This Thursday, November 7, François Ruffin, deputy for the Somme, wanted to exercise “his right of response”, after a column broadcast just before his appearance on RTL. The elected official was in fact the guest of Thomas Sotto at 7:40 a.m., just after the intervention of journalist Martial You, who exceptionally replaced François Lenglet for the morning economic editorial.
“That’s not the point.”
In his column, the station's editorialist returned to the announcements of site closures and therefore massive job cuts at Auchan and Michelin, and especially the reaction of the Prime Minister. The latter had declared that he wantedknow“what both groups did”public money given to them“. The RTL journalist denounced part of “demagogy“and felt that Michel Barnier was doing “small politics“He further proposed solutions.”more effective“that public aid to prevent hundreds of employees from finding themselves out of work.
But for François Ruffin, who spoke a few seconds later, there was a big absence in this editorial. After saying a few words about Donald Trump's victory across the Atlantic, the MP suddenly changed the subject. “When I hear the chronicle“, he began, pointing to Martial You, right next to him in the studio. “I will do a right of reply. I think it's great to do a column like that on Michelin and not include the word 'dividends'. It's still extraordinary, a tripling of dividends in 3 years and we say nothing about these gigantic sums which are swallowed up by the shareholders!“, the chosen one got carried away.
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“This is not the subject“, Martial You tried to reply. “If that's the subject! Of course that’s the subject! Christine Lagarde (the president of the European Central Bank, editor's note) also says that capital has prevailed over labor for 40 years. And what you propose in your column is to say that we must give even more to capital!“, continued François Ruffin, before being interrupted by Thomas Sotto who said with a smile: “This is not the trial of Martial You“. An extract that Puremédias invites you to view at the top of the article.
“I'm not suing him but it turns out that he speaks every morning (Martial You presents “L’éco and You” daily at 6:50 a.m., editor’s note) and he's next to me, but I can't not react“, added the elected official, who returned to this sequence at the very end of the interview. “And I salute the columnist (Martial You, ndlr), I exercise my right of reply“, he insisted. “You are right, but we do not say the opposite“, replied the journalist, who remained in the studio. “Democracy is conflict, organized, institutionalized conflict, but it is not the negation of disagreements“, concluded François Ruffin in a more relaxed atmosphere.