– / AFP
For the Insoumis, the defeat of Kamala Harris shows that only a revolutionary left can win against the far right.
POLITICS – The French left has found a new bone to gnaw: the analysis of the results of the American elections. If she unanimously deplores the return of Donald Trump to the White House, and is concerned about its consequences on democracy, ecology or the rights of women and minorities, she differs on the lessons to be learned from it.
“We cannot defeat the reactionary far right without a clear alternative projectassumes the coordinator of La France insoumise Manuel Bompard. We cannot mobilize the people on a neoliberal line and without social and geopolitical ruptures”. According to him, these precepts must be “meditated”under penalty of suffering tomorrow “new electoral hangovers”.
The Insoumis are convinced of one thing: only a left “breakup” allows us to confront the conservative camp. “The United States could not choose the left: there was none. When there is no more left, there is no limit to the right”believes the founder of the movement Jean-Luc Mélenchon. According to them, the defeat of Kamala Harris can be explained by a campaign that was too central. “We cannot beat the right-wing extreme right with a neoliberal program economically, soft on the knee on social issues, superficial on democratic issues, opportunistic on identity issues, non-existent on ecology, anti-migrant and imperialist”defends MP Danièle Obono.
One of the points of tension in their eyes is on the Palestinian question, the Democratic candidate having been cautious about her support for Gaza, careful not to alienate Israel. “The American Democratic camp must question its values”decides the deputy Aymeric Caron, for whom “ actively supporting genocide, allowing the death and mutilation of tens of thousands of children, enabling and defending the worst that humanity can produce […] logically leads to failure the camp which claims to embody progressivism.” Although, for the moment, there is no consolidated data to support the thesis of a sanction vote on this theme having changed the election.
“Harris did Hollande”
For the ex-LFI deputy François Ruffin, who tirelessly pleads for a reconquest of rural and popular territories, where the National Rally achieves its best scores, the defeat of Kamala Harris is the sign “that we need a left which, here as there, can only win by being left-wing. By regaining popular hearts, working-class lands”. “Kamala Harris did Holland”regrets MP Antoine Léaument, who explains: “There is also a concern in France that some want to follow this path to the left, a soft, flexible path, which in the end brings the extreme right to power”.
Moreover, when the socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksmann gives his own reading of the results (“The election of Trump is one of those tipping points that shape history”), the Insoumis take it on the fly. “How can you be so off base?replies Antoine Léaument. It is the political line that you support in Europe and in France which led, in the United States, to the defeat against Trump”. “Gluskmann’s defeat against Le Pen”schematizes the former LFI deputy Sébastien Rome. According to him, “the loss of the working classes is blatant” : “When two candidates are for billionaires, the one who hits hardest on immigrants has the advantage”. Green senator Yannick Jadot, former candidate for the 2022 presidential election, regrets that the attitude of the Insoumis consists of “hit the rest of the left and environmentalists”. “Distressing!” Pathetic “he gets carried away.
“No moral lesson”
“Kamala Harris failed to mobilize the popular electorate necessary for her victory”says the president of the LFI group Mathilde Panot in a press release published at midday. She is sure: “Only a radical and popular left can prevail against the extreme right”. For the First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure, resentments must not take over on the left. “Now is not the time for moral lessons but for the affirmation of a project for France and the European Unionhe says. The European left must claim its own path: internationalist, humanist, democratic, environmentalist. There is only fatality in resignation”.
Clémentine Autain, who now sits among the environmentalists, recognizes that “election conditions and countries differ”. Despite everything, she also calls for “learn lessons” : “The defeat of the elites, the break between leaders and the people, disinformation and the rise of far-right media are leading us to fascism”.
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