Analysis
Barnier appointment: ‘Total contempt’ for millions of French voters
Mélenchon: ‘The President has just decided to deny the result of the legislative elections that he himself called.’
Macron’s turn from the “Republican front” against the extreme right to an ad-hoc Axis against the New Popular Front (NFP) of the left, appointing Michel Barnier as prime minister on Thursday with the more or less tacit support of the National Rally, has naturally drawn the ire of all the leaders of the French left.
In these chaotic 50-odd days without a government in France, two facts have clearly emerged. The first is Macron's refusal to accept any break in continuity with the neoliberal policies that have been applied over the past seven years, even in the slightest detail. Therein lies the origin of the French President’s refusal to appoint Lucie Castets – the NFP candidate – as prime minister, even though she was willing to negotiate and try to find “agreement for each line of text” of the NFP’s platform in Parliament, as Castets and the representatives of the NFP wrote in a statement on Wednesday.
The second fact is that Macron, faced with the possibility of seeing a government program implemented that would break with his own policies (even if only partially), preferred to lean on Marine Le Pen's far-right, despite the much-touted “Republican front” against the latter that has secured the victory of the Macronist team in elections since 2017.
As soon as Michel Barnier's appointment became official, La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon stepped in front of the camera to deliver a short but pointed message: “The President has just decided to deny the result of the legislative elections that he himself called,” Mélenchon said. ”It will not be a member of the NFP – which came in first place in the elections – who will appear before the deputies, but instead a member of a party that came last in the legislative elections.” According to the FI leader, Michel Barnier is “a prime minister appointed with the permission, if not the support, of the National Rally – despite the fact that the second round of the legislative elections was entirely devoted to barring the way for the NR.”
In short, this was a “bras d'honneur” (an “up yours!” gesture) both to the NFP and to the “Republican front,” as Socialist Party Secretary Olivier Faure summed it up on X. Barnier's appointment is “an assurance of not changing anything in terms of economic policy, and a way to reconcile with the far right,” Faure wrote.
Together with the LFI, the Ecologists and the Communists of the PCF, the Socialists also announced on Thursday that they will vote “no” in the confidence vote for Michel Barnier's government. By refusing to appoint “a figure from the NFP, the coalition that came out on top in the legislative elections,” reads a Thursday press release from PS, “Macron is abandoning a republican tradition that has been shared and respected until now.” In doing so, “he tramples on the vote of the French people,” the PS writes. According to them, “Michel Barnier enjoys neither political nor republican legitimacy.”
It is “disturbing,” Lucie Castets told Mediapart on Thursday, stressing that Barnier's appointment does not portend anything good, but instead ”everything indicates that his policy will be a continuation of Emmanuel Macron's – if not even worse, making concessions to the NR.” According to the NFP candidate, Macron “should have followed the institutional logic” and appointed her prime minister. “It would then have been my job to build agreements, and if I failed to do so, I would have been put to a confidence vote. That's what democracy is,” Castets stressed. But by rejecting that logic and appointing a conservative palatable to Le Pen, “the president is playing a crucial role in the institutionalization of the NR, in an extremely cynical manner. I am honestly in fear for our country,” added the left-wing alliance’s candidate for prime minister.
Sophie Binet, the secretary of the CGT union, shared her sentiment, telling Agence France-Presse that she felt “great disquiet” over Barnier's appointment, a gesture that shows “a disregard for the voters' choice.” After the latter mobilized “as never before to beat the NR,” Macron rather chose to appoint “a figure from a party that came in last place, and whose political survival will depend on the NR,” Binet accused.
With Barnier's appointment, Macron has accelerated a crisis that is already unprecedented in French republican history, showing “total contempt for the millions of French people who went to the polls” in the legislative elections, the NFP wrote in a statement on Thursday night. In the face of this denial of democracy, the French left is calling for mobilization: first on Saturday, at the demonstration initially organized by the LFI. Then, on October 1, on the occasion of the CGT strike, where all the parties of the NFP will march united against the “coup de main” perpetrated by the president of the Republic.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/disprezzo-totale-per-il-voto-di-milioni-di-elettori on 2024-09-06