In France, parties on the left of the political spectrum are building a coalition for the legislative elections on 12 and 19 June, a move they were unable to make during the presidential elections in April that returned Emmanuel Macron as head of state until 2027.
They did so after the approval, on Thursday evening, by a majority of the National Council of the French Parti socialiste (PS) (62%), of an agreement on a programme and a distribution of candidates in the electoral districts that had been negotiated by the party bureau and representatives of La France insoumise (LFI), even if, between now and the elections, dissident candidates are to be expected to appear.
In addition to the agreement with the Parti sociaslite, other agreements were signed with the Parti communiste français (PCF) and Europe Écologie les Verts (EELV). They were all concluded under the conditions dictated by LFI, the radical left-wing party whose candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former member of the left wing of the socialist party who founded his own movement, came third in the presidential elections.
More or less, the four partner parties of this Nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale (Nupes) share the objectives of the programme, both social (increase in the minimum wage, full retirement at 60 years of age with 40 years of service, fairer taxation, defence of public services) and environmental (application of a ‘green’ budget rule).
But it is on the European question that different sensibilities are expressed. Pro-European in their DNA, the socialist party and the environmentalists have so far always been in favour of a reorientation of European policies while remaining within the institutional edifice.
On the other hand, claiming to have put aside previous attempts to leave the EU (‘plan B summits’ - see EUROPE 11744/3), LFI now advocates disobedience to certain rules decided at the European level, convinced that this method would lead other EU countries to follow the French position, out of conviction or obligation. In short, “because it’s France”, as the previous president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, had said at the time about the indulgence of the European level with regard to the country’s persistent difficulties in complying with fiscal rules.
The analysis of the bilateral agreements between the EELV/LFI, PS/LFI and PCF/LFI on European issues shows that the differences in sensitivity have not dissipated, even if the shared objective is to “put an end to the neoliberal and productivist course of the EU”. Governing will not be easy, if Mr Mélenchon succeeds in forcing Mr Macron to appoint him as Prime Minister, if the ‘Nupes’ coalition forms a stable parliamentary majority in the National Assembly.
EELV. The agreement between EELV and LFI, signed on Monday 2 May, is based on the model of the one signed a few days earlier with Génération.s, a member of the Pôle écologiste, and deplores the fact that it is currently impossible to nationalise the energy company EDF and to invest in order to meet climate commitments because of fiscal rules. To overcome these blockages, the two partners believe, “we will have to be prepared to disobey certain European rules”, in particular the Stability and Growth Pact, competition law, and the Common Agricultural Policy.
“We will neither be the first nor the last to do so”, they justify, citing as examples “Spain on energy prices, Germany on the competition between drinking water companies, and Portugal on economic and budgetary aspects”.
Recalling that the EELV members of the European Parliament were “resolutely federalist pro-Europeans” who rejected any Europe à la carte, Karima Delli recalled that the Greens MEPs had already been disobedient by putting the subject of GMOs on the table, for example. By sending arms to Ukraine, the EU would also be disobeying its own treaty rules, according to the chairwoman of the Transport Committee. “European disobedience means: At some point, you have to act urgently. We need more Europe!”, she stressed. “This is not a questioning of Europe”, said Michèle Rivasi.
The environmentalists believe they have framed this concept of disobedience to EU rules. It is written in black and white in the text that “France’s policy cannot be to leave the EU, to break it up, or to end the single currency”. Similarly, respect for the Rule of law and fundamental freedoms is reaffirmed as a way of distinguishing itself from Poland and Hungary.
The agreement bears “rather the pen of LFI”, acknowledged an adviser of the EELV group, ensuring that with the “safeguards” inserted in the agreement, the text is closer to the positions of his political family than those of LFI. “We managed to make LFI move to frame the disobedience”, he insisted.
See the EELV/LFI agreement (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/1jn
PCF. The PCF/LFI agreement, which was finalised on Tuesday 3 May, unreservedly supports disobedience to EU rules in order to free itself from the “fiscal straitjacket, the directives opening up to competition” and to introduce “a principle of social and environmental non-regression”. The differences between the two parties are more on the issue of nuclear power, which the PCF supports.
PS. The PS/LFI agreement is the one that was the most difficult to finalise, especially on the strategy towards Europe.
On this point, the two parties acknowledge their “different histories with the European construction”. “Because of our histories, we are talking about disobedience for some, and transitional derogation for others”, the two partners continue, not excluding “tensions” and “contradictions” in the application of the common programme.
However, they promise to “be prepared to break certain rules” while working to transform them, citing the Stability and Growth Pact, competition law, and the Common Agricultural Policy. They believe that the freezing of the Pact since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic is already “a loophole” that should be closed.
Like the one with the environmentalists, the PS/LFI agreement assures that the objective is not to leave the EU or the euro area, but “to involve other States” to “reorient European policies and modify in a sustainable way the European rules and treaties that are incompatible with our social and environmental ambition”. Finally, echoing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and “in the face of the atrocities decided by Vladimir Putin”, the partners commit to defend “the sovereignty and freedom of Ukraine”, while the EELV/LFI agreement states that they want to “restore peace” and “preserve the integrity of all countries”.
On Wednesday, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEP Leïla Chaibi criticised the detractors of these agreements on the right of the political spectrum. “Opponents are getting restless, they are raising the scarecrow of Frexit, they are caricatures. The idea is not to disobey on principle, but to do what the EU did when it decided to derogate from the 3% (budget deficit) rule during the Covid-19 crisis”, she said. She added: “The EU is disobeying its own rules. (...) Macron is a Frexitor too, because he disobeys personal data rules every day. Germany refused to liberalise water and nothing happened”.
According to Mrs Chaibi, if the Nupes coalition comes to power in France, “we will not burn the treaties”, but “we will disobey on economic issues, not on fundamental rights”. She noted that, in the face of soaring energy prices, price freezes were “no longer a taboo” in Europe.
Renaissance. In the European Parliament, the Renaissance members of the presidential majority condemn disobedience as a method of achieving the objectives set in Europe.
Marie-Pierre Vedrenne was “very saddened” by these agreements and felt that to change the rules “you need leadership that is not created through disobedience”. “The association of the socialists and the environmentalists with LFI is harmful for France and Europe”, she said. According to her, “fellow MEPs from other countries are embarrassed by colleagues from their own groups, the French MEPs from these parties should hear it”.
In an article published on Friday in the daily newspaper Le Monde, the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, gave a vitriolic review of the concept of European disobedience. This concept, he writes, “has the triple advantage of creating a convenient vagueness (how and to what do we disobey?), of offering its ex-environmentalist and ex-socialist allies a modest cover (‘We have not renounced our convictions’), and of flattering a certain national romanticism (‘We will not submit’)”. “This mishmash is misleading and dangerous”, because it maintains “the infantilising myth of a punitive Europe”, he criticised. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with Anne Damiani)