“I am in retreat, but not in retreat”. With his favorite formula, Jean-Luc Mélenchon welcomes us to the headquarters of La France insoumise, this Thursday morning, in Paris. A few days before a new national mobilization against the pension reform, Tuesday, the former presidential candidate denounces “the abuse of power” of the government and the “delusions of omnipotence” of Emmanuel Macron. For more than an hour, the rebellious tribune and co-president of the La Boétie institute spoke about this explosive political climate, the Nupes and the Europeans, and the presidential ambitions of François Ruffin… Interview.
The deputies voted in committee against the repeal of the pension reform. There might not be a vote next Thursday. What do you think ?
The macronists wanted by all means to prevent a vote on retirement at 64. In other words, macronism is today in the National Assembly a blocking machine, in the desperate expectation of an alliance with Les Républicains or the RN. The Macronist party has become almost anti-parliamentary: it spends its time denouncing each other, behaviors, outfits. Now he is preventing MPs from voting on their own text!
They rely on article 40 of the Constitution, which specifies that parliamentarians cannot increase public expenditure…
In this area there was constant use. We can cite dozens of texts pledged by taxes on tobacco or alcohol, including those of the Macronist group. For what ? Because section 40 has always been circumvented in private members’ initiatives. Otherwise how to make proposals that cost absolutely nothing? If we apply this strictly, we no longer discuss anything.
Eric Coquerel [président de la Commission des finances] therefore relied on case law, his argument is much more solid than that of the President of the National Assembly, who has a purely political interpretation of Article 40.
Following the debates in committee, you tweeted: “Macronie, is it still democracy? ” For what ?
I have always been cautious in my judgments about democracy in France. My opposition to the Fifth Republic has always been a criticism of the authoritarian character of the institutions. However, I believe that there is a threshold crossing with the Macron presidency. In the first five years, his liberal ideology put an end to a certain form of social democracy. Here we are in something else.
The republican form of the state is badly damaged. Fundamental rights, consubstantial with the idea of the Republic, are all called into question. Starting with the right to amendment or to demonstrate, with prohibitions in entire departments, the condemnation of casseroles. And brutalities that have become almost ordinary, which dissuade people from going to the streets for fear of being blinded, nasse, beaten, or taken into custody. With Mr. Macron, we are no longer really in the Republic, that’s for sure. But we are also moving beyond the framework of democracy.
Really ?
Yes, because the freedom of government has limits. Their first duty is to respect the people and their representatives, they no longer do that. Deputies beaten in the street, amendments prohibited… The model of parliamentary democracy is in danger. This is why we are going to seize the international bodies which are already on the alert: The European Commission of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. We do it for all the other countries, for Orban (in Hungary), for the Polish government, for the local government of Hong Kong…
What do you blame Emmanuel Macron for?
The presidential monarch is in a delirium of omnipotence. He multiplies the receptions at Versailles and assumes an omnipresidency. It’s important to show the drift of the character, his ideological evolution. He first highlighted the talents of Pétain and Maurras, two notorious traitors and anti-Semites. He is now lecturing Madame Borne because she recalls the historical filiation between Pétainists and the National Front.
But this is not an isolated case in Europe. We are moving, and this is new in France, towards the formation of a “bourgeois bloc”, which unifies the extreme right with all the traditional right, up to the center. You have this formula in Italy, in Sweden, and in other European countries. Mr. Macron is today closer to Mr. Orban in Hungary than to Sanchez in Spain.
There are, however, fundamental differences between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron…
We, rebellious, no longer share this appreciation too much, because the number of common votes between the RN and the Renaissance majority is considerable. In addition, the government regularly insults me but continues to have a tenderness with regard to extreme right-wing violence. Not a single member of the presidential camp was present at the demonstration in defense of the mayor of Saint-Brévin, whose home was burned down by right-wing extremists. For what ? They send a clear signal.
The majority could reproach you for also having common votes with the RN in the Assembly…
On the citizens’ initiative referendum? It’s normal. On the other hand, the extreme right votes with Renaissance on the refusal of the wealth tax (ISF) or the increase of the SMIC, the blocking of prices, the freezing of rents and all social and progressive measures. And there is an important difference: Mr. Macron was elected to oppose Madame Le Pen, but he does the opposite in power. He betrayed the mandate he gave himself.
What will Tuesday’s demonstration be for? If there is no vote, shouldn’t we turn the page on pensions?
