Raphaël Glucksmann, co-founder of the centre-left Place Publique party, emerged from a surprisingly strong showing in the June 9 European elections to find himself a key member of a new leftist alliance in France – one hastily forged to battle the far-right party leading in polls ahead of snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron. But while the left might be demonstrating a newfound unity, Glucksmann has come under fire for striking a deal with a hard-left faction that has been accused of anti-Semitism and being soft on Russia.
Days ahead of the first round of snap parliamentary elections in France on June 30, the political world is holding its breath.
Polls show the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) party on track to win 35.5 percent of the vote – far outpacing the New Popular Front leftist coalition with 29.5 percent and just 19.5 percent for Ensemble (Together), which includes Macron's party.
That a broad, hastily formed leftist alliance is a solid 10 points ahead of the Macron coalition is an extraordinary showing, given years of torpidity on France’s political left.
This newfound vitality comes on the heels of a surprisingly strong showing in the June 9 elections for the European Parliament. Raphaël Glucksmann, 44, an essayist and MEP since 2019, led an energetic campaign in the run-up to the EU vote that saw the centre-left Socialist Party-Place Publique alliance secure a third-place finish, winning 13.8 percent of French votes for the European parliament – less than a point behind the Macron coalition’s 14.6 percent.
But both parties trailed far behind the 31.5 percent won by the far-right National Rally party.
Macron’s shock decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call for snap legislative elections – a move dubbed the “Dissolution” in France – just hours after the results of the EU vote threw the country into disarray, as parties across the political spectrum raced to bridge gaps and form alliances.
Freshly re-elected as a European deputy, Glucksmann lashed out at Macron’s insouciance in dissolving the French legislature in a Le Monde opinion piece by comparing him to Nero, the Roman emperor who famously fiddled while Rome burned.
But the fear of a far-right majority taking over France’s National Assembly spurred the left to action, prompting disparate camps to agree to field a single unity candidate in each of France’s 577 constituencies.
The New Popular Front that emerged unites the centre-left Socialist Party and the hard-left La France Insoumise, led by firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, along with the Greens and the French Communist Party. The name is a nod to the Popular Front, a French leftist alliance founded in 1936 to oppose the rise of fascism.
“We can’t leave France to the Le Pen family,” Glucksmann told France Inter radio in the days after the EU vote.
But this newfound unity has brought together figures that disagree passionately on a range of key issues stretching from France to Gaza and Ukraine.
Read more‘We can’t leave France to Le Pen’: Leading left-winger Glucksmann throws weight behind new alliance
An uneasy marriage of convenience
The Socialist Party, once a stalwart of French politics, has seen a spectacular fall from grace in recent years. The end of the presidency of François Hollande – whose approval rating once sank to 4 percent – ushered in years of lackluster showings in presidential elections for the Socialists, who registered a paltry 6.2 percent in 2017 before hitting an abysmal low of 1.7 percent in 2022 for candidate Anne Hidalgo, currently the mayor of Paris.
The moderate left was rendered mute, outdone by more strident voices from Mélenchon, Macron and the National Rally on the extreme right.
Eighteen months after the disastrous 2017 elections, Glucksmann co-founded Place Publique with an economist and an environmental activist, among others. Their aim was to reinvigorate France’s broken left, and – paradoxically, in light of their current bedfellows in the New Popular Front – provide an alternative to the hard-line posturing of France Unbowed.
Just a week after its founding, Place Publique had attracted 10,000 members.
But Glucksmann disappointed many of his supporters by throwing his weight behind the New Popular Front earlier this month and joining up with the fiery and often brash Mélenchon.
Read moreFrench MEP Glucksmann joins left-wing union New Popular Front, vows clear stance on Gaza, Ukraine
The moderate left and far left have long been on opposite ideological sides, notably on foreign policy.
Capitalising on his strong showing in the EU elections, Glucksmann laid out several conditions for him joining any leftist alliance, including strong support for the EU, the reversal of Macron’s unpopular pension reforms and continuing military aid for Ukraine.
Glucksman has been stalwart in his defence of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion and has strongly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s broad efforts to destabilise Europe. He became an adviser to then Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili a year after Russia’s 2008 invasion and was married to Georgian deputy Ekaterine Zguladze, who later served as Ukraine’s deputy minister for internal affairs.
In contrast, many members of France Unbowed were notably absent – as were members of the far right – when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed France’s National Assembly on June 7. A desire to remain “non-aligned” in global affairs has led to accusations that Mélenchon has shown relative lenience towards Putin's regime.
In a key compromise, the New Popular Front vowed to "unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people" and to provide Kyiv with weapons upon its founding.
On the war in Gaza, France Unbowed has been vehement in its condemnation of Israel’s military operation as “genocide”.
Glucksmann, who is Jewish, has declared his support for a Palestinian state while stopping short of describing Israel’s actions in such strong terms. On the campaign trail for the European elections, Glucksmann was targeted by a group of far-left activists who began hurling insults and throwing blue paint, as captured by local media France Bleu.
Glucksmann was quick to blame the far left for the stunt. “These attacks are the result of months of hatred and slander cleverly orchestrated by [members of France Unbowed] and others,” he wrote on X following the incident.
Mélenchon, long plagued by accusations that he uses anti-Semitic dog whistles, most recently dismissed a sharp rise in anti-Semitism in France as merely “residual”.
A 'total break' with Macron
Glucksmann has tried to win back the trust of those who voted for him in the EU elections by describing the New Popular Front alliance as a marriage of convenience whose goal, above all, is to stop the far right from coming to power.
In an interview last week with the daily Le Parisian, Glucksmann confirmed that the alliance was like “a ball and chain”.
The New Popular Front has promised a “total break” with Macron’s policies if it gains enough seats in the legislature. But whether this hastily cobbled-together leftist coalition will hold steady after the two rounds of parliamentary elections on June 30 and July 7 remains to be seen.
If voters do turn out in force to block the far right from power, the New Popular Front – currently running second in the polls – could play a pivotal role in choosing France’s next prime minister. It remains unclear who would lead the group and become PM in case of victory.
But Glucksmann has already ruled out the possibility of a Mélenchon premiership, saying: "We need someone who can achieve consensus."
Read moreA ‘non’ for Mélenchon? France’s left seeks unifying figure ahead of legislative elections
