28 Mar 2020, 03:36

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Municipal Elections 2020: Macron Best Chance of Continuing Baschet Legacy

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ESCOLIVES -- With the change from Elisabeth Baschet to Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Parti Socialiste seems to have taken a bit of a left turn. Even Michel Kligenberg has called them out in an op-ed piece in Le Figaro, friendly territory for him.

This is where a rebirth of the radical centre could begin, and who better than Emmanuel Macron and the Libéraux En Marche? Council elections are coming up, which means political parties in opposition get a rare chance to elbow their way into the national spotlight and take on the Government and its messaging. Political party broadcasts will soon be ready in the next week for the April 13th poll. It would be a perfect time to send a message to the Government. Drift too far to the left, and a resurgent LEM will be there to take the spoils.

"We are a party that provided the ideas that put Elisabeth Baschet in Matignon!" Macron said to a crowd of young enthusiastic voters in Escolives. "If you want to tell the Government to stay on the Baschet track, don't vote for the Ayrault Socialistes. Vote for us, and we will tell them to stay on this side of La Manche."

This, of course, a reference to the Union of Nicolezian Socialist Republics forming nearly overnight communist regime. Indeed, the sudden pop up of a true communist threat has sent a shiver down many a party that dares share the red rose of socialism (though many veer on the side of social democracy rather than democratic socialism). The Parti Socialiste shares that problem now. With Jean-Marc Ayrault, a teacher who soon became a major player in the FSU (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire) and leader of the Mitterandist faction, they can be hit on two sides. On the left, Les Verts (EELV) could come and say they need to pull more into anticapitalist thought and invest more in upending norms of liberal globalisation. Or they could be hit on the right by both Macron and the Christian Democrat leader Kligenberg.

As for this magazine? En Marche!