Benoît Hamon will quit political life to take responsibility for Singa, an NGO working on the reception of refugees, announced the former socialist presidential candidate in 2017, in an interview with World published this Thursday. “It’s a page that is turned. But the books have several pages, ”explained the founder of the Generation party. s, while specifying that he “does not denigrate politics” and “encourages people to get involved”.
The one who had been elected regional councilor of Ile-de-France in June on the union list of the left and the ecologists of Julien Bayou ensures that he will not support any candidate for the ecological primary and will not play any role in the next presidential election. Since 2017, he had already embarked on “a hybrid transition between a partisan commitment and a personal life, a profession, which took me further and further away from politics,” he underlines.
“This generation abandons the political game when politics can no longer do anything”, he justifies by denouncing a political action which “self-injures, invents a circle of reason which justifies doing nothing” . “This leads us to consider action not simply through the exercise of power, through institutions, but through citizen mobilization, the creation of activities, innovation”, explains Benoît Hamon, stressing that “renouncing ‘political action does not mean giving up action’.
“It’s a much less peaceful society”
Another former minister of François Hollande, Cécile Duflot, has also left politics to become director general of Oxfam France. “The greatest failure of my generation is the state of intellectual decay that we measure in the discourse on the great replacement, hatred of the foreigner, equality, hostility to the poor, to women. It’s a much less peaceful society, ”regrets the former deputy for Yvelines.
“The role of the left is to be the camp for the long term, a fortiori on the climate, work and education. But if there was a subject on which we must resume working collectively, it is school, education, ”warns the former Minister of National Education. As Singa confirms in a press release, Benoît Hamon becomes director general of the NGO, which he presents as “a movement geared towards welcoming refugees and migrants” and a “social enterprise that works with large foundations, companies or institutions, to change negative perceptions of migration ”.