Thread by @RnaudBertrand

Quite an incredible move in French politics today that might reveal that we're in fact witnessing nothing less than a coup by Macron.

Let me explain 🧵

You'll remember that on the 7th of July France held elections that Macron lost badly, and which the left's "New Popular Front" won.

We're now 48 days afterwards and Macron and his government are still running the country, they've basically ignored the election results which is unprecedented in the history of the French 5th republic.

Normally, as is the rule set by precedents, Macron should have nominated a Prime Minister from the New Popular Front, the winners of the elections 🤷‍♂️

At first Macron argued that it wasn't convenient to change government right before the Olympics games and argued for an "Olympics truce".

Which is a bit bizarre because he's the one who decided to hold the elections right before the Olympics 🤦‍♂️

Anyhow we're now almost 2 weeks after the end of the Olympics and the situation is still the same so everyone is started to ask "wtf?"

Especially given that the New Popular Front has a Prime Minister ready: Lucie Castets, a senior public servant.

Now the excuse by Macron's camp is that they refuse a government with anyone from LFI ("France's unbowed", Mélenchon's party), the main party on the left and therefore the main party in the New Popular Front coalition (Lucie Castets is not from LFI but some ministers could be).

Macron has been demonizing LFI in a very similar fashion to the way Jeremy Corbyn was demonized in the UK, with accusations of antisemitism for their support of Gaza.

Except that unlike Corbyn, LFI doesn't bow - they're "France unbowed" after all - and fight back the accusations

Which brings me to what happened this morning, an incredible gamble by Mélenchon who asked an open question to Macron: "Say we committed to no LFI members in the government, would you nominate Lucie Castets Prime Minister?"

This forces Macron's hand: if he says "no", as Mélenchon himself wrote, it'd show that Macron's refusal to have LFI in the government is "just a pretext to deny the election results".

In effect if he says no, he openly admits that he just doesn't accept the election results.

Olivier Faure, who leads the Socialist party (the other big political force in the New Popular Front) backs up Mélenchon and says the "pretext of the presence of LFI ministers" isn't valid anymore.

In a way a New Popular Front government without LFI would in itself a denial of democracy because most voters voted for them *because* LFI was part of the coalition.

But this is also an act of political courage by Mélenchon and a way to put Macron in front of his contradictions.

We've already had some of Macron's lieutenants reply such as Benjamin Haddad (former spokesperson for Macron's party in the French parliament) who literally says that a New Popular Front gvt is unacceptable either way because it'd be bad for France.

They get to decide this? 🤔

Let's see what Macron ultimately does but we're truly witnessing something extraordinary that demonstrates how undemocratic France has become: the people voted and the result of their vote is so far simply rejected because those holding power don't like it...

I got this community note 👇 in the thread, which is NOT true. In the elections of 2022 - the prior ones - Macron's party arrived first without winning a majority yet Macron didn't hesitate to nominate a Prime Minister from his own party 🤷‍♂️

Another extraordinary comment on this matter by François Bayrou, a former Macron minister and a famous centrist politician in France:

He literally says that the answer to Mélenchon's question is "of course no" (i.e. a New Popular Front government won't be accepted no matter what) because the program of the NFP is "very dangerous" for France.

There you have it, he said the quiet part out loud: folks who lost the elections refuse to leave power in favor of those who won it because they disagree with the policies the winners would enact, and they believe they're the ultimate judge for how the country should be governed.

Absolutely unreal.