André Lajoinie, peasant who became communist candidate in the presidential election, died at the age of 94

DISAPPEARANCE – His name will probably mean nothing to younger people, but André Lajoinie was an important figure on the left at the end of the last century. Member of Parliament for a rural constituency in Allier from 1978 to 2002, he chaired the communist group in the Assembly for many years, favoring in-depth work over media stunts. Recognized, including by his opponents, as a man who listened, close to people, attached to his modest and peasant origins, André Lajoinie died this Tuesday, November 26 at the age of 94, announced Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the French Communist Party, a party to which he had joined at the age of 19.

Son of poor peasants, André Lajoinie was born in Chasteaux (Corrèze), south of Brive-la-Gaillarde. Marked by the war, and in particular the Resistance which he admired with his child's eyes, André Lajoinie was unable to continue his studies beyond the certificate, due to lack of money. In a book published in 1987 and entitled With an open hearthe returned to this founding period, recalling that his parents listened to Radio Londres in secret and supplied, whenever they could, the region's resistance fighters with bread and wine.

At the same time, he helped his father on the farm and took his first PCF card after the war, probably in 1948. “My commitment to the Communist Party has very deep roots, he wrote. It had a powerful driving force: the feeling of injustice that struck my family”. Believing to have “paid the price of social inequality” From a very young age, André Lajoinie gradually got involved in the Party's internal debates, until he gained ground and was noticed by the national leadership.

In 1978, he ran for the legislative elections in Allier, and won a deputy's seat. A mandate that he will carry proudly, he, the son of a peasant who came so far away, mocked for his modest origins, caricatured in a competing leaflet with clogs on his feet. He had turned this ridicule into strength. During a public meeting in a small village in Allier for his first election to the National Assembly, André Lajoinie recalled how proud he was of the environment from which he came, attracting loud applause from the room, mainly populated by farmers.

“Demanding, diligent, conscientious”

In 1988, to everyone's surprise, the communist ran for the presidential election. “A very difficult battle”he laughed a few years later, when François Mitterrand was a candidate for re-election. Little known to the French, representative of a party then in militant and electoral hemorrhage, in a period when the Soviet bloc was experiencing its last hours, André Lajoinie had campaigned as he knew how to do, on the ground, as close as possible to the concerns of the people. The score was not great (6.76%), but the intention was there.

For a long time, Lajoinie was seen as “the archetype of the rural communist”. In a portrait published in 1987, The World described him as a “madré peasant”, “arched back, stubborn head tucked into the shoulders, slightly gravelly and lilting accent, smile on the lips”. He sometimes suffered from being considered only in the shadow of Georges Marchais, as without charisma or real personality.

The local newspaper The Mountain emphasizes that he loved “politics at its least spectacular and least sophisticated”. Humanitywith whom he was naturally close, recalls “that André Lajoinie was a demanding man, diligent and conscientious in his work and the control of his files, refusing any form of compromise. He put his life at the service of others, at the service of workers and of France.”

The national secretary of the PCF Fabien Roussel cries “a man of great humanity” and address his “most fraternal condolences” to those who shared “his fights for the working classes, for his territory, for France”. “He had the love of people deep in his heart, also reacted the communist senator Ian Brossat. André was a fierce defender of the working class”. In a tweet, Jean-Luc Mélenchon also paid tribute to the deceased: “ I salute his absolute dedication to communism and popular struggles, particularly in rural and peasant environments, for which he was an effective and powerful spokesperson. ».

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