Is the NFP for or against the legalization of cannabis?

With the arrival of the NFP bloc in the National Assembly, and pending its success in appointing a potential Prime Minister, a question naturally comes to mind: is the NFP for or against the legalization of cannabis?

After a search of their program, which was geared towards the urgent need to emerge from the Macron years, there was no strict mention of an initiative on the issue of drugs in general. At most, we could see a link with the following proposals:

• «Act against prison overcrowding», with 14.7 % of the prison population currently in prison for drug offences, according to the International Prison Observatory.
• «Introduce receipts for identity checks, which fuel police harassment that is often fuelled by drugs.
• «Repeal [...] laws that [...] undermine our individual and collective freedoms», the prohibition of drugs in general and cannabis in particular obviously being one such law.

Instead, we need to look at the vision of each party in the NFP bloc.

Left-wing parties and positions on cannabis

For Les Verts / Ecologistes , it's very clear. The party has been leaning towards legalizing cannabis since (at least?) 1997, when Dominique Voynet, then Minister of the Environment, declared in Charlie-Hebdo that she was in favor of decriminalizing cannabis. She was then defended on TF1 by Elisabeth Guigou (PS), Minister of Justice, for whom «it's not a tragedy to smoke a joint, except [...] if it becomes regular». O tempora, o mores. In the 2002 presidential election, Noël Mamère kept to the theme, as did Yannick Jadot in 2022 and his statements during a visit to the company. La Fleur - Delled.

France insoumise is also campaigning for the legalization of cannabis. In particular, the left-wing party has opposed the «cannabis» fixed fine and had proposed in 2018 to legalize cannabis instead, in fact, taking up a bill presented by eleven deputies of the Groupe Écologie les Verts on January 11, 2017.

For the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party, it's more complicated. Visit PCF wishes repeal the 1970 drug prohibition law and end repression of drug users. The last candidate, Fabien Roussel, merely mentioned the need for a debate on the subject. His candidate for the European elections declared against the legalization of cannabis in a TikTok lozenge by Brut.

On the other hand, PS candidate Raphaël Glucksmann declared himself in favor of legalization, while his party oscillates between acknowledging the failure of the prohibition policy - with Daniel Vaillant, Anne Hidalgo, Cécile Duflot, Vincent Peillon or Jean-Marc Ayrault François Hollande, Johanna Rolland and Arnaud Montebourg, the latter having declared his opposition to «verbena» as early as 1997, when the IARC sent 577 joints to French MPs. More recently, Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, proposed localized experimentation rather than outright legalization.

About the smallest parties such as Place Publique (Glucksmann), Génération-s (Benoit Hamon) and the New Anti-Capitalist Party, all tend towards the desire to legalize cannabis.

So it's hard to keep score. If the majority of the groups making up the NFP were for the legalization of cannabis, Over the last 30 years, we've seen that the desire to change the law on drugs most often comes up against the exercise of power.

Since Mitterrand, many militants have believed that the time for legalization had arrived, notably in 1997, with the declarations of Dominique Voynet. Charles Pasqua, not the most open-minded on social issues, even called for a debate in 1993.

Not long ago, Emmanuel Macron saw «a certain form of efficiency» in legalization. However, he has pursued a purely repressive policy on the subject. His Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, who previously extolled the virtues of legalization, made a 180° turn by donning his super cop costume, in re-penalizing the simple use of cannabis with the lump-sum fine. Gérald Darmanin has also been left wide open the door to ever greater repression, murderous and ultimately ineffective.