The wording is enough to make you smile. "I don't want Dalida as prime minister, words, words, words," Communist Party national secretary Fabien Roussel said ironically on RTL on Tuesday morning. "I want action," he said when asked about purchasing power and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's promise to make the "middle classes" and "those who work" his "priority". In particular, Fabien Roussel called for "all salaries to be indexed to inflation".
#GabrielAttal: "I don't want Dalida as prime minister... Words, words, words"@Fabien_Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, guest of @amandine_begot in #RTLMatin pic.twitter.com/Ln91uL6v2M
— RTL France (@RTLFrance) January 16, 2024
"I want to rebuild an ambitious France capable of meeting the challenges with salaries corresponding to seniority, competence and arduousness," he said, insisting that "all salaries increase in line with inflation". "The reality is a small France that is being dragged down," he added. Fabien Roussel also proposed "dividing by three the electricity bills of companies, households, families, public services and municipalities", a reduction that would - according to him - be made possible by an exit from the European market.
Also asked about the controversy affecting the Minister of National Education Amélie Oudéa-Castéra who has sent her children to private schools, Fabien Roussel regretted that the minister "lied". Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had justified her eldest son's move from public school to private school by "unreplaced hours packages", a version undermined by a testimony published this Sunday in Libération. "Let her make a public apology to the entire profession and commit to repairing public schools," Roussel said.