LA TRIBUNE SUNDAY – Have you spoken with the Head of State since the announcement of the dissolution?
CLÉMENT BEAUNE – Out of respect for the institution, I never report possible exchanges with the President of the Republic. It is an ethic that everyone should respect. Furthermore, I have had no contact with the Élysée. Since June 10, I have been 200% invested in my campaign, in Paris, literally day and night. I feel very free. What matters to me is avoiding the RN in power and building a future for social democracy in our country. I leave aside hallway or courtyard gossip.
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What would you like to say to the president?
I am not trying here to address him, but to the citizens, to my voters in Paris, to the French. I am in the field every day. I appreciate the enormous shock, sometimes the trauma, that the dissolution represents, including for the voters of the presidential majority. But the subject is no longer whether the dissolution was necessary or relevant. It is, in order of priority, to vote massively on June 30, to beat the extreme right and finally to create a coalition of responsible moderates in the National Assembly. The rest is history or commentary.
What should be the message of the majority in this campaign?
We have to say: you have a real choice. A democratic, responsible, European and secular path exists. In the majority of constituencies, including mine, there is a choice of hope and reason, which we must embody. On June 30, the French can choose another ballot than the friends of LFI or the Le Pen clan. My message, including to the outgoing majority, is frank: we have not succeeded in containing the extremes and unblocking Parliament. It’s all of us’ fault. The relative majority sometimes behaved like an absolute majority, and the oppositions, as if they were the majority. It is a collective problem of culture and even political immaturity. Before dealing with concrete measures, on purchasing power, health or ecology, we must therefore respond to the democratic crisis. It is the mother of battles. From this summer, in Parliament, we will have to build this coalition of moderates, against the RN and without LFI. To do this, we will need to establish proportional representation, which will require us to work together in balanced and transparent coalition agreements, and by using regular, multiple-question referendums to depersonalize politics. We are far too obsessed in France with the figure of the president. If we do not change our practices, we will have powerless or demagogic political parties. This plays into the hands of extremes.
Aurélien Rousseau, like you from the left wing of the majority, explains his joining the New Popular Front by the fact that he no longer supported the right-wing line of the government. What do you answer him?
I respect and esteem Aurélien Rousseau, whom I have known for fifteen years. But let’s all be consistent: he wrote the latest pension reform and now proposes unfunded retirement at 60. It doesn’t stick. That said, we share an idea: the government’s line has drifted, and this imbalance is dangerous. This does not set the RN back, on the contrary. We will have to work together in the years to come. But for me, it is clear: it must be without LFI, which brutalizes public debate and feeds the RN with its excesses. There was another way: bringing together moderates from the left and the center. I proposed it. I sincerely regret that Raphaël Glucksmann, Emmanuel Grégoire, Boris Vallaud and others refused it.
In the event of a second round between the RN and the New Popular Front, what should the majority’s instructions be?
On such a subject, we cannot procrastinate. I accept my conviction, even if it is debated among my own activists: we must always vote for the candidate who faces the RN. Even if it means withdrawing if there is a risk of victory for the extreme right. Because behind the rebellious appearances, the RN remains the extreme right, sheltering anti-Semites, racists and homophobes. I consider LFI to be a dangerous and very brutal party. But the extremist party that can take power and destroy our country today is the RN. Let’s beat him! This is the first of the watchwords.