This battle will never end. The right to retirement has been debated since 1905. We are a tumultuous people, and the political prospects will present themselves one way or another. We must see the educational virtue of these mobilizations. We have won an ideological victory: a majority of French people are convinced that retirement at 60 is a good idea. There is a seesaw. His time will come.
For several years, you have been claiming the strategy of “conflictualization” to awaken people’s minds. Are there no limits?
You’re talking about verbal conflict, aren’t you? There is not the beginning of the beginning of a trace of physical violence on the part of any rebel. On the other hand, we can cite hundreds of far-right acts of violence as well as attempted murders, especially against me.
We hear about verbal abuse, but everything is relative. Obviously, for the bourgeois and good society, the worker is always rude, vulgar and excessive. We are told: “you must not behave like that, you must put on a tie”. Yes, and my shoes, are they polished enough? What is this pretension of the dominant class to give lessons in deportment to everyone, all the time? We must stop this little act of overplayed indignation.
Elisabeth Borne attributed to you “a share of responsibility” in the rise in violence…
It is a gratuitous accusation, since the only violence in the country is far-right violence or police violence. The first person responsible is her, when she despises the people and bans demonstrations against her as in a dictatorship. We are asked all the time to denounce the violence, but Madame Borne does not have a word when a union delegate from Vertbaudet is abused as in a military dictatorship in Latin America. Their empathy is variable. Madame Borne and her ministers express a form of class hatred and do not even realize it.
In this sequence of retreats, the RN kept away from the demonstrations. However, the polls believe that it is the party that emerges victorious…
It’s wrong. In the polls, the Nupes tops the European elections! Macronie, which is in the process of “extreme right-winging”, is entirely responsible for the rise of the RN, which did not take a vote from us in the battle. Le Pen wins votes at Macron. We deepened our roots in the social struggle. We are more numerous than we have ever been. We have distributed on the pickets more than a million euros by our rebellious strike fund! I say that to evoke those who do not… Here is our rootedness! But we have this kind of prefabricated narrative that rolls like a mechanical piano: “The RN is progressing. How come it’s not you? Yet united, we are in the lead.
Some partners of the Nupes are not in favor of a single list for Europeans in 2024. The absence of an agreement is the end of the Nupes?
It’s possible. The Nupes is in jeopardy if it is not even an electoral agreement anymore. If there is no union at the European level, there won’t be any at the municipal level either. Why would there be one in the presidential election? Small party interests have limits! We have the possibility of being in the lead, that all the people see that there is a possible direction for their future. We even proposed to give the head of the list (for Europeans to environmentalists), the response was brutal and violent. Madame Tondelier calls us “forcers”! Imagine that we reply in this tone!
Yes, we are different in Europe. But we have a shared program on the subject signed in the 2022 legislative elections. And why not have an action program together for the coming term? We already vote the same way in 90% of cases. Why artificially create an insurmountable division? Who can want to miss the opportunity to come out on top and send an exciting signal to all of Europe? Dividers will be punished at the ballot box.
There are partisan logics…
It’s not new. In Communist Party Manifesto, it is written: “The communists have no interests different from those of the workers. So if they don’t have different interests, let’s go together. It wouldn’t hurt to remind Fabien Roussel, if he hasn’t read Marx for a long time, that there are lessons in it other than the defense of barbecues.
You don’t regret your absence from the Assembly?
No. I said I wanted to be replaced. I maintain it. This required a certain withdrawal, especially in the Assembly. I will not name the next one [pour la prochaine présidentielle], if there should be one. It is up to the new generation to do so.
Are you totally ruling out your candidacy in 2027?
No one can say that. In all circumstances, I will play a role. Who asks me to bury myself? I carry an experience, I write, I speak, I organize, I energize, I give ideas. I live with the younger generation in an atmosphere of friendship. Among the elders, some, for the moment, are having whims and are a little angry, but they will get over it. It always happens to them.
Are you going to support the call for donations made by François Ruffin to prepare for 2027?
Why not ? François is a rising figure in our family.
“François is ready”, did you say…
Yes, the polls say so. It is also sometimes a bit remote from the program yet signed together. When the time comes, it will be necessary to recall the strategy: who do we want to bring together? The situation suits me because you can no longer say “It’s Mélenchon or nothing. Now there are at least two! And we can extend the list… One day or another, Quatennens will return to the race. There is already Manuel Bompard, Mathilde Panot, Clémence Guetté… The rebellious movement is rich in high-level personalities. I am certain that my withdrawal from the Assembly promotes this emergence. I continue to write the history of the left in my own way.