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The far-left wing of the coalition that won the most seats in France’s parliamentary elections suspended talks with its partners on Monday, throwing the left’s efforts to capitalize on its victory into disarray.
The hastily formed New Popular Front (including the far-left Insubordinate France, the Greens, and the moderate Socialists and Communists) hoped to build on its electoral success by appointing a prime minister and forming a government.
But differences within the alliance over who should be the candidate are now emerging, a bitter feud that is also jeopardizing efforts to agree on a candidate for speaker of the new National Assembly, which meets for the first time on Thursday.
Insubordinate France, led by anti-capitalist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said on Monday it would “not take part in any further talks on forming a government until the elections result in one single candidate.” [president of] The National Assembly met and a vote was taken.”
The party blamed the impasse on the Socialist Party. “We will not return until the Socialist Party gives up its veto over any candidate other than its own,” it said in a statement. The party denied that it had systematically rejected other candidates. “We have made several proposals for a consensus-based selection,” it said.
The NFP coalition won the most seats in snap parliamentary elections orchestrated by President Emmanuel Macron last month, but is far short of the 289 seats needed for a majority.
The Socialists, Communists and Greens have proposed that the coalition field a “united candidate from civil society for chancellor,” but the far-left has so far rejected the idea. “This political obstacle will not be solved by improvising an ‘outsider’ candidate,” LFI said in a statement.
Suggestions that Huguette Bello, president of the French overseas territory of Reunion and an ally of rebellious France, could become prime minister hit a deadlock over the weekend.
“No positions have been settled. We have a great responsibility. It is incomprehensible for one side to abandon talks that have been going on for weeks and risk letting President Macron’s coalition take the lead,” Communist party leader Fabien Roussel said in a statement, urging the two parties to resume negotiations “as soon as possible”.
The infighting could work to the advantage of Macron and his centrist Ensemble coalition, which has the second-largest number of seats in parliament behind Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.
“The left isn’t ready, and now that it’s materialised they’re panicking,” said a person close to the ensemble. “They say they will govern alone, but in 2022 we had 250 seats and they say we’re not legitimate. It’s a bit ridiculous.”
Yaël Brown-Privé, the outgoing speaker of parliament and a member of Macron’s Renaissance party, is running for re-election.
But even within the Ensemble party, which includes Macron’s Renaissance party, François Bayrou’s Modem party and former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s Horizon party, there are divisions over the choice of potential partners and prime ministerial candidates.
Coalition officials say many centrist lawmakers are outraged by the president’s decision to call the elections and are less willing to follow his orders.
Meanwhile, key members of the group, including Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin and Macron’s close aide Julien Denormandie, are jockeying for position and pushing competing ideas for how to form a coalition government.
Philippe has also been steadily distancing himself and his Horizon party from the president with a view to running for president in 2027.
