Political Observer: its ‘as if’ the politically impotent Macron hadn’t called the snap election?

JUN 18, 2024

@FT never surprises it’s readership

Editor: a selection of words, phrases, sentences & possibly paragraphs in this diatribe. Note that it takes ‘three reporters’ to cover this news story, with the ‘help’ of the Senior Staff! Nothing stokes the fires of usable political hysteria like ‘The Left’ in any of is iterations, permutations raises the hackles of its Readership!

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populist far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

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Mélenchon — who has long been the left’s standard-bearer but divides leftist colleagues.

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“This is the new generation of the left,” Raphaël Glucksmann, a centre-left EU lawmaker…

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But hours later on Friday, the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, or LFI) party, the largest member of the new alliance, reminded everybody that he remains a force to be reckoned with — and a tyrannical one at that.

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Mélenchon carried out a late-night purge,…

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“Candidacies for life do not exist,” Mélenchon said later,…

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Friday’s purge was an extraordinarily provocative step, coming on the very day the leftwing parties formally launched the New Popular Front, invoking the unity spirit of the original one under Léon Blum in 1936, when the left came together to thwart a far-right takeover of France. Several of those excluded by Mélenchon had been strong proponents of such an alliance.

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The leadership of France Insoumise, far from rising to the occasion, is stooping to the worst schemes,” François Ruffin, a dissident LFI MP wrote on social media site X. “Let’s not kid ourselves: you cannot, for country, aspire to peace and democracy, and for party, a reign of fear and brutality.”

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It could make it much harder for candidates for President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance to qualify for second round run-offs.

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A former Trotskyist who served as a junior education minister in a socialist government from 2000-2 before turning to the Eurosceptic hard left, Mélenchon has long had a reputation as a political bruiser with a volcanic temper.

In one infamous moment in 2018, he angrily confronted an investigator who came to search his offices during a campaign funding probe, screaming into the man’s face: “La République, c’est moi!”, the equivalent of “I am the law!”

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A gifted orator and debater, Mélenchon is the most successful recent vote-winner for the left. He won 22 per cent in the first round of the 2022 presidential election, coming third, just behind Le Pen.

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“He is a key figure, someone who has proved himself in the most challenging election in the French system, the presidential election,” said Bruno Cautrès, researcher at Sciences Po university. “He gave the left a future with the creation of Nupes, but in the end he was not able to manage the different people and temperaments within it.”

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There were also fights over Mélenchon’s lukewarm support for Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The final breakdown came last year over Mélenchon’s refusal to condemn the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and downplaying of antisemitic incidents, stances that reflected both his revolutionary zeal and strategy of rallying Muslim voters.

Meanwhile, sloppily dressed LFI MPs hurling abuse at opponents have disrupted the National Assembly. Their conduct has lent weight to critics’ claims that Mélenchon, who guides his troops from outside the chamber, is a demagogue not committed to parliamentary democracy.

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The public sees Mélenchon as a more polarising, less professional and less presidential than his far-right rival, according to an Ifop poll last year.

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Under the terms of their new alliance, the centre-left will contest 100 more seats than at elections two years ago, although LFI is still running the most candidates of the NPF members.

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Even Mélenchon’s allies say a more consensual approach is needed to maintain unity.

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Mélenchon himself signalled a partial retreat on Sunday, when his protégé Quatennens withdrew his candidacy. “I don’t want to be a problem. All our efforts must be for the victory of the NPF,” the party leader told France 3 television.

Editor: here is ‘Philippe Marlière, professor of French politics at University College London’

Philippe Marlière, professor of French politics at University College London, said it was “very clear that his party now understands that if the New Popular Front is to be successful and remain united during this campaign, Mélenchon should keep quiet and that’s a complete difference with 2022.”

Editor: The Reader might think that I have engaged in political opportunism, dishonesty and other political maleficence ! Yet I have treated this political intervention by The Financial Times, its Journalists, and its Editors, for what it is political propaganda! Aimed at a Readership that views ‘The Left’, as a clear and present danger to an utterly failed ‘Centrists Politics’ still unable to self-emancipate from the a toxin of a collapsed Neo-Liberalism!

Political Observer