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Tag: Jean-Luc Mélenchon

  • Left-wing surge foils far right but French election ends in deadlock

    Left-wing surge foils far right but French election ends in deadlock

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    (CNN) — A left-wing alliance has won the most seats in the French parliament after tactical voting in Sunday’s second round election thwarted Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, but France will be left in political limbo after no party came close to winning an absolute majority.

    In a surprise result, the New Popular Front (NFP) – a cluster of several parties ranging from the far-left France Unbowed party to the more moderate Socialists and the Ecologists – won 182 seats in the National Assembly, making it the largest group but short of the 289 required for an absolute majority, according to the French Interior Ministry.

    President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance, which had slumped to a dismal third in the first round of voting last Sunday, mounted a strong recovery to win 163 seats. Despite leading after the first round of votes, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies won 143 seats.

    The RN’s strong showing in the first round stirred fears that France could be on the cusp of electing its first far-right government since the collaborationist Vichy regime of World War II. But Sunday’s results come as a huge upset and show French voters’ overwhelming desire to keep the far right from gaining power – even at the cost of a hung parliament.

    After the first round, an unprecedented number of seats – over 300 – went to a three-way runoff between Ensemble, the NFP and the RN. By Tuesday, more than 200 centrist and left-wing candidates withdrew from the second round, in a bid to avoid splitting the vote.

    Cheers rang out on the streets of Paris as the projection was published. Speaking to a crowd of his ecstatic supporters near Stalingrad square, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the firebrand leader of France Unbowed, said the results came as a “huge relief for the overwhelming majority of people in our country.”

    “Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario,” Mélenchon said. “A magnificent surge of civic mobilization has taken hold!”

    Gabriel Attal, Macron’s protege, announced he would resign as prime minister Monday morning. He seemed to take a swipe at Macron’s decision to call the snap vote, saying he “didn’t choose” for France’s parliament to be dissolved.

    Elsewhere in Paris, the buoyant atmosphere at a RN campaign event in Bois de Vincennes took a nosedive an hour before the polls closed. After the projection was announced, Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old leader, said France had been thrown into “uncertainty and instability.”

    Handpicked as leader by Marine Le Pen in an effort to purge the party of its racist and antisemitic roots, Bardella had taken the party closer to the gates of power than ever before. Visibly disappointed by the results, he slammed the NFP as an “alliance of dishonor.”

    “As from tomorrow, our deputies will take up their places to make sure we counter the migration policies and other policies of the far left. We will not enter into any kind of coalition or compromise, we will be the side of the French people,” he said.

    A hastily assembled coalition

    In a brief statement, the Elysee said Macron is awaiting the full results of all 577 constituencies “before taking the necessary decisions.”

    “In his role as guarantor of our institutions, the president will ensure that the sovereign choice of the French people is respected,” it said.

    After parliamentary elections, the French president appoints a prime minister from the party that won the most seats. Ordinarily, this means a candidate from the president’s own party. However, Sunday’s results mean Macron faces the prospect of having to appoint a figure from the left-wing coalition, in a rare arrangement known as a “cohabitation.”

    Speaking to supporters near Stalingrad square, Mélenchon said Macron “has the duty to call the New Popular Front to govern.”

    But it is not clear from which party within the coalition that Macron will appoint a prime minister. France Unbowed won 74 seats, making it the largest single party within the NFP, ahead of the Socialists with 59.

    But Macron and his allies had repeatedly stressed that they would refuse to enter into coalition with Mélenchon. Speaking after last Sunday’s first round, outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – Macron’s protege, said France Unbowed was preventing the formation of a “credible alternative” to the far right.

    The NFP formed less than a month ago, after Macron called the snap vote following his party’s disastrous loss to the RN in last month’s European Parliament election.

    The capacious – and potentially fractious – coalition chose its name in an attempt to resurrect the original Popular Front that blocked the far right from gaining power in 1936. Sunday’s results mean the NFP has managed to do this again.

    It campaigned on a platform to raise the minimum monthly wage to 1,600 euros (more than $1,700), to cap the price of essential foods, electricity, fuel and gas, and to scrap Macron’s deeply unpopular pension reform, which raised the French retirement age – already one of the lowest in the Western world – from 62 to 64.

    A mess of Macron’s making?

    Sunday’s vote represents a victory for the French “cordon sanitaire,” the principle that mainstream parties must unite to block the far right from taking office.

    But the RN’s success should not be underestimated. In the 2017 elections, when Macron swept to power, the RN won just eight seats. In 2022, it surged to 89 seats. In Sunday’s vote, it won 125 – making it the largest individual party in parliament.

    While the risk of a far-right government has been avoided for now, these elections have plunged France into political uncertainty. Macron called the election three years earlier than necessary, just minutes after his party was trounced by the far right in the EU election.

    Although EU election results need have no bearing on domestic politics, Macron said he could not ignore the message sent to him by voters and wanted to clarify the situation.

    But Sunday’s results may further muddy the French political picture. Unable to call a new election for at least another year, and with three years left on his presidential term, Macron looks set to preside over an unruly parliament, as problems mount at home and abroad.

