François Ruffin Criticizes Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Divisive Strategy, Advocates for Unity in the Left

The deputy from Somme criticizes the rebellious leader for building walls between the French people when, according to him, we need to build bridges without assigning anyone to an ethnic or religious identity.

A “political and moral disagreement”. This is how François Ruffin explained in an interview this week with Nouvel Obs his break with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in which he explicitly criticizes the rebellious leader for his communitarian strategy, which he deems detrimental to the left. While the deputy from Somme is releasing a book titled Itinerary—My France in its entirety, not halfway, he accuses his former comrade of having “theorized” for the 2022 presidential campaign the act of addressing a so-called “racialized” suburban electorate, forgetting the equally popular electorate from towns and rural areas, which has fallen into the arms of the extreme right and that it would be pointless to try to win back.

In passing, François Ruffin admits to having himself conducted a “campaign based on appearance” in 2022 and feels ashamed of it today. While the rebellious have obviously attacked their former comrade sharply, they reproach him more for dividing the left at an inopportune moment than contesting the substance of the former journalist’s attacks. This would have been difficult after the tone of the rebellious campaign for the European elections, or after Jean-Luc Mélenchon stated on the sidelines of the September 7 demonstration that we need to “mobilize the youth and the popular neighborhoods, everything else, forget it, we are wasting our time.” On an electoral level, the quarrel is, in fact, quite surreal. The low standing of the left today makes it too weak to squabble over specific segments of the popular electorate that it could afford to ignore.

Its diversity should, from this perspective, be seen more as an asset than a liability… provided it is not in “moral disagreement.” François Ruffin now admits to having such a disagreement with Mélenchon, but the divide cuts across the entire left. The deputy from Somme believes that the role of the left is not to build walls between the French but rather to “build bridges.” The phrase is appealing. Without assigning anyone, one might add, to a social, geographical, ethnic, or even less, religious identity.