S7 months after its emergence in the political landscape, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) no longer resembles the conquering team that Jean-Luc Mélenchon claimed to lead to restore pride to the left and a prime minister in the country. The coalition which brings together, in the National Assembly, the 145 deputies La France insoumise (LFI), Socialists, Greens and Communists elected in June is still holding. It is determined to form a united front in January against the pension reform, but the management of the Quatennens affair, which broke out in September, revealed deep cracks not only between the various components of the coalition, but more substantially within within the dominant party.
Sentenced on Tuesday, December 13, to a four-month suspended prison sentence for acts of violence committed against his wife, with whom he is in the process of divorcing, the deputy from the North was expelled from his group for four months. His return scheduled in April on the benches of his party arouses the incomprehension of feminists who would have liked to see him leave the National Assembly. While LFI claims to be at the forefront of the fight against violence against women, the deputy has, on the contrary, refused to resign. He even says he is ready to return in January to the Hemicycle, even if it means sitting among the non-registered. The left is affected in its principles and values. Unease has spread to all its ranks.
The fact that Adrien Quatennens is close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, supported by him from the revelation of the acts of violence, adds to the trouble. To compensate for the forced erasure of his foal, the leader has just reorganized the movement at his hand by making Manuel Bompard, his campaign manager who became a deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône, the strong man of the new direction. Conversely, François Ruffin, who had questioned the line, and Clémentine Autain, who had pleaded for more internal democracy, were carefully left on the sidelines of operational management.
The lock is obvious. It has more to do with the practices of a Trotskyist group than the mores of a party fully integrated into the parliamentary game and democratically aspiring to power. The episode confirms both Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s distended link to democracy and the fragility of what he wanted to build.
Since June, the left, under its thumb, has been struggling to score points. The eight motions of censure tabled by Mathilde Panot, the president of the LFI group, did not worry the government. Nor have they always convinced the other members of the Nupes who, on five occasions, preferred not to join them. The choice of a radical opposition, while the National Rally brought 89 deputies into the Assembly and plays the card of notabilisation, questions. The absence of substantive work on the reasons which led the left to weaken durably in the popular electorate, partly captured by Marine Le Pen, weighs on the strategy to be followed.
This debate annoys Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, in his pride at having led the left to where it is, refuses to open the right to inventory. On the other hand, it serves as fuel for those who seek to free themselves from its cut: François Ruffin, within LFI, Marine Tondelier, just elected at the head of the Greens, without forgetting Fabien Roussel, at the PCF.
The succession of the 71-year-old leader is not yet officially open, but another path is visibly in the making. It heralds renewal but also carries heavy tensions. The united left remains more than ever divided.