By defending the repeal of the offense of glorifying terrorism, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and those close to him are reigniting tensions within the left, giving fodder to those within the PS who are pleading for a clean break with the Insoumis . Decryption.
Would this be a double-trigger bill? A first move to open the debate on the repeal of the offense of glorifying terrorism? A second to further dent the union of the left born from the last legislative elections?
While the debates around a future motion of censure had united the ranks of the New Popular Front, the bill from the Insoumis deputy Ugo Bernalicis has just rekindled tensions, particularly with the socialists. The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure judged “imperative to protect public freedoms but also to protect the French from fanaticism and calls for violence and hatred”.
For François Hollande, the proposed text “hits the victims of terrorism who, in their flesh, painfully experience any relaxation of the duty of vigilance and national cohesion”.
Do not “make a film”
What is it exactly? The deputy from the North tabled a text aimed at removing the offense of advocating terrorism from the Penal Code and inserting it into press law.
A subject which directly concerns LFI since elected officials Mathilde Panot and Rima Hassan were recently questioned in the context of investigations for advocating terrorism.
The first for a tweet which paralleled the Hamas attack, described as “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces”et “the intensification of the Israeli occupation policy” in the Palestinian territories.
The second for having assured during an interview: “It's true” that Hamas is taking legitimate action. Faced with the outcry, Jean-Luc Mélenchon deplored “a new attack against LFI”, “coming from the extreme right and slavishly taken up by the media-political officialdom”.
And the boss of the Insoumis urges “read the text of the bill”, “rather than make films”.
“Building a new force”
Of which note, but these new tensions are emerging as the PS reflects, as its congress approaches, on its positioning within the union of the left and particularly vis-à-vis LFI.
“We must build a new unifying force ranging from the left wing of the macronie to former Lfists like Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin”someone close to Olivier Faure explained to us last week.
Exit those close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. For his part, as if to bring grist to the mill of his adversaries, the latter multiplies the provocations. Just yesterday, to the president of the socialist group in the Assembly, Boris Vallaud, who proposed to all parties, with the exception of the RN “to raise the question of the conditions for non-censorship”if the Barnier government were to be overthrown, the Insoumis leader responded brutally that “it will be without LFI”.
Fracture again
At the same time, the Insoumis are preparing the municipal elections alone, trying to impose their candidates sometimes against other left-wing candidates. In any case, the immediate goal of the Insoumis does not seem to be the repeal of the offense of glorifying terrorism since the text appears neither in their parliamentary niche of November 28 nor on the agenda of the Assembly.
It is above all a “political positioning”explains Ugo Bernalicis.
A positioning which could have the aim, if not the effect, of further fracturing the left while addressing part of the suburban electorate with a view to possible early legislative elections and the next municipal elections. The New Popular Front is trembling and has never been so close to collapse.
