From Paris
Collapse or redemption: the French left is as close to the first possibility as it is to the second. The year 2022 was marked by a pendulum movement that went from the best to the worst: after unspeakable divisions, France Unsubmissive, the ecologists, the socialists and the communists united in the NUPES alliance (New Popular Ecologist and Social Union) with the which they managed to become the first opposition force in the National Assembly after the legislative elections. From there, the dynamics of the victory turned from within three of the four parties that make up NUPES: Ecologists, France Unsubmissive and Socialists. The left squandered the capital accumulated during the year through internal feuds, gender violence, bad moves, descendants and problems of democracy within the movement led by the alliance, the radical left of France insubordinate.
2023 begins, for the left, with what should be an ideal social minefield for their redemption: social crisis, inflation, health system in tatters, energy crisis, strikes by doctors, unemployment insurance reforms and, above all, the project to reform the retirement system to extend the minimum retirement age that the French president, Emanuel Macron, presented a few days ago and which led to a general strike scheduled for this Thursday, January 19. In short, the best social moment for the left to revalidate its legitimacy and, at the same time, the worst as a result of the internal shocks that even lead to speculation about the end of the leadership of Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The reform of the pension system with the extension of the minimum age to retire to 64 years (62 currently) is widely rejected by society and unions. The left should have a place there to redeem itself for its mistakes. Nothing is less certain or more necessary.
A road strewn with obstacles
The construction of a united front against the reforms that Macron is undertaking is a path strewn with obstacles and abysses. In 2022, the left began to lose its petals when an ecofeminist leader, Sandrine Rousseau, denounced on a far-right television channel that the national secretary of the Greens, Julien Bayou, was involved in “psychological violence” against one of her sentimental partners. Specifically, Sandrine Rousseau said on television that Bayou had “behaviors capable of breaking the moral health of women.” No man rises from such an accusation. Environmentalism entered into a political tragedy that led to Julien Bayou resigning his position and environmentalists to elect a woman as their leader (Marine Tondelier). The waters, however, did not calm down and became more muddy.
This time it was the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France Unsubmissive, who was dragged by the same theme, gender violence, but in a much more serious case, that is, real violence. In June 2022, before the legislative elections, the first complaint for “sexist violence” fell against one of the LFI candidates, Taha Bouhafs, who withdrew his candidacy. Later, in the same month, similar complaints fell on a deputy from France Unsubmissive, Eric Coquerel, whom several women accused of having “walking hands” and a “heavy lifting method.” The deep fracture occurred with another case, that of the deputy Adrien Quatennens, one of the figures of France Unsubmissive, number two, accused by his wife of “violence” that, in part, he himself recognized and earned him a judicial conviction: On December 13, he was sentenced to four months in prison suspended for sexist violence against his wife. The party decided to exclude him from the parliamentary group in the National Assembly until April. Adrien Quatennens decided to step aside for a moment and, in an indelicate tweet, Mélenchon ignited the gunpowder when he greeted the “courage” of the deputy.
A) Yes, instead of occupying the social terrain, the left became entangled in its own faults, in an alarming opacity in the face of the sexual violence of its members and the contradictions increased by some reactions of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, highly criticized within his own movement. This chain of disasters unfolded almost at the same time that the liberal government of Elisabeth Borne began to apply reforms whose philosophy fits into a word that circulates today in all the media: “injustice.” As if there were no shortage of antagonisms, a new one exploded towards the end of the year: the harsh criticism of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the leadership of his movement, both accused of verticalism and lack of democracy. On top of that, the French Socialist Party, a member of the Nupes alliance, is in the process of appointing its new First Secretary. The candidates who represent two irreconcilable poles: that of the current leadership of Olivier Faure, in favor of the NUPES alliance, and that of his rivals, totally opposed.
Cacophonies, internal struggles, moral contradictions in the face of the message of the left, gender violence, ideological confusion and the battle for the succession covered the sound of the left. The left did not enter the well-known cycle of immolation, but rather the loss of impact due to its internal issues. And this occurs when society is more attentive than ever to his message and his clear position against the pension reform, the famous “mother of all reforms” of macronism. As paradoxical as it may seem, those who today lead the social front against the pension reform are the unions. An almost unprecedented event in recent decades, it was the eight union centrals who called the strike and the demonstrations on Thursday, January 19 (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires and FSU) . NUPES organized a meeting the same day that the pension reform was presented (January 10). Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Adrien Quatennens were not present. The rally was led by one of the youngest LFI deputies, François Ruffin, and a pretender to the throne still held by Mélenchon. However, it is not the left that is leading the anti-reform and anti-Macron front today, but rather the union bloc.
Persistent speculation about Mélenchon’s perhaps final stage at the head of the movement he founded (LFI) further distorted the left’s signal. Mélenchon’s reaction to the accusation of sexual violence against LFI deputy Adrien Quatennens left deep wounds. A time that he began in 2008 when he left the Socialist Party is gradually coming to an end.
However, if the left managed to survive the shipwrecks of the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections and the legislative elections that followed, it was thanks to him. When, in May 2022, after the presidential elections that Macron won, the left were in the catacombs it was Mélenchon who invented NUPES (Unión Popular Ecologista y Social) and, with that alliance, resurrected the left and turned it into the main political opposition force in the National Assembly. There is a climate of the end of the kingdom within a left too busy with its internal disputes to lead, for now, a social movement. Your destiny is at stake. The hectic political horizon is his best ally. The worst is the behavior of the left itself.
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