The leader of France’s Republicans party has said he would be open to an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in snap French elections. Such an alliance would break a decades-old taboo.
Eric Ciotti, the head of the conservative French political party Les Republicans (LR), astounded political observers Tuesday by suggesting it was time to drop the longstanding taboo against working with the country’s far-right National Rally (NR) party in hopes of taking power in snap elections called by centrist President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of Sunday’s European parliamentary elections.
Speaking on TF1 TV, Ciotti said: “We say the same things, so let’s stop making up imagined opposition. This is what the vast majority of our voters want. They’re telling us, 'reach a deal.”
In response, several of Ciotti’s fellow party members spoke out against allowing former NR President Marine Le Pen anywhere near the levers of power.
The last 20 years have been rough on our left. Loads of infighting and a massive shift to the right from our media, have done a lot of damage.
Well…that and the thinly repressed racism that’s been simmering in Europe for decades has finally boiled over.
Everyone in the US just kinda assumes that we’re an outlier in the racism department, but that’s just because they haven’t ever heard a drunk French man pop off about Algerian or Romani people.
For real - there’s a real strong “France for the French” thing in some areas. I was a bit shocked when I learned about it… but then again, any society is going to have its regressive elements. It’s just disconcerting to see them getting so much popular traction these days.
“Make France Great Again” - inevitable, predictable, sad!
Everyone’s lives are going to shit and politicians looking for scapegoats blame immigration.
We are just recovering from a similar situation here but the Overton window has shifted so far the supposed left-wing workers’ party now look like centre-right conservatives.
Where is “here”?
I’m in the UK and it sounds like it might be us.
I was going to say “Planet Earth” but yes you are correct.
everywhere on earth maybe
Good to see the left/centre rallying when it mattered most need to reject fascism again.
From an outside perspective this seemed like quite a shrewd political move by Macron for once. Is that a fair assessment?
It was more of a calculated move, he boasted about “throwing a grenade between their legs” (read, I fucked them over with my unexpected move, and thought it was funny). His hubris and contempt seem to know no bounds.