PARIS (Reuters) – The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, announced on Tuesday that he wanted to propose a moratorium on the participation of the PS in the work of Nupes, bringing together left-wing parties and environmentalists, due to growing tensions with France insoumise (LFI) by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, particularly on the subject of Israel and Hamas.
“I will propose this evening (during the national council of the PS) to the socialists a moratorium. I will suggest that, as long as we have not succeeded in obtaining a clarification, we no longer participate in the work of the Nupes intergroup”, declared Olivier Faure on France Inter.
This decision follows that of the French Communist Party (PCF) which called on Sunday to open a new page in the gathering of the left and environmentalists outside the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes).
Both the PCF and the PS disagree with the position of certain leaders of La France insoumise regarding the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
“Where I am angry is that for a week, we have been talking exclusively about rebellious France, which refused at one point to qualify what is nevertheless obvious: Hamas as a terrorist organization,” explained Olivier Faure.
At the National Assembly, the LFI president of the Finance Committee, Éric Coquerel, said “hope(s) that it will be temporary”.
“Some people are taking advantage of this to put an end to the Nupes because in reality they have never accepted that the left comes together on a program of rupture, that is the reality,” he told Reuters.
The Nupes alliance was born in the wake of the 2022 presidential election with the objective of winning as many seats as possible in the legislative elections that followed.
CRYSTALLIZATION OF TENSIONS
On France Inter, Olivier Faure particularly criticized the attitude of the leader of LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who embodied our collective hopes a year and a half ago, can no longer claim to be the one who embodies the entire left and ecology. Today there is a subject with the Mélenchon method,” he said.
“If Mélenchon likes the left, he must step aside. He is not a deputy,” socialist deputy Christine Pirès-Beaune told the press at the National Assembly.
“(Olivier) Faure breaks up with Nupes for personal comments about me regarding Israel/Palestine. I have expressed my vision (…) Everyone will judge,” replied the leader of LFI on X (ex-Twitter) .
“I can only repeat here the slogans that I adopted with which Faure and the PS disagree: cease fire, release of hostages, humanitarian corridor, end of the blockade of Gaza, condemnation of all crimes of war and trial of criminals by the ICC, UN political solution with two viable states with secure borders, non-aligned France,” added Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The position of certain LFI leaders on the conflict between Hamas and Israel continues to crystallize tensions within the left.
On Sud Radio, LFI MP Danièle Obono revived the controversy on Tuesday by declaring that “Hamas is a resistance movement”, which led the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to announce on the Republic for apologizing for terrorism”.
“It is an Islamist political group which has an armed wing (…) which resists Israel,” said Danièle Obono.
Among the Greens, these comments also aroused indignation: “Well now that’s enough. What happened on Saturday October 7 in Israel had nothing to do with ‘resistance'”, commented on X the national secretary of Europe Ecology Les Verts, Marine Tondelier.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Zhifan Liu, editing by Kate Entringer)
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