End of the suspense at La France insoumise (LFI). The party unveiled, Wednesday March 6, the composition of its list for the European elections. A list ” House “ led by outgoing MEP Manon Aubry as in 2019. With the exception of Anne-Sophie Pelletier, excluded from the LFI group in December 2023, the outgoing deputies – Younous Omarjee, Leïla Chaïbi and Marina Mesure – are returned to the top 5 eligible positions. For the rest, political openness candidacies are reduced to a few poachings. In recent days, negotiations with the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) or Generation. s had ended short, while those with the Nupes parties had never really started due to lack of will from the Greens, the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communists. At the press conference, LFI therefore had to highlight several ” ex “.
A former environmentalist mayor and outgoing EELV MEP, Damien Carême (in 8e position on the list), a former coordinator of Generation. s out of ban, Arash Saeidi (6e), a former leader of the Young Ecologists, Camille Hachez, at the 19e place. Or even an environmental activist from Aymeric Caron’s party, Ecologist Revolution for the Living (REV), Carine Sandon (11e). If Manon Aubry wishes to display a “grouping of all the orphans of Nupes”the composition of the list made a left-wing executive say that LFI only succeeded in recreating the “Poor Man’s Nupes”. In the Socialist Party, another is amused by this list which, he says, looks a bit like what the PS did five years ago, by individually poaching opening figures. “It didn’t print…”he measures.
Even within LFI, some regret the lack of attraction exerted by the movement, barely two years after having succeeded in forming a broad alliance around the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes). In 2019, the training managed to attract an Oxfam spokesperson, Manon Aubry, who was propelled to the top of the list. Five years later, the start of the list is dominated by political figures already identified as “rebellious”. In fourth place is the labor inspector and CGT activist, Anthony Smith, sanctioned for requiring masks for employees during the Covid-19 epidemic. Enough to send a social message, but the trade unionist has been close to LFI for a long time.
Gaps in social diversity
The main novelty, also the main risk-taking, lies in the lawyer and Palestinian rights activist, Rima Hassan, seventh on the list. For LFI, it is a way of affirming the importance of the Palestinian cause, of also saying that the controversies aroused in the fall by the positions taken by certain rebels after the attack of October 7 did not give in an inch to the movement, quite the contrary. “We are proud to make room for his unique journey”, said Manuel Bompard about the French Palestinian born in a Syrian refugee camp. The rebellious European campaign will be ” for peace “in Gaza as in Ukraine, he said.
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