🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Technical failures

22 October 2023 - A French Dispatch Update, Team Bayrou go to trial over fictive employments, and La France Insoumise falling into civil war

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This week

• 💡A French Dispatch Update!

• 👨‍⚖️Team Bayrou go to trial over fictive employment

• 🥊La France Insoumise falling into civil war

💡A French Dispatch Update!

Hey everyone,

So firstly, small update: I somehow lost access to my working file for this week, so the Weekly Dispatch will be severely reduced in scope this week, I’m afraid.

However, I also have some good news!

As you know, a few weeks back I opened up contributor application forms for those who wanted to contribute their knowledge and experiences to building up

The French Dispatch

, and I’m happy to say that we’ve received some very interesting applications and will be having some new contributors starting soon!

However, we’re always looking for more people, so if you’re interested in joining the team, please feel free to click the button below and apply to join us!

👨‍⚖️Team Bayrou go to trial over fictive employment

François Bayrou (Photo by Jacques Paquier)

So, as some of you will know, François Bayrou and other members of the MoDem party have been under investigation for fictive employment since 2017.

At the time, this had exploded in the first few months of Emmanuel Macron’s first presidency, and had cost Macron’s main ally several ministerial positions, and was compared several times with a similar affair that hit the now Rassemblement National back in 2012.

Effectively, the crux of the issue is that MEPs from MoDem are suspected of having employed assistants that weren’t actually working on European issues, but were actually working for their party back in France.

After six years of investigation, the process has now reached the stage of a trial that will be overseen by the judges of the 11th chamber of the Paris Criminal Courts, with the primary accusation being “complicity” or “concealment of embezzlement of public funds”

Currently, the trial is targeting both the legal entities of MoDem and it’s predecessor, the Union for French Democacy, as well as François Bayrou , Michel Mercier , Jean-Luc Bennahmias, and Janelle Fourtou.

🥊La France Insoumise falling into civil war

Jean-Luc Melenchon (Photo by ActuaLitte)

Now we move further to the far-left for a little while, where the firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon finds himself struggling to keep his coalition together, but it fighting to keep his party together.

After the internal fighting that was caused over the defence and acceptance of Adrien Quatennens after the domestic violence affair, and with the ongoing crisis occurring with regarding the potential Chikirou indictment, things have gotten even worse with the reaction to the Israel-Hamas War..

Currently, the breaking point appears to be the violent disagreement between Melenchon and his core acolytes, who refuse to describe Hamas as terrorists, and the rest of the deputies and membership who are fighting aggressively against this position and speaking out against it.

Notably, the one heir-apparent, and now sidelined François Ruffin, as well as other deputies such as Alexis Corbiere, who are actively fighting against the fact that the upper echelons are refusing to qualify terrorism for what it is.

There have even been violent disagreements internally within the party, particularly when Paris MP Daniele Obono described Hamas as a “resistance movement” on Tuesday 17 October, days after the crimes against humanity that we saw occurring in Israel.

This was quickly rebuked by Corbiere (and subsequently ignored by those involved), and has added further fuel to the fire that Ruffin’s faction within the party is hoping to launch a leadership challenge at some point.

However, there’s something important to note: whether it be through a dependency on the party/group, or a genuinely wish to make the project work, nobody intends to leave the party. The other parties of the NUPES appear to be running away, and they have lost their ability to put together a common list for the European Elections, with damage continuing to accumulate.

However, how these fights develop internally within the LFI will be the most interesting part of all of this. Will the party continue to struggle along and limp towards the next elections as the structures around them degrade and melt? Will they find solutions to this? Or will catastrophe strike and the party split in several directions?

Only time will tell.

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