From the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon to the ecologist Julien Bayou via the socialist Olivier Faure: the Nupes put in a minority, Saturday at the Fête de l’Huma in Essonne, the communist Fabien Roussel on his criticism of a “beneficiary left” which would not speak to the rural working classes.
At the end of the afternoon on the biggest debate stage of the Festival, in Brétigny-sur-Orge, the exchange between the bosses of the parties making up the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) was courteous but firm.
The leader of the deputies Mathilde Panot has “fraternally” confronted Fabien Roussel with his statements of the day before, when he advocated a “work left and not benefits” to talk to rural people.
“We cannot fight the right and the extreme right by using their words. Unemployment insurance and the RSA are going to be a big battle for the start of the school year” with a government bill to reform the first, underlined Ms. Panot, much applauded.
She slipped, mischievous: “These are social conquests that we owe to our camp, and in particular to the communists and the CGT”.
Fabien Roussel reacted immediately: “It is through work and salary that everyone regains their dignity and the pride of sharing with their children what they have done” returning in the evening.
And he assured that his expression against the “allocs” was about the long term: “I repeat: I want a society where there are no more allowances, bonuses, but wages” which allow us to live.
“We can develop a society where there is work without repeating the words of the adversary”, picked it up – with a smile – the national secretary of EELV Julien Bayou. Who even put forward an opposite idea dear to ecologists, a “society where one can emancipate oneself from work”via the universal income, for example.
The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure then warned, in a transparent allusion to Mr. Roussel, those who within the Nupes “have an expression trying to trip the neighbor”.
“We have become the first party of the unemployed”
At the end of the debate, Anouk and Thomas, both 22-year-old political science students, told AFP that they had a bad experience of Fabien Roussel’s remarks. “With the word “alloc”, we hear all the words and representations of the right: allowances make privileged people, and there are CAF fraudsters…”
Anouk, whose grandfather was a communist activist but who voted Jean-Luc Mélenchon for president, felt that Mr. Roussel had certain “good findings”. But looking for a “media stunt”, “he has a vocabulary that wastes a lot of time”she regretted.
In the morning, it was Jean-Luc Mélenchon who had dotted the “i”, taking the opportunity to respond to the reservations of Fabien Roussel, but also of the Insoumis François Ruffin, on the Nupes.
“I ask that we stop the jeremiads, (…) we have advanced and scored points”thundered the former presidential candidate (22%).
“We have become the first party of the unemployed, precarious, young people under 35, from urban centers, we are the people of the humiliated and oppressed”he added.
François Ruffin, who had however launched the debate by reporting having heard criticism of his constituency of the Somme on a left perceived as supporting the “assisted”, also criticized Fabien Roussel.
“To oppose the France which works to the France of the allowances, it is not the fight of the left, these are not my words”he tweeted. “This divide exists in part of the working classes: we must not be deaf to it. But it is to fight it. That people in the countryside, in towns, in neighborhoods, no longer compare themselves to their neighbor, their cousin, but to those who stuff themselves on their backs”.
On Friday, Fabien Roussel in any case warned that he “will continue to carry a singular voice”.