In Strasbourg, Marine Tondelier once again calls for unity of the left in view of the 2027 presidential election
A political return with the presidential election in sight. On the first day of their summer university in Strasbourg, the Ecologists organized a large gathering of the entire left, including Mélenchonists, on Thursday, August 21, calling for "responsibility" with a view to a joint candidacy for the presidential election.
In her speech, the national secretary of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier , once again called for a primary between Raphaël Glucksmann and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while both men reject any idea of a union of the left for 2027, each preferring to go it alone to succeed in the polls. "Let's stop with the personal attacks and the picrocholine wars, and the commedia dell'arte, and the "blah blah blah, if you put a dissident there, I'll put one there for you" (...) We don't have time," she hammered home, putting pressure on her partners.
"There is a shift towards fascism underway. It is taking place at the global level, as if states were falling dominoes (...). We have a historic role to play because France is one of the next dominoes," Marine Tondelier also warned. And she warned that "environmentalists are not intended to be just the nice organizers of unity," and will be represented "in the upcoming primary," specifying that she would make public "in the fall" her decision on her potential candidacy.
At a meeting entitled "To win tomorrow," the leader of the Socialists, Olivier Faure, and representatives of all the parties of the New Popular Front (NFP), including Place publique and La France insoumise (LFI), met on stage.
But Thierry Brochot, general delegate of Place publique, Raphaël Glucksmann's party, quickly dashed hopes, estimating that the union "is not in itself a driving force" and only becomes so if "it has a meaning and a common project ." The "insoumise" deputy Alma Dufour also noted "strategic divergences" between LFI and its partners in the NFP.
"Unity is not the only condition for victory, but without unity, what has already happened will be repeated. As if we had not understood that four, five, six left-wing candidates in the first round means none in the second round," replied Olivier Faure. And if the left does not make it to the second round, it "would no longer have a place in the political debate," he warned. "Eight out of ten French left-wingers want unity," hammered the former "insoumise" Clémentine Autain, a pro-unionist, calling on her partners "to take action."
Support for the citizen mobilization of September 10For now, there is at least one point of agreement: almost everyone has promised to vote for the censure of the Bayrou government during the examination of the 2026 budget. They also promise to support citizen movements, including the September 10 blockade.
A citizen mobilization with still unclear contours but "which we must support," assured Olivier Faure. "We will be there on September 10 and the following days," he promised. Not to "channel, tame, instrumentalize or subdue" this movement but to "offer it a political outlet that is not that of the extreme right."
This gathering follows the initiative launched at the beginning of July in Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine) by Lucie Castets, the short-lived candidate for Matignon of the New Popular Front (NFP), for a joint candidacy in the next presidential election, faced with the risk of seeing the far right come to power. "The bar is high for a victory for the left and the Ecologists but it can be reached," assured the latter in Strasbourg, convinced that "unity is the key." "I believe that the left must be soluble. They are soluble in the fight against inequalities, for international law, for social justice and tax justice," she also added.
Lucie Castets had obtained in Bagneux that the Socialist Party, Les Ecologistes, Génération.s, Debout (the party of François Ruffin) and L'Après (the party of the ex-"insoumis") enact the principle of a "common project" and a common candidate for 2027. They decided in particular to agree on the terms of designation of the candidate at the end of 2025 and on the choice of the candidate "between May and October 2026" .
"There will be two political offers in 2027" on the left, assures Raphaël GlucksmannBut while the NFP had managed to bring together almost the entire left in the legislative elections after the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Raphaël Glucksmann have so far refused any participation in a new unitary initiative, each preferring to go it alone. The leader of Place publique insisted in an interview published Wednesday by Mediapart : "There will be two political offers in 2027" on the left "which are not soluble in each other," he declared, recalling his opposition to Jean-Luc Mélenchon on his "vision of France, Europe, the world" , of "democracy as well as public debate."
In an interview with Libération broadcast on Thursday, Marine Tondelier deplored these "little games of apparatus." "Our compass, for all of us, must be anti-fascism ," she warned. "Look at what is happening in the world, where great democracies are toppling one by one. France is one of the next dominoes that could fall. And if France falls, it is Europe that will wobble."
Another rally planned, without the “insoumis”"Why did we create the NFP? Because the danger of Jordan Bardella [president of the National Rally] arriving at Matignon was imminent. Who can honestly think that we would have, in 2025, 2026 and 2027, the luxury of division any more than in 2024?" Marine Tondelier argues, also advocating for broad rallies in the event of early legislative by-elections and for the municipal elections of 2026.
But for this deadline, during which the Ecologists hope to retain the cities won in 2020 and conquer others with the rest of the left, tensions are sometimes strong locally with the socialist or "unsubmissive" partners.
A similar united rally is planned for next week, for the Socialist Party's summer days in Blois, but without the "insoumis", with whom relations have been frosty, particularly since the socialists refused to censure the government on the 2025 budget.
This ode to unity risks being undermined as early as Friday, at the LFI summer universities in Châteauneuf-sur-Isère (Drôme) with the always eagerly awaited speech of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, already launched into his fourth presidential campaign.
The World with AFP
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