Raphaël Glucksmann, whose Socialist-backed coalition came third in Sunday’s European elections, has emerged as a pivotal figure of France’s political centre-left. His support for the new alliance of the left could swing the balance away from the ascendant far right in the snap parliamentary elections called by President Emmanuel Macron for June 30 and July 7.
Place publique, the Socialist-backed list led by Raphaël Glucksmann, finished in third place in the EU elections on June 9, winning 13.8 percent of the vote, just behind President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition, which tallied 14.6 percent.
Following the poll, Glucksmann, 44, said he was proud of the score but that he was “not in the mood to celebrate” given the unprecedented victory of the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) led by Marine Le Pen, which won 31.4 percent of the vote.
Glucksmann on Friday threw his weight behind a new coalition of the left in the run-up to the vote for a new parliament, accusing Macron of plunging France “into chaos” by calling for early parliamentary elections.
“We can’t leave France to the Le Pen family,” he told broadcaster France Inter on Friday.
Glucksmann backed the new left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, saying it was the “only way” to prevent a far-right victory in the forthcoming polls.
Not a natural politician, Glucksmann has gradually emerged as a leader of the moderate, pro-European left in France.
During his debut European parliamentary campaign in 2019, Glucksmann, backed as head of the list by France’s Socialist Party leadership, seemed ill at ease and sometimes out of touch.
He himself admits that his initial performance as a politician was “bad”. But he has “worked hard”, he said, adding that his term as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) had “transformed” him.
He was energised by his duties in Brussels, taking up causes like the defence of the Uighur Muslim minority in China, and championing environmental initiatives like the EU Green Deal.
Committed to combatting “foreign interference in Europe”, particularly from Russia and China, an issue he has been warning about “for years”, he is also a fierce opponent of the far right.
Reappointed in 2024 as head of his group’s list, he has “grown in stature” and “come into his own” said a Socialist member of parliament who was not initially a fan of Glucksmann.
Glucksmann has stepped out of the shadow of his father, the nationally prominent philosopher and human rights activist André Glucksmann, a former Marxist who became a neo-conservative, who died in 2015.
The younger Glucksmann’s political views were inspired by left-of-centre politicians like Jacques Delors and Robert Badinter, and during the recent campaign he had the support of former Socialist leaders Lionel Jospin and Martine Aubry.
Their backing displeases partisans of the far-left La France insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI) led by firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which won 9.8 percent of the EU vote. They accuse Glucksmann of being the candidate of a “soft left”. Greens, meanwhile, feel that his votes in the Brussels parliament have been inconsistent, sometimes contradicting his group’s stated positions.
Not candidate for prime minister
When criticised for being “too Parisian” or “out of touch”, Glucksmann calls attention to his work on documentary films, one about the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda and another on the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
He also worked as an adviser to former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, from 2008 to 2012.
“My words and my vision of the world were not forged in Davos or Washington, but in places of such utter despair that it’s hard to even imagine,” he said.
Glucksmann calls for the opening of “a new political space”, a relationship to “democracy, violence and truth”, that avoid “brutalisation”, an oblique comment on the abrasive style of Mélenchon, with whom he has profound differences of opinion on Europe and international affairs.
Glucksmann had promised that after the EU elections he would continue to be “the guarantor” of a clear pro-European agenda, a program for a “pro-European, democratic and humanist left”.
It remained unclear who would lead the New Popular Front and be their candidate for prime minister.
Glucksmann ruled out the LFI’s Mélenchon. “We need someone who can achieve consensus”, a "calming" figure, he said.
Noting that he understood that those who voted for him in the European elections “may feel betrayed”, Glucksmann assured France Inter that he had “obtained” “extremely clear commitments” on Ukraine, Europe and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"I am not a candidate,” added Glucksmann. He would instead be a “guarantor that the lines that have been drawn will be respected”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters)
