The Socialist Partyonce hegemonic on the French left, is heading to join a front led by the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the June legislative elections, despite the fact that figures such as the former president Francois Hollande warn of the risk of “disappearance”.
After communists and environmentalists, the socialists closed this Wednesday an agreement with The Untamed France (LFI) to participate in the “New People’s Union“led by this radical left party, if the PS National Council validate it on Thursday.
“We want to achieve the election of deputies in a majority of constituencies to prevent (the re-elected president) Emmanuel Macron continue with its unjust and brutal policy and to defeat the extreme right”, reads a statement from LFI and the Socialist Party ().
The opposition to the centrist poses the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 as a “third round” of the presidential election in April and the left seeks to force a “cohabitation” with Macron, with Mélenchon as prime minister.
The 70-year-old political veteran managed to impose himself as leader of this union after achieving almost 22% in the first round, staying at the gates of the ballot, when the rest of the leftist parties achieved less than 5 percent.
The alliance seeks to prevent the Liberal president from fulfilling his promise to delay the retirement age from 62 to 65 years and proposes instead to advance it to 60 years and increase the minimum wage to 1,400 net euros ($1,474), among other measures.
The common front, however, represents an earthquake for the historic PS which, during the negotiations, it saw as its current leadership, with Olivier Fauré at the head, he faced the reluctant opinion of former leaders.
former prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve he threatened to walk out of the party if an agreement was reached. the former minister Stephane Le Foll he even said he was willing to lead the “dissidents” of the PS in the legislative elections.
And last week, former president Hollande (2012-2017) warned that if an agreement with LFI was accepted, the PS leaders would have decided his “disappearance”, and left the door open to present himself to the legislative elections with another list.
“Tragic Situation”
However, this is not the first alliance. Already in 1997, the socialist Lionel Joseph became the Conservative Prime Minister Jacques Chirac with its “plural left”, but then the PS was leading the union.
The Socialists have been in low hours since 2017, when Macron, Hollande’s former minister, shook the political board from the center. In April, the PS confirmed its collapse with 1.75% of votes for its presidential candidate, Anne Hidalgo.
When “a large part of your voters go over to a rival (Macron) who does not seek the union of the left, you lose a central role in that field” and “your historical usefulness, of activating the useful vote”, he said on RTL radio political scientist Benjamin Morell.
But the PS maintains a certain power at the local level, at the head of large cities like Paris, of five regions and twenty departments. The uninominal system with two legislative rounds takes into account in part the territorial implantation.
The party faces “a somewhat tragic situation”: “either it stays in its corner, it will undoubtedly lose its parliamentary group [de unos 30 diputados de 577] and it becomes really inaudible nationally; or allies with LFI”, assured on Tuesday in RTL the political scientist Remi Lefebvure.
For this professor at the University of Lille, this last option could “preserve the future, the implantation” of the Socialists, who would nevertheless run the risk of “distorting their political identity” as a “reformist party”.
LFI MEP, Manon Aubryalready indicated on Europe 1 radio that they took “essential steps” on repealing their 2016 reform that liberalized labor law and on non-compliance with “certain European standards”, as requested by their formation.
With the cursor on the left in the “radical” wing, “in the short term, it will undoubtedly be the implosion of the PS”, predicts Lefebvure, for whom it could retake the space of “reformist party” and “moderate”, which Macron releases in 2027 as he can no longer perform.
With the agreement, the Socialists get their candidates to lead the alliance in some 70 constituencies, which could open the doors to their own group in the lower house and visibility, if they manage to win in 15 or more.