Alexis Delafontaine // Photo credit: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
The military programming law, currently before the deputies, divides the left. If all the parties of Nupes, the left alliance, want to increase the defense budget, not all have the same view of spending. Nuclear, NATO… The subjects of division are numerous.
It is a text that reignites the fuse of the divisions on the left. The debates around the military programming law until next week in the National Assembly, which promises a record envelope of 413 billion euros over seven years, are straining part of the hemicycle. If everyone agrees to be in favor of this unprecedented increase in the budget dedicated to the armies, the distribution of these billions of euros does however pose a problem.
It is even the most divisive subject on the left, according to the rebellious Bastien Lachaud. As proof, La France insoumise was forced to present its counter-project on its own, whereas last October, Nupes had presented a joint counter-budget. For Anna Pic, the leader of the Socialist deputies on defense issues, this division is not new.
Important differences
“We have known our differences since the 1950s, particularly with the Communist Party. So we know that on the elements of defense, we have a certain number of points of divergence and that therefore there was no possibility to make a common counter-project”, she confides at the microphone of Europe 1.
And these are not small subjects that block: leaving NATO’s integrated command, putting an end to nuclear deterrence or even stopping industrial partnerships with Germany… As many subjects as divergent positions between rebellious socialists, ecologists and communists. But all agree that substantive work must be done to find compromises.