What Happened to France’s Left-Wing?

this video was brought to you by ground news the leftwing in France has a long and Rich history in fact the very terms left and right in the political sense were actually coined during the French Revolution but history aside these days the vast majority of outside commentary on French politics is focused on the center and the right largely through the prism of President Emanuel macron and the national rally leader Marine Le Pen so in this video we're going to take a look at what happened to the French left its current state and its future [Music] prospects now there are plenty of moments in history where we could start this video the 1789 Revolution that overthrew the monarchy and ushered in the first French Republic the short-lived 1871 Paris commune the immediate post second world war period where the Communist Party were one of the strongest forces in the country and many others but for the sake of time we're going to keep things more modern we're going to stick to the fifth Republic founded in 1958 and for most of the fifth Republic the predominant political force on the left was the Socialist Party the 1981 election saw leader Francois Mand elected president making him the first socialist president of the fifth Republic he then served two consecutive 7-year terms as president initially pursuing a series of significant leftwing economic reforms and policies before soon changing course with what was called the austerity turn amid economic problems and pressure on the currency after his two terms were up though the Socialists wouldn't return to the presidency until 2012 when francea haland was elected president but it was H's presidency from 2012 to 2017 that precipitated the end of the Socialist party's position as the predominant party representing the left of center having faced personal Scandal dogged by high unemployment unpopular changes in government Direction and more his deep unpopularity prompted him to announce that he would not be seeking reelection at the subsequent election in 2017 won by Emanuel macron at the helm of his new party the Socialist candidate won a mere 6% of the vote placing fifth this was a major Fall From Grace for the Socialist Party and the party fell even further following the 2022 election when its candidate and hadalo won just 1.75% of the vote these elections saw a major reorientation with the once Mighty Center left Socialist Party replaced as the left's predominant political force by a populist party further to the left Jean Luke melan shon's France unbowed in 2017 melan Shan received just under 20% of the vote and at the 2022 election he won just shy of 22% of the vote which was 1.2 percentage point short of beating Marine Le Pen to qualify for the runoff for many on the left this was a lesson that left-wing Unity was essential to having any chance at Victory as just a fraction of the votes from the various other left of center candidates would have sent melan sha through to the second round so following that 2022 presidential election with just months until the subsequent legislative elections melan John formed the new ecological and social people's Union or noops an of parties from the left the alliance brought together melan Shan's own France unbowed the Socialist Party the Communist party and the greens and it actually managed to become the largest opposition Block in the National Assembly with France unbowed at its head and this helped to deny president macron's Alliance a parliamentary majority however this result did not usher in a new era of leftwing unity as it didn't take long for divisions between the various parties and personalities to emerge once again for starters Melo John's call for the parties to sit as a unified parliamentary group was rejected by the three smaller alliance members who preferred to sit as their individual parties Under the nupes Umbrella over the coming months and year disunity between these parties would continue to grow melan Johan's handling of a domestic abuse Scandal by a senior figure in his party sparked condemnation and anger from the other parties and there was also disagreement over how the parties would best oppose mron government including in relation to the unpopular pension reforms the parties have also been divided over Ukraine with melan shon's more Russia friendly position putting him at odds with his Pro Ukrainian counterparts but it was the October 7th attacks by Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza that perhaps more than anything has left the nupes alliance effectively defunct the refusal of Menon and his party to describe hamas's actions as terrorism prompted the Socialist Party to vote to suspend its participation in nupes while the Communist Party concluded that the alliance was at an impass and called for a new type of Union for the left months later the situation hasn't changed a great deal and the left is still divided with each party running separately in the upcoming European parliamentary elections in June so where does that leave the French left going forward while the current iteration might look in disarray now it's certainly not dead the 2022 presidential election was confirmation that the French politics is no longer a question of two dominant parties but has instead been stratified into three main blocks the left the center and the right the real challenge for the left then is finding someone and a common platform to unite around not just before an election but in a way that can survive after an election too looking ahead to the 2027 presidential election which will be an open field without an incumbent president running melan sha has so far been ambiguous on one hand confirming that his candidacy is a possibility and on the other saying he wishes to be replaced given the current animosity between melan sea and the other left of center parties if he does run in 2027 it's hard to imagine him being the candidate of a United left others from melan shon's party though for example the less contentious franois rufer might have a broader appeal to the other parties on the left alternatively there is a world in which the Socialists rebound to become the top party on the left again for example polling for the European parliamentary elections showed the Socialists back ahead of the other left of center parties with the polling numbers between 10 and 133% now you certainly shouldn't extrapolate from European elections but this polling does show that France unbounce position as the predominant leftwing party is by no means guaranteed and this question of leadership is not solely for the left wing either the race among macron's allies to be his successor is already underway behind the scenes and even in the case of the national rally Marine Le Pen might seem like the obvious choice for 2027 but the party's young and popular president might think that he has a better shot at winning macron is still making big moves though with him meeting xinping to discuss trade and Ukraine something that was covered extensively by more than 61 news outlets across the political spectrum and of this 39% is coming from the left and 29% is coming from the right and these insights are all possible thanks to our sponsor ground news a website and app developed by a former NASA engineer on a mission to give readers an easy datadriven objective way to read the news as such every story comes with a quick visual breakdown of the political bias factuality and ownership of the sources reporting all backed by ratings from three Independent News monitoring organizations for example on that story about XM mcon not only are you able to compare the political bias and headlines but you can even check out the factuality information and the ownership at this point our viewers are well aware of our appreciation of ground news it's an incredibly useful platform that captures information that you can't get anywhere else and best of all they're currently offering 40% off their 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Channel: TLDR News EU

Views: 258,577

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Id: 0hDOaLbPAnk

Length: 8min 40sec (520 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2024