The French left has united for the first time since the 1970s and is running candidates in the upcoming legislative elections who will serve as a counterweight to President Emmanuel Macron. But there are dissidents, and those campaigning for the leftwing coalition are having to work hard to bring people together.
“I campaign with my personality. I’m very direct and I have strong convictions,” says Caroline Mecary, passing out flyers in front of a supermarket on a busy street corner in Paris’s 12th arrondissement.
The flyers are printed with her photo alongside that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed movement that managed to unite the left under a banner known as Nupes, the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union.
A well-known lawyer who has argued many cases for LGBT rights, Mecary is running for a seat in the National Assembly to represent Paris’s seventh voting district, which is made up of parts of the fourth, 11th and 12th arrondissements.
On the ground with Caroline Mecary in the Spotlight on France podcast:
“When you’re a lawyer you have to have convictions. I am very sure of what I say, which is why people listen to me,” Mecary says, as she goes up to people coming out of the store and asks if they voted in the presidential elections in May, and if they plan to vote in the legislative elections on 12 and 19 June.
“I often ask people questions, as it gets the conversation going.”
A few people stop when she says the left has united and there is a chance for a majority in parliament to counteract Macron's party, which has enjoyed a large majority over the last five years.
“There is not much of a choice,” she tells a woman. “Either it’s Macron, or it’s us.”
New to party politics
Mecary has never been involved in party politics, though many of the cases she has argued have affected policy. She worked with lawmakers to pass same-sex marriage in 2013, and to allow lesbian and single women to access medically assisted procreation in 2021.
She is the single candidate in the constituency, representing Nupes, a coalition of Mélenchon’s France Unbowed, the EELV Green party, the Socialists and the Communists.
Mélenchon, an MP representing a constituency in Marseille, came in a close third in the presidential election in May, with 21.95 percent of the vote. He was determined to unify the left for the legislatives, which he has called the third round of the presidentials.
He also said he wants to become prime minister if his coalition wins a majority.
As part of the Nupes agreement, the four parties agreed to back just one candidate for each of the National Assembly’s 577’s seats – 360 are from the France Unbowed movement, 100 from the Greens, 70 from the Socialists and 50 from the Communists.
Mecary was tapped to run after she had served on the France Unbowed "people’s parliament" last year, which was intended to guide the party’s presidential and legislative election campaigns.
“I would never have imagined that one day I’d run for a seat in parliament,” she says. “These are very coveted positions, and as I am not a member of any political party, I did not see how it would be possible.”
Mecary won a seat on the Paris regional council for the Greens in 2010, and for local Paris council with the Socialists in 2014.
She agreed to join the France Unbowed movement in building the Nupes alliance because she believes in countering Macron’s policies.
A counterweight to power
“It’s really important for us to have a majority in the National Assembly,” she tells a woman, handing her a flyer. “If we do not have the majority, Macron will do what he wants.”
The message resonates with some people in this voting district, where the candidate from Macron’s party beat the long-time Socialist MP, Patrick Bloche, in 2017.
But where she is standing, in the 12th arrondissement, people lean more to the left. Mélenchon came in a close second to Macron in the first round of the presidential elections.
“We need to be unified if we want to win,” Mecary tells a man, who answers: “unity makes power”.
Another man, however, is not convinced, saying there is no way he will vote for Nupes, even though he leans to the left.
“Certainly not,” he says, indignantly, adding: “he wants a sixth constitution”, referring to Mélenchon’s promise to reform French institutions and introduce a sixth republic. “What’s missing in the fifth?” he asks.
Mecary answers: “Don’t you see that we’re at the end of the road? We have a President who decides on his own, without any checks. There is no counter power. Citizens distrust our institutions. We are obliged to reset things, even if it’s just for that reason.”
“You will not convince me,” the man answers, and the two part ways, agreeing to disagree.
Holding out a hand
Like many of the Nupes candidates, Mecary has had to unify her own coalition and bring together members of the other parties who had been planning on running for this seat in parliament.
She greets a woman warmly: Emma Rafowicz, a Socialist town councilor, who Mecary says would have been the party’s candidate in the constituency.
“I was happy to see her,” Mecary says. “I invited her on board the campaign. It’s not always easy, but I hold out my hand, and I hold it out again, and I try again. Because we really have an opportunity, with the united ecological and social left to stop the current neoliberal policies in this country with these legislative elections.”
The Socialists were allocated only two of Paris’s 18 voting districts in the Nupes agreement, which has been a source of tension, notably in the 15th voting district where there is a standoff between the Nupes-backed candidate, Danielle Simonnet, of the France Unbowed movement, and the Socialist Lamia El Aaraje.
El Aaraje has refused to drop out and back Simonnet’s campaign, because she is technically the outgoing candidate, and part of the agreement was that outgoing candidates would be able to run again.
El Aaraje beat Simonnet in a partial election in May 2021 that was then cancelled by the Constitutional Council in January of this year, because of irregularities in an opposition campaign.
Simonnet, a local councillor in the arrondissemnt since 2001, argues that she has deep roots with voters, and the seat should be hers.t
El Aaraje has received the support of former prime ministers Lionel Jospin and Bernard Cazeneuve, as well as Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and the Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure.
During the campaign, Simonnet has focused on the unity of the left, and said that El Aaraje is not her opponent, but rather Macron and his policies.
Mon adversaire ce n’est pas Lamia El Aaraje, c’est la Macronie. Il faut imposer à Macron un Premier ministre, @JLMelenchon, qui changera la vie des gens. C'est le sens de la #NUPES, dont je suis la candidate dans la #circo7515 pic.twitter.com/ytfloAM3pN
— Danielle Simonnet (@Simonnet2) May 15, 2022
Dissident Socialists
El Aaraje is one of 65 Socialist "dissidents" of the Nupes, which reveals the difficulty in keeping the coalition together, and could foreshadow challenges in the National Assembly itself.
The agreement with Mélenchon has rubbed many Socialists the wrong way. The Socialist president of the southern Occitanie region, Carole Delga, has openly supported the dissident candidates.
She finds Mélenchon’s positions too extreme, and has denounced his declarations on Russia and his position on Europe and nuclear energy.
The Greens' participation in the Nupes coalition has also left a vacuum for other ecological candidates, notably for the 477 seats they are not contesting.
The Interior Ministry has identified 786 ecological candidates, not affiliated with the official EELV Greens party, around the country.
There are 133 dissidents from the major parties, with most coming from the left, though some 30 candidates are running counter to Macron’s party.
Running against a minister
Mecary’s race is being particularly observed because her main opponent is Clement Beaune, a government minister.
He is confident that the district leans more traditionalist Socialist and that voters will be put off by Mélenchon leading up the Nupes.
Mecary is banking on people’s disappointment with Macron.
“We can win this district,” she insists to a young woman, encouraging her to vote, pointing out that if she does win, Beaune will have to leave the government, as Macron has said that ministers who lose elections cannot continue to serve in the government.
For her, this is her one chance.
“In five years, it will not be me,” she says. “I will be 65 years old, and that will be enough. This term would be my only one, and so I would pour myself into it. After, there will be others – younger people. We need to leave room for them.”
This story was produced for the Spotlight on France podcast. Listen here.
