From party headquarters to courts, from the web to the streets. The climate is heating up in France after the political earthquake of the European elections on 30 June, seventeen days after the early elections for the renewal of the Assemblée Nationale wanted by Macron to deal with the electoral shock. Not only does the neo-Gaullist feud end in the courtroom. The unions have called for large protests over the weekend against the far right and in favor of “progressive alternatives”, claiming that “the Republic and democracy are in danger”. There is growing concern about maintaining public order in Paris, where up to 100 thousand people are expected. With the paradox that, while awaiting a judicial decision on the procedural chaos in the centre-right, the magistrates’ union is among the first to have supported the initiative. But influencers also join the protests, 200 of whom are mobilizing to create a wall against right-wing extremism, among them well-known names such as Juliette Katz, Camille & Justine, Swann Perissé, Pomme, Antoine Goretti.
France is in turmoil. But those who pay the heaviest consequences are the Républicains, the heirs of De Gaulle, Chirac and Sarkozy. The Paris court will decide today at 11am on the legitimacy of the decision of the political office of the party, which on Wednesday voted unanimously to expel its president Eric Ciotti, after the leader announced the alliance with the ultra-right Marine Le Pen. Ciotti, who seems to have had lunch yesterday with his new ally, the RN leader Jordan Bardella, posted a video yesterday from the headquarters of the Republicans, also the now disputed one, and said he was ready “to work for France”. But party officials consider him a “traitor” and have decided to reconvene the political office today to validate his expulsion. According to Le Monde, Ciotti had agreed his decision to join the ultra-right not only with Le Pen and Bardella but also with the entrepreneur and publisher, Vincent Bolloré, owner of CNews, Paris Match, Europe 1 and Le Journal du Dimanche, who he has long worked for “a union of the right” and for “the preservation of French identity”. Ciotti and Bolloré – recalls the newspaper – are often seen having lunch together in Paris, every summer they meet in the south of France and in the last presidential elections they would have supported Eric Zemmour if he had reached the run-off, instead snatched again, but without success, by Marine Le Pen .
Another rift is taking place on the right, between Marion Maréchal and Eric Zemmour, leader of Reconquête, who expelled his leader after her decision, fresh from her seat in Strasbourg, to form a common front with aunt Marine.
On the left, the agreement between Socialists, France Insoumise, Communists and Greens, united in the “popular front”, is concluded.
A “historic day” for the leader of the ultra-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But Raphaël Glucksmann, leader of Place Publique and architect of the moderate left’s comeback in the European elections, is kept out of the alliance, at least for now.
