French left-wing parties build ‘Front populaire’ for Macron’s snap elections

After President Emmanuel Macron shocked France by calling snap elections on Sunday, national left-wing parties called in a joint appeal on Monday (10 June) for “the formation of a new popular front” to change the country’s political course.

Macron dissolved the National Assembly on Sunday evening after the dismal result of his party’s Besoin d’Europe in the European elections – 14.5% against the far-right Rassemblement national’s 31.5%.  

Early parliamentary elections are scheduled for 30 June and 7 July and the main French left-wing parties – including la France insoumise (LFI, The Left), the Parti socialiste (PS, S&D), les Écologistes-EELV (EELV, the Greens) and the Parti communiste (PC) – decided to form a coalition under the name “Front populaire”.  

LFI MP François Ruffin was the first to launch the idea of a left-wing alliance on Monday, creating the “Front populaire” website, a reference to 1934, when left-wing activists united in reaction to far-right leagues riots, giving rise to the Front populaire. 

In the meantime, an opinion piece signed by more than 350 prominent French personalities was published in Le Monde, demanding a wakeup call to prevent the far right from ruling the country.  

Later that day, all parties leaders gathered at EELV’s headquarters in Paris and came up with an agreement. 

“We call for the constitution of a new popular front bringing together in an unprecedented form all the forces of the humanist, trade union, associative and citizen left”, they wrote in a joint appeal. 

The Front populaire coalition said they will support “single candidacies” from the first round. The candidates “will carry a programme for a break with the past, detailing the measures to be taken in the first 100 days of the government of the new popular front”. 

“We express our willingness to set off together in this battle to propose an alternative to Emmanuel Macron’s policies and to fight the racist far right,” Manuel Bompard, LFI’s national coordinator, said after the agreement was reached. 

There are no details yet on the programme, as for now, it is only an agreement in principle, said the head of EELV Marine Tondelier, but the aim is “to govern in order to respond to democratic, ecological, social, and peace emergencies”. 

Pierre-Nicolas Baudot, a doctor in political sciences, told Euractiv that the leftist parties had little time to agree a coherent programme, which “allowed them to put aside their differences”. “The current negotiations certainly concern the distribution of nominations and funding,” he said. 

The trade unions also supported the new left-wing alliance.

“To prevent the catastrophe organised by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, left-wing unity is essential,” the main French trade union, CGT, wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

The leading socialist (PS/S&D) candidate in EU elections, Raphaël Glucksmann, indicated he would not join the alliance because of LFI, whom he has always criticised, especially regarding its positions on the war in Ukraine or the situation in Palestine.  

“We need a clear course, we’re not going to do the Nupes (a former leftist alliance) again, there’s been a reversal of the balance of power, I’m in the lead on the left”, he said on France 2 on Monday.

The New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) was formed for the 2022 legislative elections but it later fractured and imploded, with most left-wing parties criticizing LFI’s domination of the movement.  

[Edited by Laurent Geslin/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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