Atmosphere at loggerheads. Since François Ruffin’s comments on Wednesday, September 11, about his campaign experience alongside La France Insoumise, the Mélenchonist party has been united. While several LFI deputies reacted on X in the wake of his statements, Sébastien Delogu, this Thursday, September 12, did not mince his words about the elected representative from the Somme.
“He is pitiful, he has fallen very low,” he lashed out on the Sud Radio morning show.
And he added: “He will end up like Fabien Roussel”, the national secretary of the French Communist Party, regularly criticized by the rebels.
Ruffin evokes a campaign “on appearance in certain neighborhoods”
The day before, the “Picardie debout” MP for the Somme was questioned on several passages from his new book Itinerary, my France in its entirety, not halfwayin which he relates campaign anecdotes and expresses his doubts about certain electoral leaflets carried out, according to his account, on the basis of appearance.
According to him, in some neighborhoods of Amiens-Nord, offering a leaflet with the head of Jean-Luc Mélenchon to a potential racialized voter of La France Insoumise is synonymous with “almost assured success” as the name of the leader of LFI serves as a “master key.” On the other hand, when faced with other potential non-racialized voters, this same name becomes “a lock.”
“It’s a worry, I felt ashamed when I came to do that. Unfortunately, I confided in my comrades who told me they were doing the same thing,” the MP recounted on BFMTV-RMC.
“LFI is a party where there is fear,” François Ruffin also confided. “There is no room for debate, discussion, exchange,” he added.
“He keeps hitting the left”
“He’s constantly bashing the left to buy himself media respectability credentials to get on the airwaves,” Sébastien Delogu fumed this Thursday. “By saying that, it’s a way of succumbing to racism,” he explained.
“Ruffin says he wants to speak to the whole of France… But when there is a march against Islamophobia, he says he can’t… He has football!” protests the elected official from Marseille.
Sébastien Delogu refers to the march planned for November 2019 that aimed to denounce anti-Muslim acts. Organized at the call of several personalities and organizations, such as the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, the event had divided the left and sparked strong criticism from the National Rally.
At the time, François Ruffin had indeed explained on France Inter that he would not be able to participate. “I will not go on Sunday, I play football,” explained the man who was then a member of parliament for La France Insoumise. “I don’t do media on Sunday either because I play football,” he specified.
LFI “does not sort the French”
According to Sébastien Delogu, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon says he does not want to waste his time with certain voters, it is “with the fascists” with whom explanation is not possible. LFI prefers “to concentrate on the abstainers. Not to sort the French according to their origins or their religion”, defends Sébastien Delogu.
“I had respect for François, but he is doing something that does not suit me at all, and I remain measured in my comments,” reacted at the same time the LFI deputy Éric Coquerel on France Inter.
“To suggest that because we are fighting racism, LFI would abandon the social issue is simply to pay tribute to what our opponents say, and I think that is not worthy of François Ruffin,” he adds.
- BFMTV.com