to Socialist François Mitterrand’s rise to the Élysée Palace nine years later. The next chapter for 2022’s leftist bloc has yet to be written – but the degree to which any union seemed unthinkable just three weeks ago has lent it the lustre of history in the making.
