French left leader Mélenchon says left 'ready to govern'

“Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario,” declared the three-time presidential candidate for the La France Insoumise (LFI) party.

Left-wing parties including LFI, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party joined forces last month to form the New Popular Front (NFP) after President Emmanuel Macron called early elections.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal “must go… The New Popular Front is ready to govern,” Mélenchon declared.

It is not yet clear who the alliance’s leading candidate for prime minister might be, with Mélenchon a controversial figure even among some supporters of his own party.

Within Mélenchon’s party, LFI MP Clémentine Autain called on the NFP alliance to meet on Monday to decide on a suitable candidate for the post of Prime Minister.

The alliance, “in all its diversity,” needs to “decide on a point of balance to be able to govern,” she said, adding that neither former Socialist President François Hollande nor Mélenchon would achieve this.

Socialist Party (PS) leader Olivier Faure called for “democracy” within the left-wing alliance so that they can work together.

“To move forward together, we need democracy in our ranks,” he said.

“No external remark will impose itself on us,” he declared, in a thinly veiled criticism of Mélenchon.

– ‘Mélenchon… cannot govern’ –

Raphael Glucksmann, co-chair of the small pro-European Place Publique party within the alliance, said everyone would have to “behave like adults”.

In the projections, “we are ahead, but in a divided parliament… so people are going to have to behave like adults,” he said.

“People are going to have to talk to each other.”

Communist leader Fabien Roussel, who lost his seat in the first round, said the left would be up to the task ahead.

“The French have asked us to succeed. And we accept this challenge,” he said.

Marine Tondelier, 37, leader of the Greens, said it was too early to start suggesting the name of a prime minister.

But “we will govern,” she said.

Macron took a gamble by calling legislative elections three years earlier, after the far right crushed its centrist allies in the European elections.

Stephane Sejourne, secretary general of Macron’s Renaissance party and former foreign minister, won a seat in Sunday’s election.

“It is obvious… Mélenchon and a number of his allies cannot govern France,” he said.

“The lawmakers of the centrist bloc will ensure this in parliament.”

bur-ah/sjw/imm