Since the start of the budget examination, mutual detestation between Insoumis and socialists has erupted openly in the National Assembly's hemicycle. Tensions, highlighted by a heated exchange between Olivier Faure and Paul Vannier, underscore the growing rift on the left. The Socialist Party seeks to emancipate itself from La France insoumise through compromises with the macronists.
The 2026 budget debates at the National Assembly have spotlighted deep fractures within France's left. Since October 2025, reciprocal hatred between deputies from La France insoumise (LFI), loyal to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and those from the Socialist Party (PS) has openly manifested in the Palais Bourbon.
A telling incident occurred in October amid intense budget discussions. Olivier Faure, the PS first secretary, stepped out to vape in the Delacroix salon adjoining the hemicycle. With furrowed brows, he scanned the room when Paul Vannier, an LFI deputy nicknamed 'the prosecutor of the Revolution' by socialists, addressed him gravely: 'Are you looking for Lecornu?' This sharp remark targeted Faure's decision to spare Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu from censure, a move that shattered hopes of left-wing unity. Faure replied with a mocking smile: 'Yes, yes, in the meantime…'
This animosity fits a broader context. Privately, Jean-Luc Mélenchon says of Faure: 'I believed in him, I was wrong.' Their 2022 meeting, after the presidential election where Anne Hidalgo scored only 1.7% for the PS against Mélenchon's 22%, led to the creation of the Nupes coalition, dominated by LFI. Mélenchon then believed he had imposed his supremacy, branding socialists with the 'red-hot iron of Mélenchonism.'
Today, the PS pursues a compromise strategy with the macronist government to emancipate itself from LFI. This approach, though risky ahead of 2027, confirms the rift initiated by the current budget debates, where socialists negotiate partial victories at the expense of left-wing unity.