EU elections: The ebb and flow of a French left-wing coalition

The French left-wing coalition NUPES is divided over whether to run as a common bloc in the 2024 European elections: The radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI) is pushing for a joint candidacy while the French Greens and Communists are more sceptical.

The NUPES coalition saw the light of day during the June 2022 legislative elections when four left-wing parties – the Socialist Party, the Communist, the Greens, and LFI – joined forces. Ever since, they have trodden a fine line between working as a true coalition and speaking in the same voice but protecting each party’s political line.

With a year to go before European elections, one part of the NUPES is convinced that a shared list would show unity of the French left. Others are concerned that ideological differences on EU issues are too great for a common platform to be found.

Socialist Party’s Pierre Jouvet announced on Sunday (23 April) he would be “ready to discuss a coalition-wide list at the European elections”, joining LFI’s call for a unique ballot name.

Manon Aubry (LFI), co-president of The Left group and a key left lawmaker in the European Parliament, supported the idea wholeheartedly. “We have the possibility to beat the National Rally and Macron’s movement. We were told that it was impossible, but the Socialists are now giving [the common list] a chance,” she said on Monday (24 April)

The French Left and the EU a history of disagreements

But a common list, Jouvet added, would only be possible around a shared “substance” and “project” as “the European question has always been the most difficult issue on the Left”.

NUPES never truly agreed on a shared European platform. The Greens and the Socialists’ view on the European Union can often significantly differ from those of LFI, making any hope of an actual pro-EU left-wing alliance somewhat uncertain.

Likewise, the Socialist Party’s deputy head Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol warned on Twitter on Monday against “contortions” in agreeing a common platform with the radical left.

He said he favoured “a social-ecological Europe which strengthens its defence and is clear on NATO, Ukraine, the Uyghurs, and Taiwan”. On NATO, LFI is historically anti-Atlantic – unlike the Socialists and the Greens – and on Taiwan, LFI’s historical leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has repeatedly described the breakaway island as “a fully-fledged component of China”. Also, LFI abstained on a resolution condemning the crimes of private Russian military companies such as Wagner Group.

Though aware of these criticisms, Aubry called on sceptics to “work on the substance and see if it works”. Presenting separate lists in the European elections would be impossible to understand for French left-wing voters, she added.

A no from the Greens

Negotiations are ongoing, but convincing the Greens to go at it as a group will be a tall order. While some party leaders have shown openness for a common platform, others, such as former presidential election candidate Yannick Jadot, rejected the idea altogether.

“The ecologists have this particularity of being absolutely pro-European, of fighting against economic and political complacency towards Russia and China”, Jadot said, making clear he disagreed with LFI on these points and a great number of EU files.

The Greens’ decision is not rooted in ideology alone but is one of electoral calculation.

With the way the electoral system works at the EU level, Greens fear that a common list would mechanically reduce the number of green party members relative to other left-wing candidates from other parties, diluting their influence within the European Parliament as a whole.

The Communists, for their part, are even more sceptical.

“We can’t define a strategy before having defined a political line”, Ian Brossat, party spokesperson and former head of the Communist list in the 2019 European elections, told EURACTIV France.

“Until now, Europe has been one of the issues on which the left has had deep differences”, Brossat said, stressing he was sceptical about the fact that “the existing differences would disappear” in the next year.

On the one hand, “the Greens are federalists,” and on the other hand, “the majority of Socialists have supported all the European treaties”, he continued. Nothing the Communists could agree to.

“It would not be honest to make voters believe that these fundamental differences do not exist”, he concluded, stating that, from the communists’ point of view, “there will be a need for a list that expresses the rejection of these liberal European treaties”.

This is not to say the era of a left-wing coalition is over at the national level, as Jadot made clear he was in favour of one “common candidate in 2027”.

Yet the path towards a single Left-wing list remains somewhat uncertain.

French left buries divisions to unite against pension reform, for now

EXPLAINER. Since the June election, the alliance of French left-wing parties in the National Assembly, NUPES, has had its ups and downs. Today, it stands united against the pension reform. Is it just a facade or an expression of fundamental unity?

[Edited by Alice Taylor/Theo Bourgery Gonse]