After the divorce, reconstruction. The break with La France insoumise complete, the free electron of the left François Ruffin is surfing on the release of his new film and at the same time trying to structure his micro-party Picardie Debout to build his candidacy for the presidential election.
It was an open secret, but the elected official from Picardy admitted it in Le Monde: he is “of course” thinking about the next presidential election.
“2027 is a card that is on the table,” explained the man who is usually reluctant to talk explicitly about his personal ambitions.
“Ruffin thinks that politics is dirty, like ecologists,” smiles an environmentalist deputy, who welcomed into his parliamentary group – and learned to discover – the former journalist, who could no longer sit with the Insoumis.
One of the reasons, perhaps, which pushed him to take refuge in the culture pages of the newspapers in recent weeks.
Amiens, Melle, Pessac, Sarlat… To promote his latest documentary, “Au travail!”, seen by more than 100,000 people, he toured France and held debates with spectators, particularly in the -prefectures so dear to his political fight.
“It’s an opportunity to build a network and meet local elected officials. These are important relays,” explains one of his relatives.
Because relays, François Ruffin – known for having said “in a couple, I have the impression that there is already one person too many” – really needs them.
On the big political scene, the man who has long represented one of the lowest common denominators of the left, appears very lonely since his break with the Insoumis – even if the boss of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier was present at a screening of his film.
“He doesn’t want to work with others. He doesn’t build, he’s in a phase of asserting himself,” sighs a socialist parliamentarian.
“He is alone. He shot himself in the foot”, tackles the coordinator of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard, seeing this as proof that “it is complicated to embody a political line of radical rupture outside of LFI”.
– Towards a real party? –
The fact remains that this tour of cinemas adds to a social context (factory closures, farmers' grumbling), which resonates with the long-standing struggles of the director of “Merci Patron!”.
At the same time, this champion of class struggle is trying to structure his micro-party Picardie Debout, officially created in 2019 and which has had premises in Paris since last year.
This week, party director Guillaume Ancelet sent a letter to members to announce that he was leaving his place to Mathieu Bosque, a close friend of the MP since 2017.
“We have a request from activists which is to structure ourselves. We want to be a modern and national party, like the others on the left,” assures AFP this former rebellious activist, who says he was chosen to “prepare the growth of Picardy Standing”.
An aspiration consistent with the speech of the former journalist who often recalls with humor that he considers himself “pan-Picard”, in favor of “Picard expansionism”.
Currently, the party has half a dozen employees according to Mathieu Bosque, who refuses to specify the number of activists.
– “Electoral availability” –
According to an Ifop/Fiducial poll for Paris Match and Sud Radio published this week, François Ruffin is one of the most popular political figures, with 48% favorable opinions, six points more than in October.
And his statement at the beginning of September – when he admitted to having distributed different leaflets depending on whether he was addressing “a black or an Arab” or not – is less criticized now.
“Ruffin has left the road, now he's taking the side roads. It's going to take time before he gets back on the highway,” diagnosed a rebellious elected official, who nevertheless remained on good terms with him.
“It was an epiphenomenon, it’s been forgotten for a long time,” sweeps away the director’s friend.
“With his exit, he has broken six months of political capital. But he still has electoral availability in the country,” believes the environmentalist deputy.
