Once ‘Unthinkable,’ French Left Forms Coalition To Challenge Macron in Parliament

Less than two weeks after France's neoliberal president, Emmanuel Macron, defeated the far-right's Marine Le Pen to win a second five-year term, the country's four major left parties have agreed in principle to form an electoral coalition that aims to deny Macron a parliamentary majority.

April 1, 2023 | Source: Common Dreams | by Kenny Stancil

Less than two weeks after France’s neoliberal president, Emmanuel Macron, defeated the far-right’s Marine Le Pen to win a second five-year term, the country’s four major left parties have agreed in principle to form an electoral coalition that aims to deny Macron a parliamentary majority.

France’s center-left Socialist Party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Unbowed reached a draft agreement on Wednesday following extensive negotiations. The French Communist Party and Greens had already agreed to join the alliance earlier this week.

“We want to elect MPs in a majority of constituencies to stop Emmanuel Macron from pursuing his unjust and brutal policies and beat the far-right,” the Socialist Party and France Unbowed said in a joint statement, according to Agence France-Presse.

The pact was spearheaded by Mélenchon, who finished just behind Le Pen in the first round of France’s presidential election and therefore missed out on a chance to challenge the incumbent one-on-one.