Barred From Government, France’s Left Seeks a Way Forward
Saturday saw protests across France after Emmanuel Macron named conservative Michel Barnier as prime minister. The decision fueled claims that Macron had ignored July’s election result — but has also put the victorious left-wing alliance on the back foot.
Protesters march in Toulouse and cities across France to protest against Emmanuel Macron's choice of Michel Barnier as prime minister on September 7, 2024. (Alain Pitton / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Democracy is not just the art of accepting that you’ve won, it’s also the humility of accepting that you’ve lost,” insists Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He was speaking on Saturday at the first demonstration since President Emmanuel Macron nominated right-winger Michel Barnier as France’s prime minister.
One hundred sixty thousand people, according to France Insoumise — twenty-six thousand according to the authorities — came to voice their anger at a denial of democracy. When student organizations and France Insoumise called the rally the previous week, it had been meant to pressure the president to name a left-wing premier from the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance. This was the coalition that elected the biggest number of MPs after Macron called a snap election in June.
Holding a cardboard sign with the septuagenarian Barnier’s picture next to one of Joe Biden — “It’s the oldest Prime Minister the Fifth Republic ever had” — and a few headlines from the day of his appointment, teacher David Brunet said the choice was “a whole bunch of bullshit.”
“For now, [Marine Le Pen’s] Rassemblement National is going to be the referee, if they don’t issue a ‘no-confidence’ vote against Barnier’s government. The Left alone won’t be enough to overthrow it,” the protester explains.
In this situation, he said it was hard to see a strategy emerge from parliament. “There won’t be new elections at least a year from now, they’ll be able to conduct a right-wing and far-right policy using 49.3 [passing bills by decree] so the street is where we have to be to express our dissatisfaction.”
The election result in July left France uncertain as to what would come next. The NFP gathering the main left-wing parties scored 193 seats in the National Assembly, making it the leading force, before Macron’s centrist camp (166) and the Rassemblement National and its allies (142).
It took two weeks for the NFP’s main parties (France Insoumise, the Parti Socialiste, the Greens, and the Communists) to agree on a prime ministerial candidate who would be in charge of implementing their program. They picked the civil servant, economist, and advocate for public services Lucie Castets. But in late August, Macron rebuffed her name.
Since the nomination of Barnier last Thursday, the NFP parties have seemed largely united in their reaction. The Parti Socialiste said in a statement that its MPs will vote to censor the new government. Mélenchon and various figures from France Insoumise said it was a coup by Macron and a denial of democracy. The Greens’ national secretary, Marine Tondelier, and her Communist counterpart, Fabien Roussel, both said that Barnier’s nomination went against the results of the vote and backed demonstrations. However, the Socialists did not join calls for the protest on Saturday, saying that they would use parliamentary means to oppose the new government.
Unity on the Left
Many have questioned whether the NFP alliance has a future, given that the previous alliance between these parties — uniting the Left after Macron’s reelection in 2022 — did not long endure. This time around, the Left has highlighted the reason for its alliance: its basis in a program, which has been fiercely negotiated, detailed, and approved by economists. The document’s main objectives include the cancellation of the unpopular pension reform, a rise in the minimum salary, and the reinstatement of a wealth tax.
Lisa Debaud, an eighteen-year-old at the protest, believes in this alliance: “For example, in this alliance, we know that the Greens and the Socialists are good at going out and talking, at ‘shaking hands’ and being sharp in their political relations, while other parties like the NPA [Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste] and France Insoumise have a very large and very interesting militant force to go out and debate, inform, and discuss, so I think that in the militant effort we complement each other well.”
To Debaud, this demonstration is a display of anger as well as a way to remind the left-wing parties what is expected of them. “This demonstration should be used to put pressure on the Left in parliament so they stick to their guns . . . there’s a kind of despair, we’ve had the Yellow Vests, we’ve had pension reform, we have institutions that are closed off to public opinion, and our voice isn’t heard,” she said, as she held a petition calling for Macron’s impeachment.
While every party in the alliance agreed to vote against Barnier’s government, only France Insoumise and part of the Greens are actively calling for an impeachment of the president. This procedure would require a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly and Senate to vote against the president if they see a “breach of duty manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate.” This procedure has never been used during the Fifth Republic — and for now, its success looks highly doubtful given the composition of the two chambers.
One of the main questions is whether Barnier’s nomination will strengthen the Left alliance in a strong opposition group, or merely sow frustration. One narrative, pushed by the centrists and some members of the right wing of the Socialists, is accusing this party of being responsible for Barnier’s nomination because it refused the potential candidacy of Bernard Cazeneuve. A former Parti Socialiste member, he was prime minister in the final months of François Hollande’s presidency ending in 2017. One critic was the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who told Libération that her party had prevented Cazeneuve’s nomination.
However, many on the Left saw the airing of Cazeneuve’s name as a way for Macron to break the NFP alliance and push the Socialists to join a centrist coalition and distance themselves from France Insoumise. In a TV interview, Olivier Faure, current president of the Parti Socialiste and one of the architects of the alliance, stated: “There was a desire to break up the Nouveau Front Populaire without even having the assurance that Bernard Cazeneuve would be at Matignon [the premier’s office]. Can you imagine what that means? . . . How can you think for a moment that it was the decision of the Socialists that guided the president’s choice?”
The alliance has been dividing the Socialists since 2022 and was again addressed during the party’s annual meetup on August 29. Among the grievances against Faure’s strategy, his opponents say there is a clear incompatibility with La France Insoumise on matters such as foreign affairs and laïcité (state secularism). They also cite their prospects for the next presidential election in 2027, given the relatively good score for the Socialist list led by the more liberal Raphaël Glucksmann in June’s elections (14 percent), whereas France Insoumise only scored 10 percent. The party congress that should take place in 2025 could stir up a hornet’s nest, as some candidates for the party presidency preach taking their distance from France Insoumise — and could break off the alliance.
The start of the next parliamentary session is scheduled for Tuesday, October 1. Until then, each party will try to find strategies to navigate this new configuration. But Macron’s stance and the nomination of Barnier surely have prevented the balance of power from shifting to the parliament, as it usually does when the ruling party lacks a majority. For the Left, this poses a considerable challenge.