France’s socialists unite against Macron
In France, the fight for a majority in parliament continues: the party of head of state Emmanuel Macron wants to open up by renaming. The left-wing parties form an alliance.
The presidential election had once again revealed France’s political divisions. France’s Socialists have approved a left-wing coalition against re-elected Liberal President Emmanuel Macron for June’s general election.
The former People’s Party will compete together with the Left, Greens and Communists, as its chairman Olivier Faure announced on Friday night after a vote in the party council near Paris. Previously, there had been difficult negotiations with the left-wing party LFI, which came third in the presidential election with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and is currently the largest force on the left.
The merger of the fragmented left camp is historic and could be dangerous for Macron. Because he needs a majority in the National Assembly to implement his plans. Even if he currently has a solid majority together with other center parties and the elected president has always won the majority in parliament since 2002, Macron’s frustration and disappointment over his first term in office are likely to cost him votes.
Leftists want Mélenchon to become prime minister
The left-wing camp hopes to gain a majority themselves with their alliance Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (NUPES). The merger is important because small parties have little chance of winning constituencies simply because of the majority voting system. Should the alliance win the parliamentary majority, Macron would effectively be forced to appoint a prime minister from among their ranks. According to the agreements made between the left-wing parties, this should then be Mélenchon.
The agreement was controversial among the socialists. They had a historically poor result in the presidential election. Unlike earlier alliances of left-wing parties, they are now not playing the leading role and have had to make some concessions to the Mélenchon party LFI, which is much further to the left. The agreement with them said, for example, that you could violate certain rules in the European Union in order to implement your policy.
Macron’s party announces new name
The party of the re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron is changing its name: La République en Marche (LREM, The Republic in Motion) will be called Renaissance (rebirth) in the future, said party leader Stanislas Guerini on Thursday in Paris. The “political movement” founded by Macron six years ago should be renewed in this way and expanded into a “people’s party”, said Guerini. Their goal is to be open to all citizens and MPs. The party already used the name Renaissance, i.e. rebirth, for its list in the 2019 European elections.
Guerini announced the new name at a press conference attended by Macron’s ex-Prime Minister Édouard Philippe for his conservative Horizons party, Parliament Speaker Richard Ferrand (LREM), and ex-minister François Bayrou of the center party MoDem. They had previously announced that they would run for the general elections in June as an alliance under the title “Ensemble” (together).
