The French Left, which has long excelled in its ability to unite against a common enemy, appears more divided than ever and incapable of defining a unified strategy for action. At issue are tensions caused by the positions of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise (LFI), whose antisemitic and pro-Hamas stance is alienating more and more of its supporters.
On June 14th and 15th, the French Socialist Party, one of the oldest formations on the French left, held its annual congress. The party has long dominated political life on this side of the political spectrum, but for several years now it has been facing competition both from Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party and the far-Left, embodied by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
At a time when politicians are already beginning to prepare for the 2027 presidential election, the question arises of a single left-wing candidate to counter the ‘danger’ of a potential victory for the nationalist Right behind Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. The presence of several left-wing candidates in the first round increases the risk of the Left being excluded from the second round due to a split in the vote, and therefore of seeing a second round between the RN and Macron’s camp—as in 2017 and as in 2022.
For the Socialists, it has become simply unthinkable to form an alliance with La France Insoumise, which has repeatedly distinguished itself by its antisemitic excesses, due to its electoral positioning aimed at capturing France’s Muslim electorate. Some Socialist MPs are calling for a complete break with LFI, although this has not yet been clearly decided at the party leadership level.
Speaking during the congress, Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj did not mince his words in criticising his former allies, describing Mélenchon as a “filthy antisemite” who “damages the left, universalism, the Republic and secularism.” After hostile reactions from LFI, the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, announced that he had no intention of issuing a public apology on behalf of his MP.
For its part, the LFI party accuses the Socialists of being too conciliatory towards François Bayrou’s government by refusing to vote for censure and to make it fall. For several months, the Socialists have been playing the conciliation-and-dialogue card with the ruling parties, in the hope of influencing government policy on issues they consider crucial, such as preserving civil servants’ rights and reforming the pension system.The rift on the left is also symbolic. For several months now, the LFI party has sadly distinguished itself by its unabashed pro-Palestinian rhetoric and its unapologetic antisemitism, with episodes that have contributed to severely discrediting its image in the eyes of the French public, such as MEP Rima Hassan joining Greta Thunberg on the ‘Selfie Yacht’ last week. The question of an alliance with this party is therefore, for other left-wing forces, a considerable issue of morality and respectability, at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the far-Left, and no longer the RN, that is the foil on the issue of antisemitism. The LFI party is also accused by its allies of imposing, through its radicalism, a form of “psychological domination” that is incompatible with the healthy exercise of democratic debate. Never before has the public held such a negative perception of Mélenchon’s party, which embodied the third way in the last presidential election.
