The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

40 2GM Saturday June 11 2022 | the times

Wo r l d

Several hundred people were clamour-
ing outside a Normandy theatre for a
glimpse of their hero when France’s
political showman appeared to give
them what they wanted.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a radical anti-
capitalist, basked in the cheering then
launched into an appeal for votes to
help him take over France. The country
has had enough of its “monarch presi-
dent”, he said. “If the French people
decide to give us a majority then we will
govern. Destiny is in your hands.”
A foreigner passing the convention
centre in Caen on Wednesday night
might have been mystified. President
Macron, 44, was re-elected six weeks
ago with a healthy 59 per cent of the
vote in the two-round polls. Yet his cen-

Mélenchon told the crowd was “the

true third round” of the presidential

race. Macron had not been legitimately

re-elected, Mélenchon said. “The

majority of people who voted for

Macron did not want him. They voted

against Le Pen.”

Fiery hero of French left threatens Macron’s monopoly on power

trist alliance is unexpectedly in danger

of losing its governing majority in a

general election starting tomorrow.

The French usually hand new presi-

dents full control of parliament, but

Macron’s victory was a re-election and

the country remains in restive mood.

The threat has come from an offen-

sive by Mélenchon, 70, a fiery orator

who came a close third in the presiden-

tial race. The hard-left figurehead has

caught Macron by surprise by corral-

ling the feuding Socialist, Communist

and Greens parties into an alliance be-

hind La France Insoumise (France Un-

bowed). He has stirred enthusiasm

across the left, from green-minded

urbanites to the older working class.

After seeing off Marine Le Pen, the

nationalist runner-up for the presiden-

cy, Macron has been forced back into

campaign mode to fend off what

Mélenchon’s Nupes (New Ecological

and Social Popular Union) has in some

polls overtaken Macron’s Ensemble

bloc in voting intentions in the two-

round parliamentary race. It remains

unlikely to win a majority of the

national assembly’s 577 seats, but it is on

course to rob Macron of the absolute

majority that he needs to push through

his promised reforms.

The conservative Républicains and

Le Pen’s Rassemblement National

could be eclipsed in opposition by the

new radical left five years after

Macron’s République en Marche

stormed into the assembly.

Mélenchon, a born entertainer who

is against big business, believes he is

stirring enough excitement among left-

wing voters to propel his party to an ab-

solute majority and force Macron to

appoint him head of a left-wing govern-

ment. With characteristic cheek, he is

campaigning as “the next prime minis-

ter”, who would replace Élisabeth

Borne, the left-leaning technocrat

whom Macron appointed last month

and who has never been elected.

If Macron’s bloc falls below the 289-

seat threshold for an absolute majority

on June 19 but has a relative lead, it will

have to negotiate legislation with un-

attached centre-left and centre-right

MPs and small groups in a parliament

likely to be dominated by extremes.

The campaign is being compared

with 1988, which also involved a re-

election. President Mitterrand was

returned to office but won only a slim

majority. Michel Rocard, his prime

minister, was forced to negotiate every

parliamentary vote with MPs outside

the party. It is a possibility Macron may

soon have to reckon with.

France
Charles Bremner Caen

State of the parties

Nupes (Mélenchon’s left-wing coalition)

Ensemble (Macron’s centrist bloc)

Rassemblement National

(Le Pen’s right-wing nationalists)

Les Républicains/UDI

(Conservatives and allies)

Reconquête (Zemmour’s right-wing

party)

28%

27%

19.5%

11%

6% Source: Ipos Sopra Steria

Donald Trump turned on his daughter
Ivanka as he furiously denied claims
that he had orchestrated an attempted
coup during the riot at the US Capitol
last year.
At Thursday night’s televised hearing
from the congressional committee
investigating the January 6 riot
damning evidence suggesting that
Trump, then president, led a criminal
conspiracy in an attempt to overturn
his 2020 election defeat and cling on to
power was presented.
An estimated 20 million Americans
watched the hearing on television.
In a barrage of posts on his Truth
Social platform, Trump even dismissed
the video testimony from his daughter
shown on Thursday evening. Ivanka, a
senior White House adviser, told the
committee that she “accepted” and
“respected” the verdict of Bill Barr,
Trump’s attorney-general, that her
father had lost the 2020 election and
there was “zero evidence” for his claims
of voter fraud.
Trump rounded on both yesterday,
dismissing his daughter’s testimony
and claiming she had “checked out” of
his administration by election night,
when his defeat became clear and he
made the claim that the vote had been
rigged against him.
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in
looking at, or studying, election results.
She had long since checked out and
was, in my opinion, only trying to be
respectful to Bill Barr and his position
as attorney general (he sucked!),”
Trump wrote yesterday, even though
his daughter had been at his
side for the rally outside
the White House on
January 6. The riot
erupted hours after
the rally.
Barr, the most
senior White
House official to
give evidence to
the committee,
was shown saying
that he had told
Trump bluntly that
his claims that the
election was stolen
through voter fraud were

