In French squares, the color red is especially popular. Processions took place in various cities across the country on Saturday, 200 in all, in which 640 thousand people took part according to the organizing unions and 250 thousand according to the police. However, all without accidents. The processions, the one in Paris departed from République and arrived at place de la Nation passing through the Bastille, they were very colorful, especially red, with numerous Palestinian flags and party representatives, labor unionsassociations, a two weeks after the vote for the first round of early legislative elections.
It was a very first mobilization test for New Popular Front, created to try to stem the advance of the far right. However, there was no shortage of problems right from the start. The allies, but also a large part of the members of La France Insoumise, the party which has the most deputies on the left and the most extremist positions, contest the decisions of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Real “purges”, is the accusation, opponents of the leader’s line who were eliminated, “unpresentable” that appear in the lists: by those who were rescued despite a conviction for domestic violence, how Adrien Quatennens, to those who defined Raphael Glucksmann, an ally in the Front, “the Zionist candidate”. After the protests, Quatennens has announced his withdrawal from the candidacy in the North. “Let the New Popular Front win on June 30 and July 7,” he said at a press conference.
The leader, challenged, responded to the accusations by stating concisely that “there are no lifetime nominations”, but that “political coherence and loyalty in the first parliamentary group of the left are also a requirement for governing”. As for the possibility – feared by many allies – that he will be the candidate for the post of prime minister in the event of victory of the Front, the controversial tribune of the left has made it clear that he does not consider it an ambition of his: “For me it’s not an existential theme, I’m not here to build a career.”
For everyone, however, there is the certainty that France “It’s a crucial moment for democracy”as the trade unionist said Marylise Leon, secretary of the CFDT. At the Parisian demonstration, many leaders of the left in the front row, from the ecologist Yannick Jadot to the socialist Olivier Faure. Even more so the demonstrators who recognized them and tried to approach them with the cry “don’t betray us”. The echoes of the cracks in the Popular Front had reached all the demonstrators.
Another theme that was circulating in the demonstrations was the surprise candidacy of the former president of the republic François Hollande for the socialists, therefore for the Front: “I took this decision – he explained – because I considered this situation serious, more serious than it has ever been”. A survey Opininoway you see the National Rassemblement in the lead with the 33% of voting intentions, ahead of the New Popular Front (25%) and the Renaissance Macronians (20%). The right of the Républicains follows, which is difficult to evaluate given the split after the president’s agreement Eric Ciotti with the RN of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. There are 70 constituencies in which the right and far right will present common candidates but it is difficult to make projections on what will happen to the rest of the Républicains candidates and, above all, to their electorate.
