The other Marine who could change France
Marine Tondelier, leader of the French green party (EELV), has emerged as the key voice of the 'republican front' against the far-right Rassemblement National
Could French politics end up being a game of two Marines?
Might bleu-marine turn into ‘deux Marines? - the navy colour of the far-right Rassemblement national (RN) having washed through the French electoral map after the first-round legislative election on Sunday?
The profile of Marine Tondelier, leader of the French green party, Europe Écologie Les Verts (EELV), has shot up this week.
Magazine L’Express even spoke today of “Tondelier-mania”.
The often-green-jacketed leader from the northern Nord-Pas-Calais department appears to have emerged this week as the most eminent figure so far of France’s new broad-left alliance, the Nouveau front populaire (NFP), currently spearheaded and represented by several politicians.
Through all this, Tondelier has also become a key face of the wider ‘Republican front’ that is rallying together to make a cross-political ‘barrage’ against RN.
The key question now - could Tondelier end up leading a grand coalition against RN, following her media frenzy?
Support for RN has reached historic levels this election, but six different opinion polls from the last couple of days have placed the party short of an overall majority, giving them around only 200-260 seats. The golden number is 289 - RN president Jordan Bardella says he won't govern with anything less.
In the event that RN is unable, or decides not, to govern, it is likely that a coalition would be needed. With Macron’s centrist grouping, Ensemble, set to be only the third-largest party in the Assembly after Sunday's, that would probably fall to the NFP.
A successful coalition, though, would have to be grand in its proportions to get the numbers up to past 289 - a tall order to get everyone to agree too, as it would range from the green EELV and the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI), all the way to Parti Socialiste (PS), Ensemble and what remains of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) after some of them backed RN led by Eric Ciotti.
But who, exactly, would manage to form a government of many talents with so many different talents, and actually pass any legislation in a potentially very fragmented Assemblée?
Could it be Tondelier? Are the media setting her up for that job?
Not many in France will be familiar with Tondelier, although she has campaigned with the greens since 2009.
Le Figaro described her as having “little notoriety [and] grand ambitions” yesterday, while Le Monde said that she “is establishing herself as a central political figure before the second round”.
Her emotional interview on the radio station France Inter on Monday went viral.
She verged on tears as she took issue with what she saw as “cowardly and privileged behaviour” from French finance minister Bruno Le Maire, after he urged people “to vote for a candidate from the social democrat camp.” He added: “I am combatting RN, but I am not voting LFI.”
Some politicians and voters have taken issue with this, as they see it as an obstacle to encouraging people to vote for the NFP as a pro-‘republican’, anti-RN ‘barrage’ on the grounds that its majority party is LFI.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has taken a similar line, not giving advice on who exactly to vote for other than speaking of parties that share the centrists’ republican values, while acknowledging the need, from his perspective, for RN to be fought.
Emmanuel Macron also said in a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that there was “no question” of governing with LFI.
“Withdrawing today for left MPs in the face of the RN doesn't mean governing tomorrow with LFI,” he said.
(Side note: Worth noting that those comments contain nuances when you include the timeframe, and could mean different things in different cases. Will there be a pivot next week in a time of urgency?
Some politicians and voters believe LFI would he similarly extreme to RN, just on the left. Many have taken issue with the party's position on the Middle East and perceived top-down internal governance.
Separately, on the other hand, the Interior Ministry’s own classification of parties before the election named LFI a “left” and not “extreme left” party. The executive judiciary advisory body the Conseil d’État also takes the same view.
Going back to Tondelier, she also earned kudos after her one-to-one interview on BFM TV on Wednesday, where she represented NFP.
She caught additional media attention after she said that Jordan Bardella had refused to debate with her in a three-way debate with Gabriel Attal and her, which is why the three politicians appeared in individual one-to-one interviews and the three-way televised debate, planned well in advance, was scrapped last-minute owing to a disagreement over who would represent the left. Tondelier also wrote on social media: “Ah OK, so it’s really official, Bardella only wants to debate men.”
The fact that Tondelier is from Hénin-Beaumont in northern France, where Marine Le Pen is an MP, would also carry major symbolic value and knowledge of a key far-right patch.
Another major thing going for Tondelier is that she has emerged as something of a facilitator-in-chief among the NFP’s intensely fragmented broad-left alliance.
