Aymeric Caron (centre) from the left-wing French opposition party “France Proud” attends the opening session of the National Assembly in Paris in 2022 (Reuters)
“France Proud” is a left-wing French political party and one of the largest opposition parties, anti-capitalist and environmentalist. Its slogan is “a common future.” It was founded in February 2016 in preparation for the 2017 French presidential elections and to support the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
He opposed pension and immigration laws, and called for the integration of immigrants.
His position rejecting the Israeli occupation’s aggression against Gaza and his call to stop the war and demand a fair peace for the Palestinians caused him;
Internal and other problems with his allies, and exposed him to severe attack from the French media.
Origin and establishment
The “France Proud” party was founded on February 10, 2016, and defines itself as “an open, popular, humane and inclusive movement that seeks to create a new form of citizen assembly and to promote universal human liberation, popular sovereignty, social justice, secularism, the environment and harmony between humans and their ecosystem.” .
The party is legally based on two associations: “Intrepid France” and “Association for Financing the Political Body of Intrepid France.” There are no special conditions or financial dues required to join it. It is sufficient to register on the party’s website, choose the field of work, and commit to respecting the party’s principles.
Its first official gathering was held on June 5, 2016 in the French capital, Paris, in which about 10,000 people participated.
Demonstrators during protests against police violence in Lyon, France, late 2023 (European)
Thought and ideology
The party is described as leftist, but it has not clearly decided its ideological identity, and focused on the commonalities between its components based on the outcomes of representational gatherings or support groups, and the principles it set for itself, and pledged to defend in society, elected institutions, and state institutions.
Observers and political analysts tried to determine its ideological and intellectual reference. Some of them, such as political scientist Gael Brewster, historian Alain Bergonio, and sociologist Manuel Cervera Marzal, classified the party as part of the radical/extremist left, just like the Spanish “Podemos” party and the Greek “Syriza” party, united by populism and anti-liberalism.
But political scientist Remy Lefebvre considers it a reformist party, which does not demand the abolition of capitalism but rather demands its reform and regulation. The republican spirit is also present in the party and its symbol is Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The party's electoral participation also denies it a radical nature, even though it is often critical and adopts a polarized conflict method in political work.
Before the French legislative elections in June 2022, the party sought to gather the forces of the left with all its components in the face of the “Macronist right” (an expression used to describe the right that supports French President Emmanuel Macron) in the National Assembly (Parliament) in an alliance that includes the left parties and the Green Party (the environment) which it called "Parliament of the New People's Environmental and Social Union."
The party's principles and political demands
The “Proud France” party adopted principles it set for itself, affirming that:
A sophisticated movement that seeks to create a new form of organizing and gathering citizens, listening to their opinions, and embodying them in annual agreements.
A humanitarian movement, promoting universal human liberation, popular sovereignty, social justice, secularism, ecology, and harmony between humans and their ecosystem.
It establishes relationships with movements in other countries that work in the same direction and works in coordination with those who share its goals.
An open and popular movement that does not require membership cards or fees from its members, which opens the door for those wishing to benefit from its services.
A movement in which there is no place for conflicts, clashes of currents and prejudices, in which decisions are made by consensus to avoid the pitfalls associated with divisions and minorities by adopting the most appropriate democratic methods to achieve this goal.
A cultural movement to confront the dismantling machine pursued by liberal policies on the horizon of building a new world.
A movement that encourages work and places its energy, skills and financial resources in the service of society through a social network that provides opportunities for exchanging experiences.
A network movement useful to society, devoting part of its activity to solidarity work.
A collective and transparent movement that takes its decisions and initiatives through an open discussion that uses advanced communication techniques to expand consultation and diversify forms of participation, especially in adopting annual agreements.
A multi-center movement that allows access to everyone and is based on two national structures:
- The Political Council: which is the body authorized to consider the strategic directions and major campaigns of the movement.
– The representative assembly or coordinating body (one third of the executive directors of the regional representations inside and outside France and two thirds of the activists who are randomly selected).
A scene from a demonstration in front of the French Parliament in November 2022 (Reuters)
The party politically demands 10 basic measures;
He made it the focus of his demands and political work, most notably:
Establishing a Constituent Assembly to draft the Constitution of the Sixth Republic to succeed the current Fifth Republic.
Abolition of the labor law in France.
Re-establishment of the European Union Treaties.
Changing a number of its monetary, agricultural, environmental and other policies.
Adopting an energy plan to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.
Adopting a green rule: We do not take from nature more than it can regenerate and we do not produce more from it than it can handle.
Protecting vital shared materials such as air, water, food, livelihood, health and energy.
Separating financial and speculative banking activities from lending and deposit activities to protect citizens’ funds.
Adopting a minimum wage.
The party's candidate in the presidential elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, translated these measures into his electoral program and political speeches, and stressed the rejection of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and called for their integration and regularization of their legal status.
He also called for leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and withdrawing France from the European Union treaties if some conditions were not met, as he said: “Europe must either be changed or we will leave it,” in addition to his demand to abandon nuclear energy.
Flags and symbols
Mélenchon remains the party's most prominent figure, in addition to the head of his parliamentary group, Mathilde Panot, and party coordinators Manuel Bompard from 2017 to 2019, and Adrian Quatinens from 2019 to 2022, after which Bompard returned to the position of party coordinator again.
