The French left is “ready to govern”, hard-left figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon said Sunday, after predictions showed a broad left-wing alliance could be the largest group in parliament ahead of the far right.
“Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario,” said the three-time presidential candidate of the France Unbowed (LFI) party.
Leftist parties including LFI, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party joined forces last month to form the New Popular Front (NFP).
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal “has to go… The New Popular Front is ready to govern”, Melenchon said.
It is unclear who might be the alliance’s top candidate to be prime minister, with Melenchon a divisive figure even among some supporters of his own party.
The leader of the Socialist Party (PS) Olivier Faure urged “democracy” within the left-wing alliance so they could work together.
“To move forward together we need democracy within our ranks,” he said.
“No outside remarks will come and impose themselves on us,” he said in a thinly veiled criticism of Melenchon.
Raphael Glucksmann, co-president of the smaller pro-European Place Publique party in the alliance, said everyone was going to have to “behave like adults”.
In the projections, “we’re ahead, but in a divided parliament… so people are going to have to behave like adults,” he said.
“People are going to have to talk to each other.”
President Emmanuel Macron made the gamble of calling the snap polls after the far right trounced his centrist allies in European elections.
