David Desgouilles is a columnist at
Marianne
.
He has published
Dérapage
(editions du Rocher, 2017) and
Their Lost Wars
, (editions du Rocher, 2019).
FIGAROVOX. - After declaring that Nupes was "overwhelmed" in early April, Fabien Roussel pleaded for "a new union on the left" at the 39th congress of the PCF, where he was re-elected secretary general. Is this a publicity stunt or a sign of an upcoming break between the PCF and Nupes?
David DESGOUILLES. -
When the Nupes was created for the 2022 legislative elections, everyone obviously had ulterior motives.
For LFI and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, there was the desire to maintain the hegemony acquired during the presidential election on the left after the useful vote which had carried them to the second round.
For the PS, the PCF and EELV, it was a way of saving the furniture and keeping a group in the National Assembly.
This did not mean that these parties would let themselves be locked into this agreement and that they would have their finger on the seam of the pants as Jean-Luc Mélenchon passed.
Read also PCF Congress: Fabien Roussel, the intact ambitions of an anti-Mélenchon
For example, for the Greens, there is no question of not presenting an independent list in the European elections, a ballot which is generally the most favorable to them.
The PS is itself fractured on the attitude to have in relation to the Nupes.
We saw it at a congress where Olivier Faure only won by a small margin and several days ago in Ariège during a by-election where a dissident socialist anti-Nupes candidate won against a LFI candidate supported by Olivier Faure.
For Fabien Roussel, there was never any question of aligning himself with LFI since that was the whole spirit of his candidacy for the presidential election.
For him, as for the promoters of the common program of the 1970s, "unity is a fight
"
.
Could Fabien Roussel's "surpassing the Nupes" strategy encourage other defections within the coalition of left-wing parties?
We will see it in the European elections.
As I said above, the Greens will want to keep their elected representatives, which is strictly defensive compared to LFI, which obtained fewer elected representatives than the list led by Yannick Jadot in 2019. A common list would sacrifice most of the elected representatives mechanically green.
From there, it is logical that they prefer to ask the voters to decide rather than a commission of nomination dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
For the PS, it is a fight between its local elected officials led by Carole Delga and the management of the PS which accepts this subservience.
We don't really know what this fight will give since the forces are balanced.
Fabien Roussel wants to be the heir of a French left, anchored in the political history and geography of the country and he refuses this new American left, more focused on societal struggles.
David Desgouilles
Fabien Roussel is on another register.
The fight is also political and cultural.
He wants to be the heir of a French left, anchored in the political history and geography of the country and he refuses this new American left, more focused on societal struggles.
Roussel is the anti-woke left.
This is why he did not refuse to differentiate himself from LFI but also from a personality like Sandrine Rousseau.
Fabien Roussel said he wanted to expand the left alliance. "The left cannot be represented by a party and by a man, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it must go beyond," he told the PCF congress. Could we witness the formation of a new left bloc around the personality of Fabien Roussel, rather than Jean-Luc Mélenchon?
Fabien Roussel is convinced that the voters who voted for Nupes last June are more in tune with the left that he represents, mobilized on economic and social issues, than on the intersectional struggles that are intrinsically conducive to inconsistencies.
He also thinks that if the left wants to go beyond the 25% who voted Nupes, his Jauresian left is better able to unite than the societal radicalism of LFI and EELV.
He may be betting on the fact that Jean-Luc Mélenchon will end up being swept away by the dispute in the “gaseous” whole of La France insoumise.
To call for the overcoming of the Nupes is paradoxically to take note that it leads the only truly stable pole on the left, on the structural level as on the ideological level.
In the medium term, he could benefit from it.
VS'
The cultural fight inside the left has been launched for a long time.
Until now, only the "wokes" led him.
Fabien Roussel takes up the gauntlet.
On this subject, as on the question of the border, or on nuclear power.
David Desgouilles
"They put France on the Bon Coin, they signed free trade agreements, they turned our borders into colanders..." declared Fabien Roussel at the PCF Congress. Can he really hope to bring together the left
"
until Bernard Cazeneuve", while affirming such clear-cut positions on immigration and free trade?
When he mentioned borders transformed into a sieve, he was certainly placing more emphasis on the free movement of goods and capital than on that of people, but in any case does he think of the notion of border and he is indeed well the only one left.
But can the left regain power and have the means for its policy without thinking about the border?
Opinion studies show that left-wing voters want this economic radicalism, because it alone allows "the happy days" and the simple pleasures of which they can be deprived both by economic downgrading and the whims of certain ideologues :
“drink a good wine, eat a good meat”
.
Read alsoFabien Roussel considers that Nupes “is outdated” and wishes to “bring together well beyond”
These words had not been chosen at random, provoking the wrath of Sandrine Rousseau.
The cultural fight inside the left has been launched for a long time.
Until now, only the "wokes" led him.
Fabien Roussel takes up the gauntlet.
On this subject, as on the question of the border, or on nuclear power.
No one knows if it's already too late to win it, but at least Fabien Roussel doesn't lack willpower and panache.
