Legislative debate on TF1: what does the red triangle displayed by Manuel Bompard mean?

It was attached to the jacket of Manuel Bompard (New Popular Front)this Tuesday evening, June 25, 2024, during the televised debate against Jordan Bardella and Gabriel Attal on TF1 before this first round of legislative elections. A pin in the shape of a red trianglethe same one that the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has been sporting for several years. But what does it mean?

“Three equal sides and the color of blood,” sums it up Insubordinationthe news platform of La France insoumise. The origin from this little triangle would rise have 1ᵉʳ May 1890. A symbol of resistance.

He had been seen on the chests of workers marching for better working conditions. With a slogan: eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours of leisure.

The slogan for the workers then in struggle: eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep, eight hours of leisure, a balance in three stages wonderfully symbolized by the equilateral triangle and its three equal sides.

Why the color red? “It is the color of determination to fight for one’s dignity to the point of blood […] The determination to shed one’s own blood to obtain a fairer distribution of working time and free up time for rest and the pleasure of reading, dreaming, discussing, making love, educating one’s children, taking care of oneself and those around us. loved ones,” writes L’insoumission.

A symbol of the fight against the far right

A red triangle which now has a double meaning. Because it has also become a symbol of the fight against the far right.

The second reference actually comes Nazi campswhere colored badges were used to differentiate the different categories of deportees: yellow for Jews, pink for homosexuals and red for political opponents. A symbol taken up after the war by anti-fascist activists.

In their concentration camp regime, the Nazis felt the need to mark the different populations doomed to extermination. The best known symbol of this system is of course the yellow star for the Jews. The red triangle will be chosen as the mark of political deportees, imprisoned for having opposed the Hitler regime, among whom socialists, communists, the whole big family of social struggle is over-represented compared to conservatives and liberals.

At the end of the Second World War, the red triangle will therefore become the symbol of political resistance to the Nazi regime and by extension to the far right throughout Europe.

“I was outraged that I was compared to the National Front”

It is in particular in Belgium that this tradition continues. And it was from a trade unionist from the Belgian General Labor Federation that Jean-Luc Mélenchon received his first red triangle, he explained.

In a video (dated 2011), and spotted by MarianneJean-Luc Mélenchon, interviewed by a man, details the meaning and origin of his pin attached to his jacket.

“It’s the deported communists,” he begins. “It was the Belgians who gave it to me. I was outraged that I had been compared to the National Front. I said to myself “What could I wear?”, and someone said to me – a Belgian comrade: “I’ll give you mine, it’s the badge of the communist deportees in the Nazi concentration camps. So since then, I’ve been putting it on and never taking it off. “, he explained then.

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