“I hear that many left-wing French people aspire to the union of the left. What does it cost? I do not think so. » In a letter addressed to militants of the Radical Left Party (PRG), Monday April 2, the president of the formation, Guillaume Lacroix, explains the decision taken the day before by the executive committee of the PRG, which voted by more than 90% “ for an independent PRG”.
The left-wing radicals thereby refuse any rapprochement with La France insoumise, which, with 21.95% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election, concluded, on Sunday, an agreement with Europe Ecologie-Les Verts for the legislative and continues, on Monday, discussions with the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the New Anti-Capitalist Party. On the side of the People’s Union, we are assured that, ” at this stage “the agreement was only offered “only to those who had presidential candidates”which is not the case for the PRG.
However, in this text, Guillaume Lacroix deplores that Jean-Luc Mélenchon seeks to create a “block of radicalism”. This perspective is incompatible in his eyes with the “fundamentals” of his training – universalism, secularism and European construction. “Our disagreements with the driving force behind this union are considerable, (…) on France’s energy independence, on geopolitical and defense issues”, details the president of the PRG.
“The independence of values”
Guillaume Lacroix has harsh words against the concessions made or envisaged by ecologists or communists to associate with LFI:
Go in a few hours from the defense of nuclear power to its total shutdown (…)from the desire for a strong, social and protective Europe to generalized disobedience, would only be the guarantee of insincerity.
Monday morning, Fabien Roussel, the disappointed communist candidate for the Elysée, said he was ready to ” put aside “ the development of atomic energy, which he fiercely defended, unlike Jean-Luc Mélenchon; and on Sunday, the ecologists – despite being convinced federalists – conceded to LFI a compromise under the terms of which they accept to “disobey” to certain European rules, if it does not violate ” Right wing state “.
“This insincerity of convictions has fed the far right for decades”, criticizes Guillaume Lacroix, who says he prefers “independence of values” to the « arrangements », and worry about“to witness the death of the so-called “social democratic” left”. This alert echoes those issued, Sunday and Monday, by the socialists Stéphane Le Foll and Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, headwind against the negotiations with LFI led by the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure.
PRG candidates for the legislative elections will be “the ardent promoters of a social, solidarity and ecological project at the service of the weakest, but also attentive to the middle classes on whom rests the responsibility of the collective and tomorrow of the future of the planet”, concludes Mr. Lacroix. In a press release also published on Monday, the PRG, which today has three deputies, announces candidates in around a hundred constituencies. In response to LFI’s pole of attraction, it also calls for the creation of a “common house of the republican and European left”.