Major stations
The party held its first official gathering on June 5, 2016 in the French capital, Paris, in which about 10,000 people participated. The second meeting was held in August 2016 in Toulouse.
In the city of Lille, after a long meeting on October 15 and 16, 2016, representatives of the party (nearly a thousand members) approved an agreement called the Lille Agreement, which included common ideas and visions among party members, who can organize themselves into representations or support groups throughout the city. France and abroad, whose number exceeded 2,800 at the beginning of March 2017.
In December 2017, it organized a conference in which it restructured itself, affirmed its slogan and a program entitled “Shared Future,” and reaffirmed its major demands mentioned above.
By the end of 2018, the party witnessed withdrawals, internal tensions, and protests against the absence of internal democracy and the lack of clarity of the political line and strategic vision.
Founder of the "France Proud" party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (French)
The party was accused of anti-Semitism in February 2019, against the backdrop of Mélenchon's position on the Yellow Vest movement, a charge through which the liberals sought to discredit the party.
On December 19, 2019, the party presented a counter-project to reform the retirement system, proposing retirement at the age of 60.
In October 2020, the leader of the largest French opposition party refused to support President Emmanuel Macron in his debate with Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mélenchon justified his position by saying that Macron had lost control of the situation, and said in a press interview that he preferred silence.
In October 2021, Mélenchon himself launched the idea of a “Popular Union Parliament” with the aim of bringing together figures from outside the party to support his candidacy for the presidential elections, and to be a nucleus for reshaping the French left.
The party succeeded in transforming the idea into an alliance on the ground called the “Parliament of the New Popular Environmental and Social Union,” led by “proud France” and including the left-wing parties and the Green Party to run in the French legislative elections and confront Macron and his coalition in June 2022.
In those elections, Mélenchon was able to achieve the best result in his electoral career by winning third place with 21.95% of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections on April 10, 2022.
An opinion poll conducted by the French Ifop Institute for Studies revealed that Mélenchon benefited from the votes of Muslim voters in the first round by more than 70%, compared to only 37% in the 2017 elections.
The "Proud France" party obtained an important position in the French Parliament after it allied with the Green Party and some leftist parties within the framework of the Popular Union, where it obtained in the legislative elections of the same year (2022) 75 seats in the National Assembly (House of Representatives), and 27 advisors in Regionally elected councils.
Before that, in 2009, the party won 5 seats in the European Parliament.
In the summer of 2022, the party experienced a new wave of withdrawals and exclusion of figures, as the party leadership was organized and Manuel Bombard assumed the position of national coordinator in December 2022 without elections.
During the year 2023, the party continued to reject the pension reform law, and considered that social mobilization against it was unprecedented in France for 4 decades.
The party leader said that the battle over the law is taking place between the French people and President Macron, and that “the President of the Republic would be wrong to rely on the decline of the people’s enthusiasm, confusion and fatigue. This will not happen, and his duty, in democracy, is to find a way out of this crisis, either by referendum or more simply.” Withdraw the repair.
The party's representatives denounced the immigration law passed by France in December 2023, and considered it a victory for the far-right party and a distortion of France and its history of preserving human rights.
Representative in the French National Assembly and member of Parliament from the “Proud France” party, Aymeric Caron (Reuters)
Rejecting the aggression on Gaza
The position of the leadership of the “Proud France” party regarding the Israeli occupation war on Gaza following the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation on October 7, 2023, deepened the differences within the party, as the leadership refused to accuse the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) of being “terrorist,” and the representative described Daniel Obono described Hamas as a resistance movement to liberate Palestine, which was rejected by some party members who demanded that it withdraw its statement.
The "Proud France" party considered that the policies of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the policy of settlement intensification, bear responsibility for the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation.
Mélenchon wrote in his account on the “X” platform, “War crimes in Gaza must be condemned and their perpetrators tried and punished,” and called on France to work towards a ceasefire with all its political and diplomatic might, stressing that the two-state solution in accordance with United Nations resolutions is the path to peace in the region.
The party’s parliamentary bloc organized a stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the courtyard of the French Parliament, in the presence of the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to France, Hala Abu Hasira, and representatives from the Communist Party and the Green Party.
The bloc submitted a request to the Speaker of the French Parliament, Yael Brun-Bivé, to observe a minute of silence in mourning for an employee of the French Foreign Ministry who was killed by the Israeli occupation bombing in the southern Gaza Strip, but it was rejected.
Because of these positions, the party was subjected to a fierce campaign from the French media in support of Israel, which was exploited by rejectors from within the party as well as those allied with it. The French Socialist Party suspended its participation in the coalition of the group of left-wing deputies, the “New Popular Environmental and Social Union.”
Observers believe that “Proud France” is not a party in the traditional sense, but rather a political movement seeking to build a new organizational form “that is not subject to the bureaucracy and hierarchy that have stifled traditional parties and paralyzed the movement to rejuvenate and renew blood in the veins of their organizational structures,” but at the same time it has been unable to find a recipe. To reduce the state of organizational chaos within it and stop the disease of splits and withdrawals.
Source: websites