Two Sundays ago, June 12, the citizens of France voted in the first of two elections for seats in Parliament (Assemblée Nationale). For the past five years, President Macron has held a majority and been able to lead top down. Macron won his second election for President but is not enjoying the popularity he had in 2017. The parties on the left, who have a long history of fighting with each other, felt a resurgence of hope when Jean-Luc Mélenchon came in a very close third in the first Presidential elections. Now Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, LFI (La France Insoumise) has created along with three other leftist parties a new coalition known as the NUPES (Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale). On June 12th, the NUPES won a tenth of a percentage point more than Macron’s party, En Marche. Who are the NUPES why is this not good news for Macron?
Mélenchon has not been a popular candidate (He also ran for President in 2017). They call him the Bernie Sanders of the French, but he doesn’t have Sanders’s personality. You mention his name and people used to say, “oh Mélenchon, he’s crazy’. But he is a leftist and with his high percentage of votes during the first round of Presidential elections, people on the left are looking to him for guidance to create obstacles for Macron. He has become the defacto leader of NUPES. As Macron has been leaning more and more right in an effort to appease conservatives, he has neglected what has been happening on the left. The four parties that have allied together to become a new left alliance are Mélenchon’s LFI, the Greens, the Communists, and the Socialists. The Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale. NUPES (pronounced Newps or New Pays). If this alliance won a majority in the National Assembly on the 26th of June, Macron would be forced to reckon with this block and probably Mélenchon would become Prime Minister. The few times this has happened in the past, the president would deal with foreign policy and the Prime Minister with domestic. All 577 seats are up for grabs. Macron needs a majority, 289, to maintain the power he has enjoyed his first five years as President. En Marche, soon to be renamed Renaissance, could win 255 seats. NUPES is projected to win 150-190 seats. Marine Le Pen’s party could win as many as 40 up from 8 in 2017.
There is one other block of voters that made themselves known Sunday, the 12th. The no-shows or abstainers. According to the media, this is the largest no-show of voters – 52% — ever in France. It is made up mainly of young people who have stopped caring, who feel powerless to do anything about their circumstances. There is a chance that these people could be motivated to vote for NUPES. Followers of NUPES are out on the streets campaigning in every arrondissement of Paris urging these people to go to the polls on Sunday. Although the chance of NUPES gaining the majority of seats this Sunday is very low, this group of people if motivated to get to the polls, could make all the difference.
“Perhaps the most notable loser on Sunday was far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who attracted vast media attention in the presidential race but has so far flopped as a candidate. Zemmour failed to advance to the second round on Sunday in his bid for a seat representing Saint Tropez. Nationally, his Reconquest party won just 4.24 percent of the vote, and did not send a single candidate to the run-offs.”—France24.
To keep leftist voters away from the polls or to convince them not to votes for NUPES, Macron and his buddies have reverted to some bizarre scare tactics. In a guest essay in the New York Times, Cole Stangler, (an American journalist based in France), wrote, “Amid tight polling and mounting anxiety, Mr. Macron and his allies have sought to tap into fears of this very scenario, reverting to red-baiting. The finance minister has likened Mr. Mélenchon to a “Gallic Chavez” who would “collectivize” the economy and bankrupt France, while a leading lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party has warned of a “return to the Soviet era.” The chief of France’s top business lobby has said Mr. Mélenchon risks pushing the country “to the brink.”
In fact, the coalition’s actual platform is far from revolutionary. It’s inspired more by the golden days of European social democracy than by the Bolsheviks. The coalition’s two signature economic policy proposals — a hike in the minimum wage to 1,500 euros, or about $1,560, a month and a cap on the prices of essential goods — are modest measures at a time of rapidly rising inflation.
Plans to raise taxes on the superrich and boost investment in schools, hospitals and transport networks contrast with Mr. Macron’s embrace of the private sector, it’s true. Yet these are popular, standard-fare progressive policies in Europe. The alliance’s bold climate proposals — a five-year €200 billion, or nearly $209 billion, green investment plan driven by the principle of “ecological planning” — have led the ecology minister to accuse NUPES of “playing on young people’s fears.” But it’s hard to see the plans as anything other than an attempt to tackle the climate crisis head-on. The costs of inaction would be much greater, anyhow.” June 16, 2022
One thing is sure, since Macron will not gain a majority in Parliament, he has to stop governing top down. He and his ministers (some of whom may not even make it back to their seats in Parliament), will have to compromise with both the left and the right. The right is a solid unit that has actually spread from the southeast of France up North and northeast. The question will be – can those four entities on the left, the NUPES, who have vehemently disagreed with each other over the years stick together with an overall plan or will they fall in to in-fighting? I may be projecting my own fears of the US Democratic party which seems to shoot itself in the foot whenever possible.
My take on French politics has never been very clear. However I have found the rise of NUPES to be very interesting and I’ve caught the excitement that this alliance has incited. I hope I’ve been able to explain, albeit very simply, what is happening here in France and what the results on Sunday may look like.
Watch the voting news on Sunday, June 26, to see how all this plays out.
A bientôt,
Sara
Out My Window 
Great piece, finally a clear description of this NUPES and what the letters stand for. The French are so bad at defining what they write about and talk on the radio, especially abbreviations. On the radio long interviews without saying very clearly WHO is being interviewed. NPR mentions the interviewee often so you know who’s speaking. Now when I hear Nu Pays said I will think of your piece. Okay they won many seats, and it is extraordinary that left parties traditionally at loggerheads now are “united” in a party. I have just completed my feature film movie YOU NEVER KNOW which deals with political and emotional secrets Finland during the post-war period after Soviet-Russia had attacked in 1939. I’ll invite you to see it when I have a screening in a couple of weeks.
Great piece Sara. the only thing that you didn’t stress was that France is really divided into 3 separate groups and none of them really want to work together. Why have two thirds of the French population taken up such rigid opposing political positions?