A "Path to Victory" or a "Form of Hypocrisy"? The Left Exposes Its Divisions Over the Possibility of a Union in the Presidential Election

The question is not new, but the left is bringing it out of the closet before its political return, which begins this Thursday, August 21 with the summer universities of La France Insoumise and the Ecologists : is a united candidate, or even a single champion, needed for the 2027 presidential election?

Both the "yes" and "no" supporters have had the opportunity to reiterate their positions in recent hours through various media outlets.

Marine Tondelier is part of the first camp. In an interview with Libération , the national secretary of the Ecologists once again defended the need for a single left-wing candidate.

Recalling that the New Popular Front alliance was born in the last legislative elections in response to the rise of the far right, she asks: "Who can sincerely think that we would have the luxury of division in 2025, 2026 and 2027 more than in 2024?"

Alexis Corbière is on the same page. Excluded from La France Insoumise during the 2024 legislative elections, like other figures in the movement (François Ruffin, Raquel Garrido, Daniele Simonnet, Clémentine Autain, etc.), the Seine-Saint-Denis MP has since been striving to advocate for unity, seeing it as "a path to victory."

"We must not constantly reproduce scenarios that have lost in previous elections," warns this former close friend of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in an interview published online Thursday evening by Le Figaro . Before warning those who might be tempted by a solo escape:

"The competition to see who will have the most beautiful tomb in the political cemetery of the left is ridiculous."

Marine Tondelier and Alexis Corbière will have the opportunity to renew their message very soon.

The first is organizing a "political plenary" with the Ecologists this Thursday in Strasbourg, alongside Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party and also a supporter of a union, but without LFI, unlike Marine Tondelier and the "purged" of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's movement who want the widest possible opening.

The latter will meet in Châteaudun (Eure-et-Loir) on Saturday, August 30, in the presence of members of the Génération.s party, including its founder Benoît Hamon, and Lucie Castets, left-wing candidate for Matignon in 2024.

At the latter's invitation, all the elected officials cited here, including Marine Tondelier and Olivier Faure, went to Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine) on July 2 to take the "oath" to have a "common candidate."

Their main opponents are well known. In fact, Marine Tondelier didn't hesitate to mention them in her interview with Libération: "Raphaël Glucksmann and Jean-Luc Mélenchon." Reluctant about the idea of ​​a primary unlike the Unitarians, the co-leader of Place publique and the leader of La France Insoumise have a position that "will be increasingly difficult to maintain," according to the head of the Ecologists.

"I don't understand how, with the anti-fascist conviction that they both have deeply rooted in their bodies and know how to declaim with great emphasis, they can assume to run at all costs when the risk of seeing France tip to the extreme right is so high," she laments.

The dig didn't go unnoticed. MP Paul Vannier, who is also co-head of the elections department at LFI, took it upon himself to respond without mincing his words. Considering that Marine Tondelier declared herself a candidate during this interview—she said that the Ecologists "will present a strong candidacy in this primary"—the rebel questioned on the social network X:

"But who among those who want a single candidacy isn't a candidate? Who believes the Socialist Party will fall in line behind the Greens? How long will this masked ball last?"

An exchange ensued with Green Party senator Thomas Dossus. "Who believes that permanent division will lead to victory?" he asked. "A formidable question," the person concerned replied in an original way, sharing a BFMTV article from December 2022, in which Marine Tondelier expressed irritation at the "forcers" pushing for a joint left-wing list for the 2024 European elections.

Namely... The rebels, usually less successful than their ecologist partners in the European elections, even if they reversed this trend in 2024, winning nearly 10% of the vote where the green list reached a little more than 5% of the vote.

On the substance, the rebellious coordinator Manuel Bompard called on RTL this Thursday for "frankness" and to "put an end" to a "form of hypocrisy." This "consists of making people believe that it would be possible to have a single candidacy between different political parties that sometimes have very different political proposals," according to the Bouches-du-Rhône MP.

And to clarify: "I'm not talking specifically about Marine Tondelier, with whom we ran jointly in the last legislative elections. But I read, for example, an interview with Raphaël Glucksmann, who defends political positions that are not those of La France Insoumise."

The MEP, who once again allied himself with the Socialist Party in the last European elections and finished as the leader of the left, has for some time been laying the groundwork for a candidacy for the Élysée Palace. Regarding the possibility of a union, he advocates the same arguments as the rebels. This is unusual, as he and the rebels have distinguished themselves primarily by their mutual hostility.

"We all know that there will be two political options in 2027 that are not mutually resolvable," he said in an interview with Mediapart on Wednesday. "We do not have the same vision of France, Europe, or the world, and that our approaches to democracy and public debate are opposed."

Like LFI, Raphaël Glucksmann questions the sincerity of the unitary approach: "Inviting the rebels to meetings while hoping that they won't come, to make them take the blame for the disunity, that doesn't interest me. I don't want to pretend nothing and take responsibility for everything," he says, adding:

"For my part, I will not play Lenin in opposition to practice social liberalism once in power. I want every word spoken to commit us."

In his view, this approach will not weaken the left: "The only way to broaden the electoral spectrum of the left is to have two candidates, reflecting acknowledged fundamental differences," he says, referring to François Mitterrand's victory in 1981.

A statement that has the merit of being clear. And which speaks volumes about the work that awaits the advocates of a broad rally. This is a good thing: on the left, the holidays are over. Time for summer schools.