The Somme MP accuses the rebellious leader of building walls between the French, whereas according to him, bridges must be built without assigning anyone an ethnic or religious identity.
And «electoral and moral disagreement». These are the words François Ruffin used to explain in an interview this week to New Obs his break with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, an interview in which he explicitly reproaches the rebellious leader for his communitarian strategy, deadly for the left. While the deputy of the Somme is releasing a book entitled Itinerary-My France in its entirety, not halfway, he accuses his former comrade of having “theorized” for the 2022 presidential campaign, addressing a suburban electorate called “racialized”, forgetting the equally popular electorate of towns and countryside, which has fallen into the arms of the extreme right and which it would be useless to try to win back.
Incidentally, François Ruffin admits to having himself led “a campaign based on appearance” in 2022, and to be ashamed of it today. If the rebellious obviously fell on their former comrade with all their might, they reproached him more for dividing the left at an inopportune moment than contesting the substance of the former journalist’s attacks. This would have been difficult after the tone of the rebellious campaign for the European elections, or after Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared on the sidelines of the demonstration on September 7 that it was necessary “mobilizing young people and working-class neighborhoods, forget about everything else, we’re wasting our time.” Electorally, the quarrel is actually quite surreal. The left’s current low point is too low to allow it to coax any segment of the popular electorate that it would have the luxury of snubbing.
Its diversity should from this point of view be more of an asset than a disadvantage… provided that it is not in “moral disagreement.” François Ruffin now assumes to be with Mélenchon, but the divide crosses the entire left. The deputy of the Somme believes that the role of the left is not to erect walls between French people but rather to “building bridges”. The formula is seductive. Without assigning anyone, one might add, to a social, geographic, ethnic and even less religious identity.
