The delayed second round of municipal elections held in June briefly brought a new face to French politics. Political newcomers swept to power in some of France's biggest cities and towns under the noses of the usual regional power brokers, and there was more emphasis on grassroots and collective influence than individual ambition.
Yet normal service has quickly resumed and the political focus has switched from those local elections as senior figures on the Left and among the Greens eye an even bigger political prize – France's presidential election in 2022.
Within 24 hours of left-wing green coalition candidate Michèle Rubirola pulling off an incredible victory to become head of France's second city, Marseille, the European member of Parliament from the green Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV), Yannick Jadot, was already on presidential election footing. On July 5th he told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that he was “preparing himself”. That very same day the re-elected mayor of the south-east city of Grenoble, Éric Piolle, told RTL radio that the green movement was “winning” and did not rule himself out as a future presidential candidate.
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Meanwhile Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of the radical left La France Insoumise ('Unbowed France'), quickly sought to put the municipal elections – in which his party did not perform well - behind him. In an online meeting with party members he argued that “our people understood that there's one election that counts in this country: the presidential election”.
There is little doubt that, after their successes in the municipal elections, EELV and the Socialist Party (PS) see a new political opportunity opening up for them. The PS, led by Olivier Faure, largely succeeded in its election strategy, which it says shows there is now an urgent need for a “social and ecological” political force in the country. The EELV's national general secretary Julien Bayou, meanwhile, thinks that “it's not impossible that we've hit a winning note” and that a political space is “opening up”.
There is the same sense of optimism from the leftwing group Géneration.s, whose spokesperson Benjamin Lucas sees the recent elections as a tipping point. “This momentum from the [Greens] and the Left in the municipal elections proves that it's possible in 2022!” he said.
Christian Paul, a former socialist MP who has long argued that there should be just one presidential candidate to the left of President Emmanuel Macron, said: “Despite all the reservations you might have about that election – the low turnout, the green vote concentrated in the large urban centres – the fact is that the devastated battlefield that existed until that point is now behind us.” He added: “From now on the parties, associations and unions must take note of this demand from civic society for this success to carry on: they must reach out and end their fratricidal games.”
As the long summer holiday arrives, it does indeed seems that the country's political tectonic plates are lining up in that direction. A large number of political gatherings encompassing elements of the Left and the Greens have been scheduled for the autumn, on top of the many joint texts and statements that have been issued. It is true that the idea of having one joint conference for parties of the Left and the Greens proved short-lived. However, reciprocal invitation have been handed out between participants at three main gatherings taking place at the end of August; the EELV conference at Pantin in the north-east suburbs of Paris, La France Insoumise's gathering at Valence in south-east France and the PS summer meeting at Blois in central France.
At the beginning of September there will also be the second staging of the 'Festival des Idées', organised by Christian Paul at La Charité-sur-Loire in central France, to enable parties and associations to debate their ideas together. There will also be action this autumn from unions, associations and politicians following the appeal 'Plus Jamais Ça' ('Never Again') that was launched by 18 groups in March 2020.
“I've been trying to keep count of all the joint initiatives, but there are so many of them I haven't managed to,” said MEP Emmanuel Maurel of the Gauche Républicaine et Socialiste (GRS) party, founded in 2019, which is planning its own “republican Left” gatherings this autumn.
Following on from the many discussions that took place on the Zoom platform during the lockdown in France, political parties will again be encouraged to work with local citizens networks and associations this autumn in an operation called “Common Initiative”. Its aim is to find measures which “bring people together” as a prelude to drawing up a common manifesto for the Left and Greens in 2022. “There's already been a start to the project with the 45 proposals made by 'Plus Jamais Ça': that provides a good basis on which to build an environmental transition element within social justice,” said Julien Bayou from EELV.
Yet between now and 2022 there is always the risk that the political dynamics will start to pull in opposite directions. On the one hand there will be pressure from the 'coalitionists' who feel their strategy of a joint approach was vindicated in the municipal elections. But, ranged against this, individual ambitions, idealogical differences – for example over Europe and economic growth – and strategic disagreements – which group is best placed to win, and with whom - may lead to an explosion in the number of candidacies.
At the moment the political landscape on the Left is divided into two main camps with their own distinct boundaries. One is represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his La France Insoumise who advocate a movement based on their 2017 manifesto 'L'Avenir en commun' ('The common future') and its demand for a break with the past. Meanwhile the Greens and the PS, who worked hand in hand in the municipal elections, are working out the best way to continue their close cooperation. This attempt is haunted by the recent and still painful memory of the socialist presidency of François Hollande from 2012 to 2017 whch included ministers from both parties.
A clash of personalities and strategies
As far as La France Insoumise (LFI) is concerned, the issue is straightforward. Pointing to his strong showing in the 2017 presidential vote, and relying on the chaos of the health crisis to rekindle his status as a statesman, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has not hidden his desire to stand for the presidency for a third and final time. It is now simply a question of when he decides is the best moment to announce this.
