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Macron suffers fresh defections from ruling party in French parliament

Seven French MPs on Tuesday quit President Emmanuel Macron's party to join a new formation in parliament, dealing a fresh blow to the majority after several other lawmakers defected last week.

Published: 26 May 2020 16:36 CEST

Macron suffers fresh defections from ruling party in French parliament

French president Emmanuel Macron's party has lost its absolute majority in parliament. Photo: AFP

Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) last week lost its outright parliamentary majority after 17 MPs defected, although officials insisted the party will have no problem pushing through legislation.

The seven latest MPs to leave will join a new faction called “Agir Ensemble” (Act Together), which will be the 10th parliamentary grouping in France's National Assembly, a record number in modern France.

They said the new faction – while remaining loyal to the LREM – would be “agile” and in a position to shake things up after the coronavirus passes.

The move lowers the number of LREM MPs in the chamber to 281, short of the absolute majority of 289.

The party enjoyed a wide majority, with 314 MPs, following 2017 parliamentary elections in the wake of Macron's rise to power.

However, the majority has been steadily eroded, a process that has sped up in recent weeks even though the LREM still retains the support of the centrist MoDem faction.

The head of the new faction, Olivier Becht, insisted that the new formation was not in opposition and would “support the action of the president” and be a “third pillar of the majority” alongside LREM and MoDem.

A government source shrugged off the latest changes, saying the Act Together faction would be “absolutely loyal to the majority and a supplementary pillar”.

However another source said that Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had criticised the move at an online meeting with LREM MPs.

Macron is facing re-election in 2022 in what many analysts expect will be a two-horse race with far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

An Odoxo opinion poll published Tuesday said Macron's popularity had plunged seven points to 35 percent over the last month, almost wiping out gains he had made at the helm of France's coronavirus fightback.

Last week 17 members of LREM party said they had formed a new political grouping named “Ecology, Democracy, Solidarity” (EDS) to pursue greener policies, “modernise” the political system, and reduce social inequalities.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.