The collapse of the Socialists and Podemos in Spain, a warning to the French left

Gone are the days when Jean-Luc Melenchon and Pablo Iglesias signed a manifesto that sealed “Common Movement” between La France insoumise (LFI) and Podemos, one year before the 2019 European elections. Five years later, Spain’s regional and municipal elections, disastrous for the left and Podemos in particular, have caused a great silence among the French left. A year before the European elections in June 2024, international allies of the LFI and the Socialist Party (PS) are battling it out on the continent, and right-wing alliances with the far right are strengthening.

After the far-right party Vox broke through in Spain with just over 7% of the vote, “rebel” MEP Manon Aubry is worried about progress. “reaction forces”. With the Spanish elections, the list of disappointments is growing: in Greece, on May 21, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was a big loser in the general election, and in Finland, after legislative elections on April 2, the center. – The left-wing coalition lost power to the right-wing alliance, including the far-right. “This is a warning to us, Judge Manon Aubrey. The trend is clear: everywhere in Europe, the right is allied with the extreme right. »

Other MPs in the LFI go further and believe that Spain’s Podemos movement, a long-time sibling of the “rebels”, is paying for its normalization by taking part in the government of socialist Pedro Sánchez. And return the impression that there is more“accompaniment” In developing an alternative to capitalism. Paul Vanier, LFI MP for Val-d’Oise, is one of them. “The results of the elections in Greece and Spain show the electoral impasse where the line of “normalization” goes. With caznev sauce when he wins the breaking camp”he said on Twitter in the wake of the results. For Marianne Maxime, Deputy LFI for Puy-de-Dôme, “There was a desire to break and radicalism to change the mechanism, this justifies it”.

“Stay Humble”

In France, the analyzes of the “rebels” make their socialist and communist partners smile. PS spokeswoman Chloe Riddell regrets the emergence of Vox and the European far-right, which manages “Building a truly coherent, transnational discourse on Europe”, more than the left. But he also notes that Spain’s Socialist Party is less fractured than Podemos. The press secretary of the party Ian Brosat calls on the communist side “Stay Humble”. “All that remains in Spain remains Much larger than the total number of nups [Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale] According to the latest legislation, he notes. The two floating parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos, collapsed, undoubtedly showing the boundaries of parties that disappear as quickly as they appear. »