The leaders of the French far-left have threatened to impeach President Emmanuel Macron over an “institutional coup against democracy” for so far refusing to nominate a leftist to become the next prime minister.
With the ‘Olympic Truce’ now over, former and current presidents of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Mathilde Panot have threatened to launch proceedings to “remove” President Macron for allegedly refusing to “take note” of the legislative elections in July.
Macron had partnered with the leftist New Popular Front coalition, which includes the far-left LFI, in a desperate last-minute bid to block the surging right-wing populist National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen during the elections, with Macron’s neo-liberals and the leftists strategically standing down candidates to back the candidates with the strongest chance of defeating RN in the second round of voting last month.
While the move was successful in preventing the populist party from gaining a majority, despite RN gaining the most votes of any party, after the election, Mr Macron immediately shunned the idea of nominating a prime minister candidate from the far-left for fear of fracturing his centrist base.
With seemingly no consensus candidate, the situation has left France without an actual government for the past month, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal merely serving in a caretaker role without the ability to pass legislation and only the power to act in emergency situations.
The varying factions mostly laid down their arms while Paris hosted the Olympics, however, with the games complete, the battle for control of the Hôtel Matignon has once again commenced.
Writing in the La Tribune Dimanche, former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and LFI President Mathilde Panot said on Sunday that Macron “must know that all constitutional means will be used to remove him.”
“In the present case, it is obvious that the refusal to take note of a legislative election and the decision to override it constitute a reprehensible breach of the basic requirements of the presidential mandate, because it requires the head of state to be the guarantor of respect for democracy and its organisational rules in France,” they said.
The leftist leaders demanded that Macron appoint the New Popular Front’s preferred candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets, an unelected socialist economist and civil servant.
“If he does not do so, he must know that all constitutional means will be used to remove him rather than subjecting us to his evil blow against the basic rule of democracy: in France, the only master is the popular vote!” they said, despite the populist National Rally securing more votes than the leftist coalition.
While the LFI has the ability to table a motion to begin impeachment proceedings, it is unclear if they will have enough support to go forward, with even other members of the New Popular Front bloc criticising the tactic.
Indeed, the head of the Socialist Party, a member of the NFP, Olivier Faure, said on Sunday that a move to impeach Macron over the appointment of another prime minister candidate would “not be in accordance with republican tradition” and that the letter only “committed” members of the LFI to the cause of impeaching the president.