France's allied left seeks lower retirement age, wealth tax on rich
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FILE PHOTO: Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, Manuel Bompard, coordinator of the operational team of the French far-left opposition party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed - LFI) Marine Tondelier, National Secretary of Les Ecologistes (The Ecologists - Greens) party, pose for a picture after the announcement of the alliance of left-wing parties, called the \"Front Populaire\" (Popular Front) for their joint candidates in forthcoming parliamentary elections, at the Ecologistes party headquarters in Paris, France, June 13, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
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PARIS - France's leftwing parties want to lower the retirement age, link salaries to inflation and introduce a wealth tax for the rich, leaders of a newly agreed alliance that spans from the hard left to the Socialists and Greens said on Friday.
The parties set aside differences to strike a deal late on Thursday ahead of a parliamentary election that President Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called for June 30 and July 7 after his centrist party suffered a bruising defeat in Sunday's European Parliament elections.
"Emmanuel Macron won't have a majority," Greens leader Marine Tondelier told a new conference.
"It's either the far right or us," she said, urging leftwing voters to back the new alliance, which gathers the Socialists, Greens, Communists, and hard-left Unbowed France (LFI) in an alliance dubbed the "Popular Front."
Opinion polls show that the leftist alliance is unlikely to win the election.
Tondelier said a top priority for the group would be to scrap Macron's very unpopular pension reform. Other measures would include increasing the minimum wage, introducing a wealth tax, boosting measures to fight climate change, and reforming the European Union's agriculture policy.
The leftist bloc worked together during the last parliamentary election campaign in 2022 but a leadership struggle and policy differences - including over the Gaza war - led to the alliance's effective collapse. REUTERS
