France’s left-wing coalition could break French and EU law with its proposed radical programme for government that includes a 90 per cent tax on the rich and a series of high-spending policies.
The left insists this is affordable, financed through a 90 per cent wealth tax on annual income above €400,000 (£337,954).
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 72, the leader of France Unbowed who has been dubbed the French Jeremy Corbyn, would, as the leader of the biggest party, have a reasonable claim to becoming the next prime minister.
“That necessarily excludes Jean-Luc Mélenchon and France Unbowed from the government equation,” he said.
“The coming weeks will indeed be a test to determine whether the left and the centre are able to co-operate.
France’s left-wing coalition could break French and EU law with its proposed radical programme for government that includes a 90 per cent tax on the rich and a series of high-spending policies.
The New Popular Front (NFP) won the most seats in the parliamentary elections on Sunday with 188 seats, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance on 161, but this is still far from a majority. The far-right National Rally, which came top in the first round, fell to third place with 142.
France has been plunged into uncertainty following the snap elections as parties vie over who will become Prime Minister, and the make-up of the government.
The NFP, comprising the Socialists, the Greens, the Communists and far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) Party, has put forward a programme of policies including raising the minimum wage, lowering the retirement age to 60 from 64, increasing public sector pay, freezing the price of energy and essential goods, increasing investment in green energy and public services, and cutting income tax for lower earners.
The left insists this is affordable, financed through a 90 per cent wealth tax on annual income above €400,000 (£337,954).
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 72, the leader of France Unbowed who has been dubbed the French Jeremy Corbyn, would, as the leader of the biggest party, have a reasonable claim to becoming the next prime minister. He has declared that an NFP government should fully implement its programme. It “cannot be sliced into pieces”, he has declared.
However, centrists and experts have voiced doubts over the financial viability and even legality of its policies. Mr Macron has put the cost of them at €287bn (£243bn). The budget minister has said they would cost €100bn (£85bn) a year.
Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party, after the second round of the legislative elections on Sunday (Photo: Aurelien Morissard/AP)
France’s Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, has condemned the left’s risky high tax-and-spend policy, warning of a financial crisis were it to be implemented.
“The most immediate risk is a financial crisis and France’s economic decline,” he said. “The application of the New Popular Front’s disruptive programme would destroy the results of the policies that we have pursued for seven years … This project is exorbitant, ineffective and dated. Its legitimacy is weak and circumstantial. It must not be applied.”
Sébastien Maillard, special adviser to the independent Paris think-tank the Jacques Delors Institute, told i : “Several economic and fiscal measures put forward by the New Popular Front are either unconstitutional or against EU rules, so very legally challenging.
“The reality check on those promises will be on the next French budget and even before that on how France convinces its European partners it is willing to respect the triggered excessive deficit procedure.”
Members of the alliance of left-wing parties, the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front – NFP), visit the National Assembly in Paris on Tuesday (Photo: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)
He cited the NFP’s proposals to block prices on specific products and implement policies that would bypass the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.
The EU’s stability pact aims to prevent governments amassing excessive debt or maintaining too high a deficit. In June, France was reprimanded for breaking fiscal rules before the election, after parties announced huge spending promises, with the EU executive launching the “excessive deficit procedure”.
Under this, countries that break the rules must reduce “excessive” deficits by 0.5 per cent a year.
France’s deficit was 5.5 per cent of economic output in 2023 and is forecast to remain at 5 per cent in 2025, well above the EU threshold of 3 per cent.
The European Commission, financial markets and other members of the eurozone will all be watching nervously.
Meanwhile, Mr Maillard added, overtaxing private incomes, as proposed by the NFP, could be ruled to be unconstitutional.
Many of Mr Macron’s mainstream politicians have explicitly said they would refuse to work with Mr Mélenchon, who has refused to condemn the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which massacred more than 1,000 people in Israel on 7 October, and has been forced to deny accusations of antisemitism.
Stéphane Séjourné, the leader of Mr Macron’s Renaissance Party, has said: “Our red lines are well known”, voicing the party’s support for the EU and Ukraine, fighting racism and antisemitism, and maintaining efforts to encourage investment in France. “That necessarily excludes Jean-Luc Mélenchon and France Unbowed from the government equation,” he said.
The centrists have urged more moderate parties in the NFP to split into separate blocs in order to create a broader and more moderate coalition of centre-left, centrist and centre-right parties.
Florence Faucher, professor of political science and director of the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po in Paris, said the final outcome of talks between parties would necessarily involve concessions, which would be likely to rein in any excessive spending promises.
“[The NFP] will try to claim that they are the largest group and they can form a government, Whether it’s a minority government which they will have to negotiate on a case-by-case basis with other parties to get support, or whether they form a more coherent and stable coalition with other parties – presumably with the centrists – a bit like with the Lib Dems and the Conservatives in 2010,” she told i .
“They’ve made concessions within the group but they will have to have a programme that is likely to get support in the house so there will be concessions. What concessions they will sacrifice in the programme that they have is impossible to say at this stage.”
But even other members of the current leftist coalition have questioned whether France Unbowed and its leader could take a leading role in government. Mr Mélenchon “is the most divisive figure within the NFP,” said Olivier Faure, the Socialist leader, while a Green Party lawmaker told Reuters: “Mélenchon is a problem.”
Prfoessor Faucher said: “It is still far too early to say what the government could look like. There is still some uncertainty over the context of the coalition government because there are a number of arguing MPs who do not want to maintain their association with France Unbowed and particularly with the leader.”
The NFP alliance could seek to form an unwieldy coalition without Mr Mélenchon, or a minority government through agreeing individual deals on legislation, but both options would be difficult.
Gérard Araud, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Centre and a former ambassador of France to the US, suggested that the coming weeks could see a break-up of the NFP.
“The coming weeks will indeed be a test to determine whether the left and the centre are able to co-operate. This would probably entail a break-up of the New Popular Front, which has shown its fragility during the electoral campaign between the far-left La France Insoumise party and the centre-left Socialist Party.
“France is entering a long crisis full of uncertainties and political instability. Macron has lost his bet for clarification from the electorate. He is weakened, but resignation and realism are not his strong points.”
