The maneuvers on the left have begun in view of the legislative elections on 12th and 19th June. On the strength of its score in the first round of the presidential election, La France insoumise proposes a coalition with Europe Écologie-Les Verts and the Communist Party, but without the Socialist Party. In view of the conditions set by rebellious France, it seems however already doomed to failure. Attempt at union on the left, continuation of the soap opera. La France insoumise (LFI) offers Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) and the Communist Party (PCF) a left-wing coalition for the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, but by rallying behind its program and with a distribution of constituencies in proportion to the scores of the first round. Considered as the “third round of the presidential election”, the legislative elections this year appear more uncertain than ever. Five years ago, Emmanuel Macron, just elected, had benefited from a tidal wave allowing him to obtain an absolute majority in the National Assembly with 308 deputies. The context is very different today and the future President of the Republic should not be able to count on a landslide victory in two months. With the weakening of The Republic on the march, many sieges will be opened. And even the left begins to dream of a possible victory. >> To read: Presidential: the win-lose bet of Jean-Luc Mélenchon For that, we still have to leave united, hence the initiative of LFI, which has sent a letter to possible future partners, EELV and the PCF, on April 14 and 15. But this proposal nevertheless leaves little room for negotiation: the rebellious offer them to join a common label, that of the “Popular Union”, to defend “a shared common program” built “from the one who has collected the most of votes in the presidential election: ‘The future in common'”. As for the future distribution of candidacies, it “could be that established by the voters in the first round of the presidential election, in application of the proportional principle”. For the time being, it is difficult to imagine EELV and the PCF accepting such conditions. With 21.95% of the votes obtained on April 10, Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved a score much higher than those of Yannick Jadot (4.63%) and Fabien Roussel (2.28%). However, if the distribution of applications were to be done according to LFI’s proposal, only crumbs would remain for EELV and the PCF. Insufficient to enable them, on the one hand, to access public funding for political parties – this requires 1% of the votes in at least 50 constituencies –, and on the other hand to elect at least 15 deputies, a threshold minimum to obtain a parliamentary group. LFI regrets “often hurtful accusations” The national secretary of the environmentalist party, Julien Bayou, welcomed, Friday in front of the press, the “opening of dialogue” of LFI, but pleaded for his part to “a proportional, weighted, smoothed” which will also take into account the previous ballots. Because, of course, the European elections of 2019 and municipal elections of 2020 were much more favorable to EELV than to LFI. At the time, it was the environmentalists who claimed that the rally should be behind them. Just as the PS argued, after its good results in the 2021 regional elections, that only the Socialists could be the central force on the left. “We are ready to discuss your proposals and we also have some to submit to you, aiming for a basis of shared agreement on all the questions”, replied for its part the national executive committee of the PCF, on Saturday, considering that “all the forces of the left must act together”, “in respect of their results at the electoral deadlines and of their specificities”. We understand it: if ecologists and communists are open to a union for the legislative elections, they intend to continue to exist and not to be absorbed by the rebellious. To top it off, La France insoumise demands that its possible partners make an act of contrition after “often hurtful accusations” launched against Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the presidential campaign – in particular about his relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia – and that they “explain themselves to the voters” and undertake “to stop the attacks”. Answer from Julien Bayou: no question of doing “penance”. “We don’t get much out of what we said,” he retorted to the press, recalling that there are “very significant disagreements (…) on the country’s foreign policy, in particular on the relationship with Russia or authoritarian regimes “.” This refusal is final “As for the PS, whose candidate, Anne Hidalgo, suffered the worst failure in the history of the party in the presidential election (1.74% ), it was not even considered useful to reach out to him. The first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, nevertheless made it known that he was “ready to engage in a dialogue” and tried to point out to LFI that it was inconceivable “to refuse discussion with the left-wing formation which has the stronger territorial network”. The president of the group of rebellious deputies, Mathilde Panot, nevertheless replied in the Journal du Dimanche, that there would be “no discussions” between LFI and the PS, stressing, about Anne Hidalgo, having “taken note of his attacks and his refusal to draw a lucid assessment of François Hollande’s five-year term”. And to insist: “This refusal is final”.>> To read: Presidential: how Hidalgo and Jadot use the Ukrainian crisis to attack Mélenchon Is the approach of La France insoumise sincere or does it simply aim to give l Appearance of a Will for Dialogue? Five years ago, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, already in a position of strength after having obtained 19.58% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election, had chosen to exclude any rapprochement with the other forces of the left for the legislative elections. . LFI had finished with 11% of the vote at the national level for 17 deputies, a score below the expectations of its leader. While the immediate future of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not yet decided, the strategy displayed is therefore different this time. But if the rebels refuse to budge on their conditions for union, their open attempt at dialogue will be more like a game of lying poker whose objective will not be the victory of the left, but an umpteenth attempt at hegemony. on their political family.