Trump rounds on his daughter

“bullshit”. “I didn’t want to be a part of

it,” said Barr, a former loyalist who re-

signed in December 2020 as Trump re-

fused to accept the result.

Thursday night’s revelations

included testimony that Trump said

Mike Pence, his vice-president, “de-

served” to be killed for refusing to block

certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

The next hearing, on Monday, is set

to look deeper into the evidence that

the former president knew he had lost

the election but pressed on with claims

that the vote was stolen.

Whipping up his supporters, Trump

set in motion the events that led

directly to the deadly assault on the

Capitol, the committee said. “In our

second hearing, you will see that

Donald Trump and his advisers knew

that he had, in fact, lost the election,”

said the committee’s Republican vice-

chairwoman Liz Cheney, who has been

exiled from the party for her work with

the Democrat-led panel.

“Despite this, President Trump

engaged in a massive effort to spread

false and fraudulent information — to

convince huge portions of the US

population that fraud had stolen the

election from him. This was not true.”

The committee presented testimony

from Trump White House staff that

they knew the election was lost and

that no evidence of fraud could be

found. A clip of Jason Miller, Trump’s

senior adviser in his re-election

campaign, was shown, describing a

meeting in the Oval Office at which a

member of the data team told “the pres-

ident in pretty blunt terms that he was

going to lose”.

The third hearing, on Wednesday,

promises to present evidence

that Trump and his associ-

ates then planned to

sack Barr, installing

loyalists to senior

posts in the justice

department to

promote his false

claim he had been

robbed of victory.

Lawyers were

pressured to sub-

mit letters claiming

that the department had “identified sig-

nificant concerns that may have im-

pacted the outcome of the election” in

key swing states won by Biden. In

another extraordinary video clip, ex-

pected to be broadcast in full next week,

Richard Donoghue, the acting deputy

attorney-general, was shown voicing

his horror at the plan. “What you’re

proposing is nothing less than the

Department of Justice meddling in the

outcome of a presidential election,”

Donoghue said.

In a deluge of posts yesterday, Trump

denied the claims, dismissing Barr as “a

coward” who had cut a deal with Dem-

ocrats and the January 6 committee.

Trump lashed out at the testimony,

released by Cheney, that at the height

of the violence on January 6, as his sup-

porters stormed the Capitol chanting

“Hang Mike Pence”, he had said of the

threats to kill his vice-president: “May-

be our supporters have the right idea.

Mike Pence deserves it.”

“I NEVER said, or even thought of

saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence’. This is

either a made up story by somebody

looking to become a star, or FAKE

NEWS!” Trump said yesterday.

Denouncing the committee as a “one

sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL

WITCH HUNT!” Trump again denied

responsibility for the riot, repeating his

claim that the 2020 election had been

stolen. “The so-called ‘Rush on the

Capitol’ was not caused by me, it was

caused by a Rigged and Stolen Elect-

ion!” he wrote.

Loyal Trump lieutenants leapt to his

defence yesterday, as the former presi-

dent braced for more shocking revela-

tions next week, building towards the

riot itself. The fourth hearing, on

Thursday, will focus on Trump’s efforts

to bully Pence into blocking Congress

from certifying Biden’s election victory.

The committee has promised an hour-

by-hour breakdown of the events of

January 6, and Trump’s actions on the

day, in the sixth and final hearing.

Elise Stefanik, the House Republican

Conference chairwoman, said that the

hearing was “shameless” and a “polit-

ical circus”. “Look no further than the

fact that they ran [the hearing] during

prime-time hours. As you and I both

know, a typical serious congressional

hearing starts during the day, typically

starting at 10am,” she said.

United States
Hugh Tomlinson Washington

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