French Left Is Fermenting on an Impeachment Bid Against Macron

Revenge, in French politics, is a dish best served with cold bureaucratic maneuvers designed to trap one’s opponent like a bug in amber. President Macron has irked enough legislators in recent months that he is now being served with a banquet of antipathy in the Assemblée Nationale. The main course — impeachment.The call for removal is not, surprisingly, coming from the right — not for now, anyway — but from the left. Deputies from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far left France Unbowed party submitted a formal request for Mr. Macron’s destitution — which could be interpreted as a sort of hybrid between dismissal and impeachment. French press reported the initial request was formally validated on Tuesday morning — however, it likely will not result in actual impeachment. It will mainly have the effect of Mr. Mélenchon lobbing a few rotten eggs at his chief nemesis. Whence the ill will? France has a new prime minister, Michel Barnier, but he is not the person everybody wanted. Against the wishes of Monsieur Mélenchon, Mr. Macron refused to appoint Lucie Castets, from the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire coalition, to that role.The new French prime minister, Michel Barnier, on September 5, 2024 at Paris. AP/Michel EulerFor the LFI that refusal constituted “a serious breach of the duty to respect the will expressed by universal suffrage” and, writing on X, Mr. Mélenchon said “that will not have remained without consequences for Macron.”LFI members reason that it was the NFP that came out on top in the most recent legislative elections, garnering 194 seats in the assembly. Mr. Macron’s gambit in June, when he dissolved parliament and called for a snap legislative vote, split the house into three blocs. The NFP, paradoxically, failed to secure an absolute majority — nor did any other bloc. The National Rally, however, is now the most powerful party in France. As such, it can afford to more or less sit out this latest drama. Marine Le Pen has been unusually vocal in her support of Mr. Barnier, especially as he is seen as taking a hard line on illegal immigration. Mr. Mélenchon’s foot soldiers are focusing their ire not at the prime minister but his boss, a spectacle that Ms. Pen may for now be content to observe from afar. Enter the Socialist Party and another chapter in the great European saga of left cannibalizing the left. While that party, still influential, has ensured that a debate about the president’s dismissal will take place in parliament, its members will vote unanimously against it. In a press release, it said that “the office of the National Assembly should not be entrusted with the role of judge.”Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon delivers his speech at his election night headquarters, June 19, 2022. AP/Michel EulerLike the LFI party, French socialists have attacked Mr. Macron’s refusal to — at least in their view — fully respect the legislative election results, accusing him of contributing “to the distrust between citizens and the executive power.” Unlike their amis on the far left, they describe the procedure as “doomed to failure.” That is accurate, because it would ultimately require the approval of two-thirds of the parliamentarians of the Assembly and the Senate, and could entangle the highest administrative court, the Conseil d’État, too.After a long summer with a caretaker government and the country still largely running on autopilot, there is not a lot of appetite for those kinds of theatrics. Budgetary battles are looming, as are big issues on immigration that could involve not only Britain and the EU but Algeria and Morocco as well. Little wonder then that the Socialist party secretary Olivier Faure stated on X that impeaching Mr. Macron would risk lending him a “re-legitimization that he does not deserve.”The divergence between parties on the left, though, is striking. In a speech on Monday, the president of the LFI’s parliamentary group, Mathilde Panot, said she considered it “entirely possible to go all the way with this impeachment procedure,” if only all the parliamentarians outside the presidential camp were to support her.They won’t. The debate will, however, drag the already deeply unpopular Mr. Macron through a fresh patch of autumn mud. The petition that the LFI initiated in late August to depose the president has reportedly garnered more than 300,000 signatures, and this week’s debate promises to be a lively occasion to remind the French about that.

French Left Is Fermenting on an Impeachment Bid Against Macron

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