Invited this Friday by the “Grandes Gueules” at the Made in France trade fair, Arnaud Montebourg scratched the political leaders and the “dominant liberal ideology”, responsible according to him for the weakness of French industry. The former socialist minister also attacked the left, accusing it of having “completely missed the Nation”.
Arnaud Montebourg, politics is no longer his business, he insisted this Friday on RMC. “My responsibilities are entrepreneurial.” However, this did not prevent the former Minister of the Economy under François Hollande from criticizing the left, “his historical family”, for “completely missing out on the Nation”.
The champion of Made in France, who has launched into beekeeping for several years with his company Bleu Blanc Ruche, was the guest of the Big Mouthslive from the Made in France Show (MIF), which takes place until Monday at the exhibition center in Paris.
A “liberal ideology” which harms French industry
He repeated it over and over again: “I’m no longer in politics, I have this chance. These affairs no longer concern me!” The one who had eyed the presidential election two years ago, now places himself as a defender of French industry and “economic patriotism”.
Arnaud Montebourg against the GG – 08/11
And if the French economy and industry are doing badly, for Arnaud Montebourg, it is the fault of the political system and its leaders. “There is a sociological problem. They are always the same people, made in a mold, and who always repeat the same things learned in the same schools,” he said.
“There is a liberal ideology of our successive leaders, right or left. I was in a government with liberal leaders. Mr. Hollande was a liberal, Mr. Macron is a liberal,” declares Arnaud Montebourg.
Left, right, to hear the former socialist, it's the same thing regarding the conception of the economy and the defense of businesses: “There is a homogeneity in the choices. It's always the same. there are no people we accept who would come to disrupt these patterns”, castigating a “dominant ideology” which would be impossible to “cross”, with the idea that we should not “put our hands in the economy”.
Record number of business bankruptcies
According to data from the Altarès firm, cited by Le Figaro in October, the record level of 66,000 business failures over the last 12 months has just been crossed. A figure which exceeds that reached during the subprime crisis between 2008 and 2009, recalled Arnaud Montebourg.
The beekeeper pointed out electricity bills that have become too heavy for businesses but above all “errors in European policy choices”. Here again, Arnaud Montebourg could not help but return to politics. “The left has completely missed the Nation.”
Because for the former presidential candidate of 2012 and 2017, only the Nation can enable a “strong productive apparatus”, and certainly not “the EU, the world or the WTO”. “The financing of the economy is not good in France, it is too destructive, not optimistic enough.” No more politics but, all the same, the boss of Bleu Blanc Ruche allowed himself a proposal: “We must reform the banks”.
European construction, “an abstract concept” according to Montebourg
Arnaud Montebourg even went back in time to 1981, quoting former socialist president François Mitterrand. “One day, Mitterrand told us: 'We are going to prefer something more abstract, a concept, European construction'”, he remembered, before continuing: “We followed him and then we realized that we could agree to build Europe if we did not abandon the Nation. However, we abandoned it too much, it was the left which ignored the question.
But the former minister wanted to be optimistic. According to him, Made in France is progressing and has become “a social movement”. “Consumers vote with their credit card,” he argued, before launching into a fiery tirade: “Patriotism is the love of one’s own, there is no hatred, it is construction, it’s only positive, hands reaching out, people coming together!”
Claiming once again to no longer be “in this affair”, understand politics, Arnaud Montebourg asserted it, sure of himself: “I didn't betray anyone, I remained myself, forgive me!”.
