French Green Party leader Marine Tondelier said on Thursday that many left-wing voters favour presenting a joint left-wing candidate for the 2027 presidential elections even though left-wing parties are now campaigning separately ahead of the EU elections in June next year.
The left-wing NUPES coalition, which was only formed a few weeks before the 2022 legislative elections – which took place about a month after the presidential vote and saw Emmanuel Macron re-elected for a second term – is losing momentum as parties disagree on fundamental policy issues.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI) won a historic victory in parliament in 2022, has since expressed his distrust of the political partnership LFI has formed with the Greens, Socialists and Communists, claiming that NUPES is “no longer” viable.
Showcasing the fundamental divisions within the coalition on European issues is the campaign for the 2024 EU elections, which saw the Greens first announce that they would stand alone, ignoring LFI’s call for a united list.
Nevertheless, “we are an immense number of left-wing voters and within the Greens who want [a joint presidential candidate],” Tondelier told Le Figaro in Thursday’s interview.
“Whatever happens in the European elections, we will meet again in the autumn of 2024,” she added.
It is not the first time that the Greens have tried to draw a clear line between EU and national elections, mainly because the nature of the debates is so radically different that they cannot be compared.
But Tondelier also acknowledged that the Greens face an uphill battle ahead of the June elections.
“In 2019, the background atmosphere was the climate marches. Five years later, there is a political and media obsession with far-right issues, with the tacit support of the government, especially on immigration,” she told Le Figaro.
Euractiv’s latest projections on the 2024 European elections results, in partnership with Europe Elects, suggest that the Greens are set to lose many seats and go from 72 to 52 seats.
The Greens are also polling poorly in France as a series of polls point to the party going from an average of 11% voting intentions in May 2023 to 8% in November.
“We are the allies of so many more people than one would think,” said Tondelier.
“What I keep on saying to farmers, first and foremost, is that you may wish to kill off all pro-environment leaders in France and the world, but you will still have issues accessing water or growing corn under +4 temperature increases,” she added.
(Theo Bourgery-Gonse | Euractiv.fr)
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