    Édouard Philippe, France’s former prime minister and an ally of Macron, said Macron’s gamble had further complicated the situation.

    “The truth is that none of the political blocs in the assembly has a majority on its own to govern. The dissolution of the assembly, which was intended as a clarification, has instead led to great vagueness,” he said Sunday evening.

    “The central political forces therefore have a responsibility to stay. They must, without compromise, promote the creation of an agreement that will stabilize the political situation.”

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    CNN

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  • After Macron, le déluge

    After Macron, le déluge

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    Anyone looking at France right now could be forgiven for thinking the country was on the edge of a revolution.

    Major cities from Paris to Lyon erupted in riots overnight on Thursday, with black-clad protesters lighting bonfires and hurling projectiles at riot police after President Emmanuel Macron rammed an unpopular reform of the pension system through parliament. More than 400 police were injured.

    The violence capped weeks of mass protests as millions marched through French cities to oppose the reform, which will raise the legal age of retirement to 64 from 62 currently. More protests are already planned for next week, piling pressure on Macron’s already embattled government and prompting Britain’s King Charles to cancel a highly-awaited visit.

    Yet for all the sound and fury of the protests, which could yet worsen if students join in, there’s nearly zero risk that Macron himself will have to leave office. Having narrowly survived a vote of no confidence, he may seek to reshuffle his cabinet and sack his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne — but the presidential system is so designed that the leader is nearly guaranteed to remain president until the last day of his term, in 2027.

    The bigger question, then, is about what happens after Macron, whose hyper-personal style of leadership has often been described as king-like, even by the standards of France’s monarchical Republic, leaves the stage for good. 

    Barred from seeking a third term by the constitution, Macron will leave behind a leaderless and rudderless ruling party that may well cease to exist without him, creating a power vacuum that far-left and far-right leaders, including three-time presidential contender Marine Le Pen, are itching to fill. 

    And while Macron has a solid hold on power now, the parliamentary rebellion his government faced down this week — and the chaos engulfing the country — raise ominous questions about the future for anyone who hopes to see France stay firmly anchored to the pro-EU, pro-NATO liberal camp.

    In other words, after Macron, le déluge. 

    Macron’s shaky platform

    The first danger sign flashing over French democracy is the state of Macron’s own party, the centrist Renaissance group. In many systems, ruling parties have deep roots and an ideological foundation that, at least in theory, give them a raison d’être beyond exercising power. 

    But this isn’t the case for Macron’s party, which was born for the sole purpose of hoisting its founder into the Elysée presidential palace and then supporting his government. As such, it’s docile by nature and, with a few exceptions, hasn’t produced bold personalities who would in other circumstances be natural successors to the president. 

    And while the party is already short of a majority in parliament, the rebellion against the pension reform this week revealed Renaissance to be much weaker even than was previously thought — more of a hollow platform for Macron to stand on than a launchpad for future leaders. Indeed, Prime Minister Borne believed that she could rely on support from the center-right Les Républicains party to provide the necessary votes to pass the reform, as part of an informal coalition arrangement.

    Yet this hope vanished suddenly and unexpectedly when a group of 19 Les Républicains, led by southern lawmaker Aurélien Pradié, defied orders from their own party leadership and announced they would support a motion of no confidence in Macron’s government. As rebellions go, it revealed not just the weakness of Renaissance, but the continued disarray of the mainstream center-right in France — which has produced most of the country’s leaders since World War II and is now a shadow of its former self.

    “The political landscape isn’t just fractured; it doesn’t offer any hope for the president, the government or their supporters,” said Jean-Daniel Lévy, a political analyst with pollster Harris Interactive. “There is no such thing as a Macron doctrine or an ideological successor to Macron.”

    The rebellion against the pension reform this week revealed President Emmanuel Macron’s party to be much weaker even than was previously thought | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images

    The second alarm bell ringing is how much the pension crisis has emboldened the far-right and far-left factions in parliament. Take Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left firebrand who’s made two failed bids for the presidency, and is now the most recognizable face in the NUPES, a recently-formed left-wing coalition gathering what’s left of the Socialist party, Mélenchon’s hard-left France Unbowed group and the Greens.

    Having faded from view, Mélenchon has roared back into the limelight during the pension reform battle, appearing constantly in the media. Anti-NATO, Euroskeptic and calling for an end to France’s 5th republic (his 6th Republic would end the presidential monarchy), the ex-socialist whose sympathies lean more toward Venezuela than Brussels is ideally suited to produce revolutionary soundbites.

    With his pension reform, Macron has “lit a fire and blocked all the exits,” Mélenchon quipped this week.

    Le Pen eyes the crown

    Yet Mélenchon’s prospects of taking power in 2027 look slim. According to an IFOP poll published in early March, just 21 percent of the French believe he’s best-positioned to lead the opposition — suggesting he’s not very well-loved by other adherents of the NUPES coalition.

    Much better positioned is Marine Le Pen, the far-right chief whom Macron defeated twice in the final rounds of two presidential elections. Indeed, since her last defeat, Le Pen has made further strides toward making herself look presidential while continuing to try to detoxify her party’s image.

