Even if the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes) is in clinical death, some of the left-wing deputies cling to the union and try to find common ground. There is “no point of no return” which would prevent the left coalition from surviving within the Assembly, successively assured the LFI and environmentalist deputies this Tuesday, October 24, in reaction to a sentence from Jean -Luc Mélenchon already seeming to turn the page.
“We work together”, explains the socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj despite the PS’s decision to leave the Nupes intergroup, accusing Jean-Luc Mélenchon of a “permanent conflict” after the LFI’s refusal to qualify Hamas as “terrorist “. “Beyond the intergroup, there is daily work. And when we are in committees, we have to keep warm” between left-wing deputies, facing parliamentarians from the majority, the right and the extreme right, underlines the one who has long been close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“We are together in the Finance Committee, things are also going well in the Social Affairs Committee, and discussions are continuing on the ‘full employment’ law”, adds the head of the Green deputies Cyrielle Chatelain.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not saying that there is a point of no return on the fact that we would like to bury the Nupes, that is not true,” said the head of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot, during the weekly press briefing of his group in the Assembly. “We are asking for a number of things to be clarified. On the ceasefire, the end of the siege of Gaza, the condemnation of all war crimes, the two-state solution, with what is there- Is there a disagreement?” she asked, even though there was no meeting of the Nupes intergroup this Tuesday morning in the Assembly.
In a blog post on Sunday, after a series of criticisms aimed at the PS, Jean-Luc Mélenchon believes that “it has become clear that the point of no return has been crossed. The LFI bases therefore know that they must do without the deputies they elected a year ago”.
“We need a moratorium on small phrases and invective”
During their group’s press briefing, environmentalists assured that there is “no point of no return”. “We believe in it for two, three or four,” said Benjamin Lucas (Generation-s, environmental group). “We are not going to comment on blog posts, tweets, sentences every week. We think that we need a moratorium perhaps on small sentences and invectives, a suspension of arrests via social networks, that we talk to each other, let us work,” he added.
The environmentalist deputies assured that they would all sign together the next motion of censure from the left, during the next 49.3 of the government. When the previous LFI motion was tabled, in the midst of the Nupes split, 14 out of 23 environmentalist deputies provided their signatures and nine ultimately voted for it.
The PS opted a week ago for a “moratorium” on its participation in Nupes. La France insoumise sent a letter to the Socialist Party to ask for “clarification” on this moratorium. “Could you tell us how the ‘moratorium’ is distinguished from a pure and simple rupture since that is how we understood it, as well as the media?”, asks the coordinator of the movement Manuel Bompard in this letter revealed by Le Figaro and consulted Tuesday by AFP.