Europe

French left propose Huguette Bello as compromise PM pick, but Socialists are on the fence

13/07/2024

As France’s left-wing alliance scrambles to agree on a candidate for prime minister after taking the most parliamentary seats in the July 7 snap election, the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party has proposed veteran politician Huguette Bello as a compromise candidate. The former Communist Party member from the French overseas region of Reunion is a respected politician whose candidacy is supported by most parties in the New Popular Front coalition, but the Socialists appear to be reluctant to endorse her, explains Damien Lecomte from the Paris Pantheon Sorbonne University.

Jul 13, 2024

After nearly a week of frantic negotiations, Huguette Bello emerged as a contender for the French prime minister’s post when Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party hailed the latest “solution” to the political impasse that has gripped France since the July 7 legislative elections produced a hung parliament.

Speaking to supporters on Friday, Mélenchon said Bello, a committed “anti-racist feminist” was a “solution” to the political impasse.

The 577-seat National Assembly is roughly split into thirds between the New Popular Front (NFP) left alliance with 182 seats, President Emmanuel Macron‘s Ensemble centrists at 168 and the far-right National Rally (RN) with 143.

French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel told a local TV station the 73 year-old politician from France’s Reunion Island has “the right stuff” to fulfill the PM role.

But Damien Lecomte, a researcher from Paris Pantheon Sorbonne University, notes that the Socialist Party within the New Popular Front alliance is defending their party leader Olivier Faure as the best candidate to head the new French government.