    Not only has Le Pen ditched the “National Front” party name that was associated with her Holocaust-minimizing father, Jean-Marie Le Pen; she has abandoned an electorally-disastrous plan to exit the euro currency zone and she’s established herself as the leader of her party’s 88-strong delegation in the French parliament, placing her at the center of the action against the pension reform.

    She hasn’t confirmed that she’ll make a fourth bid for the presidency. But there’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t. And this time, Macron won’t be around to stop her.

    “After Macron, it will be us,” she told BFMTV this week, referring to her National Rally party.

    Aside from Le Pen, the obvious choice to succeed Macron would be Édouard Philippe — his remarkably beloved one-time prime minister. Since leaving office in 2017, Philippe has been quietly biding his time as mayor of Le Havre, a mid-sized port city on France’s northern coast, and nurturing his own center-right political platform, Horizons.

    The fact that Philippe, in an interview earlier this month, came out to address the fact that he’s suffering both from alopecia and vitiligo only seemed to bolster his popularity with the French, who rate him as their preferred political personality, according to this ranking.

    But Philippe’s stance on retirement, backing an increase in the legal age to 67 — above and beyond what Macron proposed — has not done him any favors. According to a poll by Odoxa, 61 percent of the French weren’t happy with his attempt to defend the pension reform.

    He still hasn’t said for sure whether he will run in 2027, and the past week’s action suggests his association with Macron could turn out to be a drag on his prospects once campaigning gets started, should he decide to enter the race.

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    Nicholas Vinocur

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  • Day of reckoning for Macron on French pension reform

    Day of reckoning for Macron on French pension reform

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    PARIS — France is bracing for a day of severe disruptions and strikes on Thursday as trade unions and opposition parties vow to force the government to abandon French President Emmanuel Macron’s flagship pensions reform.

    Schools, universities and public administrations are expected to close, public transport will be severely affected and demonstrations are planned in major cities across the country.  

    “It’s going to be a [day] of hassles… It’ll be a Thursday of great disruption of public services,” warned Transport Minister Clément Beaune.

    Workers are protesting the government’s decision to raise the legal retirement age to 64 from 62. As part of the proposed overhaul, the number of years of contributions needed for a full pension will also rise faster than previously planned and will be set at 43 years from 2027.

    This is one of the biggest tests for Macron since losing outright majority in parliament in June. Macron was reelected last year on promises he would reform France’s public pension system and bring it in line with European neighbors such as Spain and Germany where the legal age of retirement is 65 to 67 years old. According to projections from France’s Council of Pensions Planning, the finances of the pensions system are balanced in the short term but will go into deficit in the long term.

    “Whatever pension projection you look at, the system will be go into the red within 15 years… it is difficult to deny the funding issues … The level of expenditure has stabilized but it’s simply higher than the revenues,” said Antoine Bozio, director of the Institute of Public Policy in Paris.  

    French polls suggest that the French are opposed to the reform but are aware of the need to overhaul state pensions. There is, however, deep disagreement on how to achieve that. Both the far-right National Rally party and the leftwing NUPES coalition staunchly oppose pushing back the age of retirement to 64 and argue that it will unfairly hit French working classes. Both groups vow to fight the government and stall debates as the pensions bill goes through parliament.

    “The Macron-Borne reform is a serious step back for French welfare,” tweeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France unbowed party — which is planning a second day of protests on Sunday.

    Macron is hoping to get the votes of the conservative Les Républicains to get the reforms passed in parliament, where he does not have absolute majority.

    In the battle to win over public opinion, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who unveiled the reform last week, has repeatedly maintained that the changes include several measures that benefit the poorest. The government plans to increase the minimum monthly pension by close to 10 percent to €1,200 for low-income earners, and vows to improve access to early retirement schemes for employees who work in difficult professions.

    According to Bozio, while the government’s aim is primarily to balance the books amid increased funding needs for health, education and support for businesses, there are legitimate questions over the fairness of the reform.

    “Pushing back the retirement age will not hit the poorest in France, so in that sense the reform is fair,” said Bozio referring to precarious workers who have checkered careers and often leave the workforce later at 67 years old.

    In the battle to win over public opinion, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has repeatedly maintained that the changes include several measures that benefit the poorest | Pool photo by bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images

    However, lower-income groups, who start work early, will be disadvantaged compared to higher-income groups who have later careers.

    “Those hit by the reform will be qualified factory workers, less qualified office workers … Senior managers, the intellectual classes who have done long studies, will be less affected,” he said.

    There were other options on the table. In 2020, Macron’s government worked on a more balanced reform, which had the backing of one of France’s main trade unions the CFDT, but was forced to shelve it following months of strikes along with the COVID-19 pandemic which brought the country to a halt.

    France has a long history of showdowns between government-led pension reforms and the public backlash on the street in the form of mass protests and walking off the job. In his second term, Macron has settled for a less aggressive, more topical reform focused on raising the legal age of retirement in the hope that it would be easier to pass through parliament. The breadth of Thursday’s protests will be a first test of that choice.

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    Clea Caulcutt

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