France’s centre-left has been angered by Emmanuel Macron’s decision to appoint Michel Barnier as prime minister, promoting a right-far-right alliance, even though the New Popular Front won the last election.
“The elections were stolen by the French” and “those who have ruled France for 40 years are getting out of the mothballs” are some of the reactions, while large demonstrations are already being prepared that will probably shake the country.
France 52 days after the early parliamentary elections that elected a French National Assembly without a clear majority but led by the New Popular Front is led to a new crisis with the appointment of a new prime minister by President Emmanuel Macron who ignored the popular mandate and did not even test whether it can be formed majority with the first party.
From the first reactions, it became clear that the conservative 73-year-old Michel Barnier will have to turn to bargaining with the extreme right to form a government capable of surviving a motion of censure and putting an end to the most serious political crisis of the Fifth Republic.
Read about it: Michel Barnier: Who is France’s new prime minister – What is changing in French politics?
“The election was stolen from the French people,” complained Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is part of the New Popular Front, a broad coalition of parties ranging from the Socialists to Mélenchon’s France Insubordinate, which came first in the election.
“The president has just decided to officially deny the result of the parliamentary elections that he had announced. It is not the New People’s Front, which came first in the elections, that will have the prime minister… So the elections were stolen from the French people. The message was rejected,” Melanchon continued. The leftist alliance accused Macron of ignoring the result by choosing a conservative. Mathilde Panot, a member of parliament for Insubordinate France, spoke of an “unacceptable democratic coup”.
In a video posted on social media, Mélenchon called Barnier a “personality closest” to far-right positions and called for “strong mobilisations” the day after Saturday, the day the left had planned demonstrations against President Macron.
“The denial of democracy has reached its peak: a prime minister from the party that ranked 4th” in the parliamentary elections, referring to the right-wing Republican party, Olivier Faure said for his part.
The far-right National Alarm (RN) party appeared to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, saying it would not rush to table a motion of censure against Barnier, as its leader Jordan Bardela said, stressing that his party “will judge the speech on the general policy’ of the new prime minister before deciding his stance. The RN came third in the parliamentary elections.
Sebastien Cheney, an RN MP, told French broadcaster BFM TV that the far-right party will wait to see what Barnier has to say on immigration and changing France’s electoral system.
“They are pulling out of mothballs those who have ruled France for 40 years,” said RN MP Laurent Jacobelli on TF1.
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