The radical left-wing forces of the pan-European movement "Now, the People!" - Bloco de Esquerda, Podemos, La France insoumise, the Danish Red-Green Alliance, the Swedish Left Party, and the Finnish Left Alliance - kicked off their European election campaign for the May European elections in Marseille on Saturday 11 May.
“It is not a meeting like any other, but an event that will have its place in the history of the movements that shared our ideas”, said its co-initiator Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who linked this pan-European movement, the Yellow Vests, and the Grande Jacquerie, the peasant uprising against the feudal seigneuries that rocked the French kingdom in 1358.
The various speakers strongly criticised the European-level austerity and anti-social policies, which have mainly affected the southern Mediterranean countries. Moreover, they all insisted on the need to tackle the migration issue, by putting an end to the European policies that are at the root of these movements, as Mr Mélenchon has repeatedly stressed. Most of all, the climate emergency was the talking point for all its members on the “breakaway” left.
Mr Mélenchon, accompanies by his French head of list Manon Aubry, was the most vocal in his criticism of the European Union: “We need to get out of the European treaties, because the top of the hierarchy of norms in the European treaties is competition, free and undistorted competition.” He shouted out: “Down with this system!”
Demanding a “realistic” internationalism, understanding that the world “remains organised in nations these days”, Mr Mélenchon considered that the only relevant international organisation is the United Nations. “You can always say it's some old thing, it doesn't work, we agree! But it's the only thing we have!”
The movement hopes to expand further. For the time being, the number of Member States, from which the national parties and the movements drawn from them come, would not be sufficient to form an autonomous political group in the next European Parliament. It takes MEPs elected in at least seven different countries to form a political group in the European Parliament.
At the end of 2018, at an internal meeting of the European Parliament’s GUE/NGL group, the MEPs who were members of the 'Now, the People!' movement had been reassuring that they wanted to remain in the group in the next European Parliament (see EUROPE 12132/14).
According to a recent Transform! Europe survey dating from 10 May, La France insoumise would, given the current state of voting intentions, be credited with 8.5% (5 seats), Podemos with 14.1% (8 seats), Bloco with 7.1% (2 seats), the Danish Red-Green Alliance with 7% (1 seat), the Swedish Left Party with 9.2% (2 seats), and the Finnish Left Alliance with 8.7% (1 seat). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)