Former spokesperson for Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the 2017 campaign, Georges Kuzamnovic is president of the Sovereign Republic party.
FIGAROVOX.- The deputy published this Tuesday, May 31 on social networks a text on the daily life of the inhabitants of an HLM tower, punctuated by growing insecurity. Should we see a desire to convince the working classes?
Georges KUZMANOVIC.-
François Ruffin is more knowledgeable about insecurity than other elected representatives on the left because his electorate in the Somme region belongs to peri-urban France, aware of security problems.
This text is also a way for him to show just before the legislative elections that he is considering these issues.
As was the case during the presidential election, the subject of security is one of the important themes of the campaign, in particular for the popular categories that the left is supposed to defend.
Finally, it may be an attempt on his part to put the subject in the right way on the left.
The business is delicate, I myself have suffered from it at the rebellious France.
Generally speaking, the left prefers to turn a blind eye to security issues.
I have come to the conclusion that part of the left avoids subjects that touch on security because they are afraid of the people whom they still suspect of turning towards fascism.
George Kuzamnovic
"Being on the left is not closing your eyes to it," writes François Ruffin. How to explain that this question is little addressed by the Nupes?
It is necessary to distinguish within the Nupes.
Regarding Jean-Luc Mélenchon, there have been changes in his political line.
Until 2017, his program dealt with security, and presented a sovereign policy that did not please the left.
In 2018, in order to obtain hegemony on the left, he made a turn and changed his program on many subjects, including the European Union, immigration, and security.
But Nupes also includes Fabien Roussel's PCF which has a different position.
In 2021, he had participated in the “citizen march” of the police in Paris, which had earned him many criticisms.
Fabien Roussel then said that security was a popular, fundamental issue.
We find in this speech a logic that was present in the past within the French Communist Party in the mouth of personalities like Georges Marchais who affirmed that the left could not be lax on these questions, and that it was necessary "to
regain power in all streets of the Republic
.
I came to the conclusion that part of the left avoids these subjects because it is afraid of the people whom it always suspects of turning towards fascism.
This logic was particularly visible at the time of the “yellow vests” crisis.
Although they recovered the movement at the time of the presidential campaign, when it deployed La France insoumise and Éric Cocquerel had not hesitated to qualify them as fascists.
While 80% of the population considers that justice is too lax and that security issues are essential, there is a kind of refusal to see things on the left.
The reason is largely sociological.
The members of this left are part of a spectrum that goes from the civil servant middle social classes to the very wealthy classes.
They benefit from very solid cultural, social, symbolic and sometimes financial capital which is a form of protection guaranteeing their life whatever the evolutions of society.
On the contrary, the popular categories are exposed to all changes immediately.
There is a sociological shift which gives the leftist bourgeoisie the impression that everything will be fine, that there are no immigration or security problems and creates a kind of
The workers and small employees now vote very little for the left and prefer to abstain.
The first reason is the betrayal of the socialist party and the neoliberal policies it has put in place.
The second is the left's disinterest in security and immigration issues.
Today, the left is overinvested in the question of safety, but rejects that of security, even though the two problems are inseparable.
George Kuzmanovic
Is it also linked to the fear of certain left-wing activists of being perceived as “turning to the right”?
This fear does indeed exist.
As soon as a left-wing personality, such as François Ruffin or Fabien Roussel, speaks seriously about security, an outcry, particularly on social networks, immediately takes place raising accusations of fascism.
The fear of being discredited in the middle of the left is very strong, whereas it should be the opposite.
Security is a leftist value, society cannot function without it.
The roots of this neglect of security issues may be found in the French Revolution.
The Declaration of Human Rights refers to security, which is the assurance that citizens will not be coerced beyond what is necessary by public force.
Today, the left is overinvested in the question of safety, but rejects that of security, even though the two problems are inseparable.
There is a strong dichotomy on the issue of security between right and left.
The left centers its discourse on prevention.
The response to insecurity found today in Mélenchon's program is to blame the violence on the police, and to improve education and the instruments of the republic in troubled neighborhoods. .
On the contrary, on the right, the discourse emphasizes immediate repression.
In reality, the left and the right are wrong.
The right solution to fight against insecurity is to associate the two political axes.
Moreover, it is essential to fight against poverty.
By focusing on jobs, and stopping the relocation of our industries, some of the security and immigration issues will resolve themselves.
Does the desire of the left not to appear as "right-wing" prevent the left from thinking about other subjects than security? Which ?
The first subject that is forbidden to think about is immigration.
Talking about immigration regulation, even with a discourse that Jean-Jaurès could have used, is impossible.
This subject is absolutely taboo.
Just by mentioning it, you are qualified on the right.
Other problematic issues are those of Islamism and terrorism.
The subject is quickly diverted, in the same way as for secularism.
This is perhaps the strangest part.
Because, if security has often been a problem for the left, secularism has always been the binder of the great coalitions.
During the cartel of the lefts of 1924, the popular front of 1936, or even the agreements between the PCF and the Socialist Party in the 1960s, the great binder was secularism.
The non-identified political object of the left that is the Nupes, no longer makes secularism its binder, but on the contrary integrates its criticism into its agreement.
This completely astonishing drift of the left cannot bring him to power.
On the one hand, it becomes non-compliant on questions of secularism with the principles of the republic.
The ideological determinant is no longer the history of the French and European workers' movement, nor Karl Marx, Jaurès or Léon Blum, but the democratic left of the United States for which questions of identity, communitarianism and race are central.
George Kuzmanovic
What is this evolution on secularism due to? Is it an electoral strategy, or the consequence of the evolution of society?
This development is very clearly an electoral strategy of France Insoumise, thought up by Éric Coquerel and adopted by the movement.
There is an electoral trend that aims for a communitarian vote.
Change also comes from society, for two different reasons.
The first factor of evolution lies in the youth of the social classes who vote for the left.
For these voters, the ideological determinant is no longer the history of the French and European labor movement, nor Karl Marx, Jaurès or Léon Blum, but the democratic left of the United States for whom questions of identity, communitarianism and race are central.
This part of the Nupes is moreover the mirror image of Éric Zemmour who also places questions of identity, Islam and race at the center of his discourse.
In addition, there is a progression of the Islamists, who if they remain a minority, are very visible.
The absence of love of country, of impetus on the part of the leaders which involves all the members of the society whatever their origins or religions, coupled with the subjugation to the United States and the transfer of sovereignty to the European Union, leads sociological groups to close in on themselves.
However, it is not because society has evolved in this way that we must capitulate.
If it wants to defend the people, the left must embody republican principles, secularism, and not be afraid to talk about immigration and security.
