The French left is divided, again, reports Politico.
Part of the French left is embarrassed by radical firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s call to impeach President Emmanuel Macron, showing that France’s left-wing alliance is not as solid as it pretends to be.
This new spat within the New Popular Front alliance, which came first in snap elections last month, is good news for the Macron camp, which hopes to benefit from a fragmented opposition.
Over the weekend, Mélenchon — founder of the France Unbowed movement — and his garde rapprochée once again urged Macron to appoint Lucie Castets as prime minister. Castets is the preferred candidate of the pan-left alliance that gathers Mélenchon’s party along with Socialists, Greens and Communists.
But this time they added a threat.
If Macron doesn’t give in to their demands, the parliament should launch an impeachment procedure as “the refusal to recognize a legislative election and the decision to ignore it constitute a reprehensible breach of the elementary requirements of the presidential mandate,” Mélenchon wrote in a piece published in La Tribune, which was co-signed by party heavyweights such as Manuel Bompard and Mathilde Panot.