The former LFI deputy from the North warned Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, July 9, brandishing the specter of a demonstration at Matignon if the NFP did not come to power. “A climate of threats and intimidation,” denounces Marine Le Pen.
A proposal that doesn’t pass? While Emmanuel Macron has still not called the New Popular Front (NFP) to responsibilities following the left-wing union came out on top in the legislative elections, former LFI MP Adrien Quatennens raised the idea of a “large popular march towards Matignon” on X on Tuesday 9 July.
The former parliamentarian from the North, who was not invested by the NFP this year, claims that Emmanuel Macron “wants to steal the victory from us and is maneuvering to block the implementation of the New Popular Front program.”
“These unacceptable calls for insurrection”
Despite the defeat of the Macronists, the latter might indeed ally with Les Républicains to govern. LR is considering a “legislative pact” and former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe has pleaded for a “technical agreement” with members of his former party.
“The only sovereign that the Republic knows, the people, must make them yield” [Emmanuel Macron]tranche Adrien Quatennens.
Comments that provoked the ire of Marine Le Pen. “The extreme left, a minority in votes and seats, demands to exercise power and impose its program when it does not have the electoral legitimacy to do so,” explains the woman who should be reappointed as head of the National Rally group in the Assembly.
“After having elected the NFP deputies, Emmanuel Macron bears a heavy responsibility for these unacceptable calls for insurrection, this climate of threats and intimidation,” she denounces on X.
On BFMTV, Bruno Retailleau, president of the Les Républicains group in the Senate, denounced “left-wing Trumpism”. “Even mother Le Pen, the bourgeois bloc is afraid of the people!”, replied Adrien Quatennens on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. “Suggesting in a tweet that they must continue their mobilization in the streets to demand what is due to them (the implementation of a program that came out on top in the elections) becomes a ‘call to insurrection’! They are crazy!”
The following day, on LCI, LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard warned once morest a misinterpretation of Adrien Quatennens’ comments.
“What Adrien Quatennens is saying, and which I share, is that the President of the Republic gives the impression of looking for all means to ignore the result of the elections (…) Yes, there must be the conditions for a popular mobilization to say: ‘no Mr. President of the Republic you must respect the result of the legislative elections’. When asked once more, he adds: “If it can reassure you, France Insoumise is not calling for a march on Matignon.”
A warning from the New Popular Front
The former deputy from the North is not the only one to have suggested popular mobilizations in the event of the New Popular Front not coming to power. “If we do not have an agreement from Emmanuel Macron to let a government lead, it is impossible (…) I call for popular intervention, for social forces, for trade union movements”, Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the PCF, declared on RTL this Tuesday, July 9.
In a press release, the NFP “solemnly warned the President of the Republic once morest any attempt to hijack the institutions”. The alliance believes that if Emmanuel Macron “persists”, it would be “a betrayal of the spirit of our Constitution and a democratic coup that we would oppose with all our strength”.
These warnings and possible calls for mobilization can also be seen as a historical reminder. In 1936, it was the workers’ strikes launched before the formation of the Popular Front government that led to the Matignon Accords, the establishment of paid leave and the 40-hour week.
The “popular march towards Matignon” can also recall the Women’s March on Versailles during the French Revolution in 1789. A reference already used by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in October 2022 and which had been criticized at the time by his partners at Nupes.