She appears to be one of the key go-betweens between the sides. According to Le Monde, Tondelier met in the small hours of 10th June, only a few hours after Macron first called the snap elections, to forge a plan of action for the left with Olivier Faure, General Secretary of the social-democrat Parti Socialiste, and Raphaël Glucksmann, the leader of the centre-left Place Publique party who achieved robust results for the left list in June’s European elections, which he led.
Tondelier also met Manuel Bompard, the LFI president, in the small hours after the previous meeting.
Choosing Bompard as the key point of contact regarding LFI was a strategic one. He has remained a visible face - more than the presumptive and three-time-already LFI presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has kept a relatively low profile over the last couple of weeks, except from leading the NFP reaction last Sunday when the party announced it would desist all of it's third-place candidates to benefit the ‘front républicain.’
Mélenchon could in theory have been involved in the late-night meetings, but perhaps this was an early decision by Tondelier to turn over a new leaf for an NFP clearly keen to keep in view its ambition to reach the centre.
Mélenchon is seen as a sometimes boisterous and radical character. Bompard is very close to Mélenchon, having been a close adviser on his political strategy, particularly as director of his 2017 and 2022 presidential election campaigns.
But he has attempted to lead albeit controversial internal changes in LFI, particularly after the party led the left-wing NUPES parliamentary grouping ahead of, and after, the 2022 presidential election, which aimed to create a broad left coalition in the same way as NFP (although NFP has more centrist ambitions).
In January 2023, Bompard was appointed the party's new chief coordinator (rather undemocratically, though, which upset some), but MPs such as Alexis Corbière of LFI said at the time that they were in “radical disagreement” with his proposed changes.
It is interesting to note that Corbière is among a handful of LFI MPs who said before the first round of this election that they had been victims of a “purge” within LFI; he was one of five not allowed to stand under the party's ticket - potentially following their criticisms of Mélenchon’s manner of navigating internal democracy (perhaps relating to Bompard). This was criticised across the left. Corbière is still standing in Seine-Saint-Denis, alongside another LFI candidate (there are several cases where this is happening with so-called “purged” LFI MPs).
Bar the controversy, the key point is: does Tondelier’s link with Bompard instead of Mélenchon signify Tondelier attempting to access a different, side of LFI?
Tondelier also didn't sideline LFI when some socialists said after the snap elections were called that they should ‘go around’ LFI in their goal to gear up the left to take on Le Pen by appealing to the centre.
Some had floated the idea of getting François Ruffin, who is not a formal LFI member but a supporter with his own separate party (but who has said in the last couple of days that he is breaking with LFI), to try and take the lead on LFI’s direction to address unease regarding it's current policies and organisation.
Tondelier pushed back on that, though. Given LFI is likely to make up the largest number of left-leaning seats in the National Assembly after Sunday, that was probably a good move on a strategic level to prevent feelings of disrespect from within LFI.
And so it looks like Tondelier's strategy vis-à-vis LFI is one of balancing both sides, keeping it close and distant at the same time.
Yet, even if Tondelier is being touted as the potential leader of a left-led grand coalition, would she have the legitimacy to direct it?
In the latest seat projection from Ipsos yesterday, EELV would be only the third largest party in NFP, after LFI (58-68) and the Parti socialiste (51-61), with a smaller number of seats (29-37). However, perhaps it is because EELV lies between LFI and PS that they want a green to take the lead.
If Tondelier’s politics continues to resonate in the left and she does end up leading the NFP and so-called Republican front (potentially becoming prime minister), a major positive could, however, be that climate issues are put back centre stage.
The environment has not featured significantly in the European elections or in these legislative elections. On the other hand, this could be a point of conflict with RN, which wants to reduce taxes on car fuels and opt for a more practical approach to climate policy.
It could also be challenging for a green politician to lead a coalition stretching into Macron’s centrist camp, not to mention the centre-right, which could be necessary for building a grand coalition that reaches a majority.
But is it all a trap? Success for the NFP this time could actually come back to bite them in the longer term. Is Macron hoping that the National Assembly gets pushed to polarisation and the extremes so that a Macronist (Macron cannot himself stand again as president) can, in the run-up to the 2027 presidential election, position themselves as the centrist unity candidate that has a foot in all the camps? Whether a centrist would manage to avoid being branded centre-left at a time when RN has occupied the French right could be a challenge, though.
Who knows what will happen? But if one thing is clear, bleu-marine could become deux Marines following Sunday's election.