French president Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party lost its parliamentary majority on Tuesday when 17 left-leaning, environmentalist and feminist dissidents set up a new political group in the National Assembly.
Paula Forteza, co-chair of Ecologie Démocratie Solidarité (EDS), said the new group’s proposals included a temporary wealth tax to help the country through the coronavirus crisis and universal income payments to everybody over 18 years old.
“We are at a historic turning point,” she told a news conference by video. “We want this exit from the crisis to be marked by environmental and social justice, not by a purely economic or short-termist plan.”