However Mélenchon, an MP for Marseille, starts with a disadvantage. Even though his party won a district within Marseille in the recent elections, and gained control of a town in northern France, it lacked a clear strategy. Overall the results came as a further setback after LFI's failures in the 2019 Europeans elections. “They are municipal elections, one mustn't get too carried away,” has been the mantra from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, pointing to the huge abstention rate among the working classes who he will be targeting in 2022. “The snapshot that was taken during the municipal elections was that of the bourgeoisie vote,” said Mélenchon loyalist and LFI MP Éric Coquerel. “There's no one better than Jean-Luc to spearhead a presidential campaign.”
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Mélenchon's party, which adopts a softer tone towards the Communist Party, is convinced that the wishful thinking surrounding the coalition between the green EELV and the Socialist Party (PS) will result in a wishy-washy political consensus. They have already dubbed this “environmentalised social democracy” and a “environmental-liberal force”.
The Greens themselves see Mélenchon as “uncontrollable”. But for them the biggest obstacle to any coalition with the PS is posed by their own internal dynamics, which are seen as more complicated than those inside La France Insoumise. The first reason for this is that the Greens, too, mistrust the idea of a coalition. “We're not here to bring together the 'Left',” has been the constant refrain of EELV's Julien Bayrou. He fears that not only could the project end with the watering down of environmentalism in relation to social democracy, but also in a narrowing of the electoral space.
There is also concern within the EELV about alienating environmental partners who have been with them for some time. Almost exactly a year ago the EELV signed an agreement with the MP and former minister Delphine Batho (representing Génération Écologie), Corinne Lepage from green party Cap21 and Jean-Marc Governatori from the Alliance Écologiste Indépendante. Yet all of these partners have a strong dislike of what they call the “old productionist Left” and of the Socialist Party in particular.
There are issues on the PS side too. It is true that the prospect of an alliance with Génération.s is on the cards, even if the latter's Benjamin Lucas warns that this “can't just be a simple cartel between parties”. But the PS – once the dominant party on the Left - has still not put all its rifts and ambiguities behind it. Olivier Faure, who was elected its leader in 2018, has espoused a strategy of reaching out beyond the party. But he still has to get this approach endorsed by the party's congress, which is due to take place at the end of 2020. And there are powerful groups ranged against this line.
On top of all this there are the battles between personalities and rival strategies which have quietly been taking place among the Greens. MEP Yannick Jadot wants to launch his 2022 campaign as fast as possible while Éric Polle, the mayor of Grenoble, is getting ready in his own way, meeting with journalists and elected officials and accumulating column inches in the morning papers.
At the end of July Piolle will launch a new collective organisation for the country's mayors with the newly-elected mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. This network, called 'Cités en Commun' ('Cities in Common'), will bring together the “new generation” of socialist mayors (Nathalie Appéré at Rennes and Johanna Rolland at Nantes, both in western France, and perhaps Michaël Delafosse, the new mayor of the southern city of Montpellier) with the newly-elected green mayors, most of whom lean more towards Piolle than Jadot. The aim of this new group is to examine urban issues such as housing, transport and the fight against pollution. Yet it is clear to everyone that it could also become a melting pot for the 'humanist' alliance that Éric Polle called for in his New Year's message to beat Macron. He hopes that the mayor of Paris and also perhaps La France Insoumise's François Ruffin will become valuable allies.
EELV's national boss Julien Bayou refuses to be drawn on whether Piolle or Jadot would be a better candidate, all too aware that such a debate will recall the bitter internal squabbles that have split the party in the past. “We have to move forward step by step,” he said. And in what sounded like a warning he added: “But there will be an advantage for the person who most presents a united front.”
The EELV national leader indicated that he wants to resolve the sensitive issue of how to choose the party's presidential candidate by a “vote” that will be arranged before the summer of 2021. But Bayou has been careful not to specify what form this vote will take – for example a purely internal poll or one involving members of other parties. He knows that in both the PS and the Greens there are bitter memories of the primary election to choose a presidential candidate, known as the “Belle Alliance populaire”, which took place ahead of the 2017 presidential election.
Meanwhile the PS and Greens still have to manage their relations for the regional elections which are to be held in France in the spring of 2021. The idea of an alliance between the Greens and the PS in the first round of voting has for the moment been ruled out, apart perhaps from in those regions where the far-right Rassemblement National poses a major electoral threat. La France Insoumise has not formally discussed its strategy for those elections, but Éric Coquerel has already made it clear that the party will not be as low profile as it was to its cost during the municipal elections. “We can't afford to be invisible one year ahead of the presidential election,” he said.
Whatever happens, the coming period is unlikely to be a calm one. Christian Paul casts his mind back to the 18 months which preceded the victory of the left-wing green coalition Printemps Marseillais in Marseille last month. The period witnessed rifts, setbacks and battles between local candidates and their national offices. “One thing is certain,” he laughs, “we're going to be suffering for two years!”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter