For Gilles Candar, historian specializing in French lefts and author of Why the left? From the Commune to the present day (PUF, 224 p., 19 euros), the culmination of ongoing discussions between left-wing parties with a view to the legislative elections would be a ” historical fact “.
An agreement is being prepared between La France insoumise (LFI), ecologists, the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Socialist Party. Between the first two, it ended on Sunday. Will it be historic? Some evoke the image of the congress of Epinay, in 1971, which foreshadowed the alliance of the Communists with the Socialists and the pre-eminence of the latter. Are we witnessing the preludes of an inverted Epinay, formed behind the most radical force?
In recent history, I don’t see any other case of a left-wing alliance going from the socialists to the “dodgers”, despite some occurrences at the local level. At the national level, this would be a first. On both sides, in recent years, we have multiplied the factors of impossibility, some in relation to the populism of the “rebellious”, others in relation to the renunciation of the socialists. This would certainly be an important, historical fact.
As for Epinay, one must always be wary of historical parallels. The landscape has changed. Today it is much more fragmented, marked by the emergence of political ecology. The union of the left in the 1960s certainly took place in favor of its most moderate elements, but in a different context. It would be the first time in a long time that an agreement has been reached with a driving force that would be the most radical in the coalition. What other examples? The Liberation, when the PCF was the first party in France, even 1902-1905, with the delegation of the lefts, in which Jaurès and the socialists often showed themselves to be more dynamic than the radicals within the parliamentary majority, without however sitting in the government ? But the differences are too great. In fact, LFI has undeniably succeeded at the national level in appearing as a force for protest, proposal and eventual action.
In speeches, the “rebellious” refuse to use the term union of the left, seen as the legacy of political kitchens of the socialist era. Can we make union without claiming it?
La France insoumise agrees to take risks and move on from its usual discourse, which marked great distances from the cleavage between left and right, seen as too worn or even misleading. But to achieve power, the account was not there. To move from protest to action, the “rebellious” are forced to reinvest the field of the left. Even if they refuse the term union of the left, they realize it, that’s the main thing. Historically, the term left is not always used by its actors, regardless. After all, once or in the past, Gaullists, Pomidolians or Giscardians never said they represented the right, they started to use the word again after Mitterrand’s election. We can very well represent the left, its values, its principles, and rejuvenate its vocabulary. The language evolves, the fundamental idea remains.
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