The Nupes, more than ever threatened to explode, gains a reprieve: the Socialist Party decided, Friday October 13, to postpone its national council scheduled for Saturday during which it was to discuss a possible exit from the left alliance in because of the positions of La France insoumise on Hamas.

Insoumise France has been in great difficulty since some of its leaders refused to recognize the terrorist nature of Hamas, after the bloody attack against Israel on October 7. PS and PCF were each to bring together their national council and discuss the continuation of their participation in the left coalition.

But the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure finally decided to postpone his national council – as well as the convention on Europe planned afterwards -, “taking into account the dramatic context linked to the assassination” of a teacher “by an Islamist terrorist », Friday in Arras. No new date has been communicated.

Recurring tensions

Since the start of the coalition, in May 2022, tensions have been recurring between the left-wing partners, in particular on the affair of the rebellious deputy Adrien Quatennens accused of violence against his partner, on the war in Ukraine, on the way of taking action in the hemicycle at the time of pension reform or even, more recently, on the urban riots after the death of young Nahel killed by a police officer.

Since the refusal of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and certain rebellious executives to qualify Hamas as “terrorist”, all the internal opponents of the PS boss Olivier Faure, hostile to the alliance with LFI, have spoken out to demand the exit of the socialists of this coalition, largely dominated by the Insoumis. The president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the councilor of Rouen and internal rival of Olivier Faure, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, have been pushing in this direction for several days.

In a column published Friday in Le Point, former socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who left the PS because of Nupes, castigated an alliance which in his eyes is “a political dishonor and a moral fault”. But Olivier Faure, a fervent supporter of left-wing union, does not intend to whistle the end of the game, even if he judged in Libération that the position of LFI on the war between Israel and Hamas would have “serious consequences » on the future of Nupes.

Criticizing “the Mélenchon method”, which “never seeks the center of gravity of the gathering of the left”, but aims for the radicalization of positions according to him, he wishes to maintain the union, but reorient it in a more balanced way. “La Nupes as we knew it until today, we think it’s the end,” his entourage told Agence France-Presse.

“Fracture point” for EELV

Visible sign of these tensions: PS and LFI each separately organized a press point on Friday, before the Parisian demonstration for wages at the call of the inter-union. For its part, the PCF declared Friday evening that it was maintaining “for the moment” its own national council, scheduled for Sunday.

Fabien Roussel, who was already very critical of Nupes, announced Friday morning that his party was going to discuss an exit from the alliance this weekend, judging that Jean-Luc Mélenchon could no longer be “a credible interlocutor” with his position on Hamas. “What happened (at LFI), in refusing to qualify the acts that occurred as terrorism, is not a difference, it is a fundamental break with what is at the heart of our progressive struggles.” , did he declare.

The subject also impacts Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, which is holding the launch of a new movement called Les Ecologistes on Saturday in Pantin. EELV boss Marine Tondelier spoke Thursday evening in Libération about “point of fracture” with LFI. If the Greens have not officially planned to leave the coalition, a possible departure of the two other partners (PS, PCF) would in any case mark the end of the union of the left.