A few months before the European elections, the founder of La France Insoumise declared the end of the historic alliance of the left, deserted by the socialists, ecologists and communists.
“There are no more Nupes,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon. It was during a public meeting in Rochefort, Thursday December 30, that the founder of La France Insoumise and initiator of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union definitively buried it. Born between the presidential election and the legislative elections in spring 2022, Nupes has since gone through a lot of turbulence. The conflict in the Middle East will have got the better of the last solidarity between its members. Abandoned by all his allies, the rebels, through the voice of their leader, his death was confirmed. This historic coalition of the left will therefore have lasted a little over a year.
“They are gone! So there are no more Nupes. So we pretend that there is one after all,” lamented Jean-Luc Mélenchon in front of his activists. The founder of LFI placed full responsibility for this failure on his former socialist, communist and environmentalist partners, accusing them of “childishness”, of “irresponsible childishness in the context in which we operate”.
A historic agreement but quickly weakened
Nupes was born on the night of May 1 to 2, 2022. At the call of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate who came in third place in the presidential election and far ahead of his left-wing adversaries, the French Communist Party, the Parti socialist and Europe ecology the greens gathered in turn around La France insoumise for a historic electoral agreement with a view to a coalition in the National Assembly. A common program was signed and unique candidates planned in each constituency for the legislative elections in June 2022. The objective: to win the majority in the National Assembly and impose cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron, with “Jean-Luc Mélenchon Prime Minister”.
If Nupes failed to obtain the desired majority, 151 deputies were elected under its label. In the Assembly, the alliance took the form of an intergroup bringing together four distinct parliamentary groups. But very quickly, the coalition showed its limits. Starting with the refusal of LFI partners to merge into a single group, as Jean-Luc Mélenchon proposed the day after the final results of the legislative elections.
A few months later, Nupes was again bullied by the Adrien Quatennens affair. In September 2022, the rebellious deputy from the North was accused of domestic violence, then sentenced to four months in prison. As the controversy grew, Jean-Luc Mélenchon supported his close collaborator. The latter’s return to the Assembly in April 2023, after a four-month suspension, aroused the anger of Nupes’ partners. Adrien Quatennens was finally excluded from the intergroup.
At the start of 2023, the parliamentary battle against pension reform was an opportunity for the left to form a united front again. But here again, differences punctuated the debates, in particular on how to lead resistance to the text in the hemicycle.
The European elections and the Hamas attack hastened the end
The approach of the European elections has reignited tensions. While La France insoumise very insistently proposed a common list of Nupes, the offer was rejected from all sides, with communists, ecologists and socialists preferring to go it alone. “We proposed to them to have a list common to the Europeans. We proposed that a green be the head of the list. The one they want, the one they want. What do they want better? You know the answer,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon in Rochefort.
The return of the war in the Middle East, triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel, completed the tearing of the Nupes. The reluctance of several elected officials from rebellious France to qualify Hamas as a terrorist group was very poorly received by socialists, communists and environmentalists. “The Nupes has lived, it is over. For the PCF, it is clear: we are leaving this gathering,” declared the communist Fabien Roussel November 12 on TF1. “The Nupes is dead,” ecologist Yannick Jadot already noted on October 17 in the columns of Le Point.
The Socialists voted for a moratorium suspending the participation of their deputies in the Nupes intergroup. Environmentalists soon imitated them. The day after the adoption of the immigration law in the hemicycle, the leader of the rebels Manuel Bompard nevertheless attempted a final cardiac massage by sending a letter to his former partners inviting them to organize a joint “reaction”. Initiative rejected by left-wing groups. “It tears my mouth to say: I admit that what we have built is already destroyed,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon definitively sanctioned.