Macron rivals win parl finance post

Paris, June 30: France’s far-left opposition party on Thursday won the presidency of the National Assembly’s powerful finance commission, parliament sources said, a key post that could further complicate President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reform plans.

Eric Coquerel of the France Unbowed party was elected by commission members, triumphing over the far-right National Rally candidate who had also campaigned furiously for the job.

By tradition, the presidency of the finance commission, which has broad oversight of government budgets and can weigh in on legislation proposals, goes to the largest opposition party.

The National Rally, led by far-right veteran Marine Le Pen, became the leading opposition after scoring significant gains in the parliamentary polls earlier this month. But France Unbowed formed an alliance with Socialists, Communists and the Greens that allowed it to secure Coquerel’s win, with 21 votes against 11 for the National Rally's Jean-philippe Tanguy.

Macron’s centrists lost their absolute majority in the lower-house National Assembly. Gerald Darmanin saying: “We need intelligence. Responses to requests from the French police are not always given.” The rebuke followed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s proposal to send back all migrants and asylum seekers who land in England to France, a move rejected by Paris.

Following Britain’s departure from the European Union, it does not have a returns treaty with France or the wider EU.

The spat added to a litany of post-brexit rows between the two sides, which also include a dispute on fishing rights in the Channel which at times threatened to spill over into a full-blown trade war.

Despite a more conciliatory tone since, and promises of more cooperation, the number of migrants seeking to cross the Channel from France to England surged in the first half of this year, according to the French interior ministry. From January 1 to June 13, there were 777 attempted crossings involving 20,132 people, up 68 per cent on the same period last year. —