“Olivier Faure breaks the Nupes. » It was with this tweet, in the form of an epitaph, that Jean-Luc Mélenchon seemed to announce the end of the left alliance this Tuesday. This reaction follows the declaration of the boss of the socialists who estimated that the Insoumis leader could no longer “be the one who embodies the whole of the left and ecology”.
It’s a divorce “for personal matters about me about Israel [et de la] Palestine,” declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Since the bloody Hamas attack ten days ago, the leader of France Insoumise (LFI) and his inner circle have refused to qualify the Islamist movement as “terrorist”, contrary to the rest of the political class. MP Danièle Obono got around the obstacle again on Tuesday, speaking on Sud Radio of an “Islamist political group” which “resists an occupation” for “the liberation of Palestine”.
“A pretext” to “break up”
A position which has reignited tensions within Nupes, to the point that the Socialist Party convened its national council from 7:30 p.m. to discuss a possible exit from the alliance formed in spring 2022. Olivier Faure will propose “a moratorium” on the participation of his deputies in the Nupes intergroup, he announced Tuesday morning on France Inter.
It is a question of “obtaining a clarification”, explained the first secretary of the PS, estimating that “there is today a subject with the Mélenchon method” and that the three-time presidential candidate “can no longer claim embody the whole of the left and ecologists”. Crime of lèse-majesté immediately denounced by LFI executives, Manuel Bompard and Mathilde Panot castigating in unison their leader as a “pretext” to “break with Nupes”.
A very fragile alliance
However, the coalition had been in decline for a long time. The hope aroused by the election of 150 deputies in June 2022 had indeed been put to the test with the domestic violence of Adrien Quatennens, the strategy at the time of the pension reform, the war in Ukraine or the urban riots after the death of young Nahel killed by a police officer.
The alliance was therefore hanging by a thread before the latest controversy over Hamas. Already, the Communist Party has taken a step towards exit on Sunday, by voting for a resolution noting the “impasse” of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), dominated by La France insoumise, and calling for “a new type of ‘union’ of the left. Environmentalists could be faced with a fait accompli. “If the PS leaves the Nupes, there are no more Nupes,” recognizes an environmentalist leader.
“More democratic functioning”
Within the PS, pressure is also increasing on Olivier Faure, whose opponents intend to obtain the departure of an alliance with LFI to which they are hostile.
The head of the Socialists also continues to demand a “more democratic functioning” of the coalition to achieve “a joint candidacy for the 2027 presidential election” and to call for “a dialogue” with those who are “ready” to “build the gathering on clear foundations” and “put an end to a strategy that is leading us into a wall”.