2023-05-02 09:48:01
This May 1st was marked by a very radical speech by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Once again, we were able to observe with what agility he handles insurrectional concepts. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political editorial
Monday, May 1, around 1 p.m., before the procession set off, the rebellious leader spoke in front of an audience of activists, gathered near the Place de la République. Unsurprisingly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon urged his supporters not to let go in the mobilization, not to move on. He promised them to reinstate retirement at age 60.
But we also heard his increasingly banal use of a vocabulary of uprising, of revolt. A usual register that we would tend to get used to, but all the same… It is not exactly the same thing to call a VIe Republic and chant “down with the bad Republic” in front of a small delighted crowd. One more ambiguity about his respect for institutions. It is not exactly the same thing to put pressure on the President with “Macron resignation” and to promise the Head of State: “On July 14, we will teach him the meaning of the word insurrection”.
Not “popular uprising” or “citizen uprising” as he often says to drown the fish. Just “insurrection”. According to Robert’s definition: “Uprising which aims to overthrow the established power. Example: the insurrection of the Commune, 1871”. Words have a meaning and this fine scholar that is Mélenchon knows it well.
The unions have taken the place of the first opponents of Macron at Nupes
Behind this rhetoric is actually the place of the first opponent. Despite a context that should have been buoyant, Nupes is in crisis. She failed to make her obstruction of the Assembly acceptable. The leadership of the rebels remains contested. The socialists are tearing themselves apart. Ecologists want to stand apart from the Europeans. And at the same time, it is the unions that are at the heart of all the attention. It is the inter-union and not the Nupes which can unite hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the streets.
The rebellious do not have the place they hoped for. We thus understand why the former three-time presidential candidate goes up a notch each time. Its radicalism is a way of asserting itself, of crushing internal competition, of maintaining pressure on all the players in the pension challenge. In a word: to already play after retirement…
Because if today, it is the unions that set the tempo, their unity is fragile. The day will come, probably quite quickly, when the inter-union will fracture with the departure of the CFDT. That day, having fueled the anger of his militants with great revolutionary inclinations, Jean-Luc Mélenchon could once again try to claim the place of leader of the opposition to the government. And too bad if in passing, he weakened the institutions.
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