Roland Lescure, the French deputy for North America, believes that Ruba Ghazal is on the wrong track by interfering in French politics and actively campaigning in favor of his opponent, from the coalition of left-wing parties.
“Listen, I wouldn’t have done it,” says Mr. Lescure, after all a diplomat, in an interview with Journal from San Francisco, Wednesday.
“I am a French deputy, I am a minister of the French Republic. I cannot imagine myself interfering in a Quebec or Canadian election even if, you know, I have Canadian nationality,” explains the man who had a fruitful career here, notably as vice-president of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec from 2009 to 2017.
Active activism
Tuesday, the Quebec solidaire (QS) MP went to distribute leaflets from Oussama Laraichi, candidate of the New Popular Front for North America, at the Mont-Royal station in Montreal “in order to encourage the French in Quebec to block the road on the extreme right.
“Not sure, dear colleague, that this foreign interference on your part is well advised,” commented the Quebec minister responsible for the Fight against Racism, Christopher Skeete, under the photo of Ruba Ghazal.
Éric Duhaime also spoke out. “An MP interferes in the elections of another country. In Ottawa these days, we call it foreign interference. At Québec Solidaire, it’s called the Communist International,” quipped the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec.
The solidarity elected official in Taschereau, Étienne Grandmont, added a layer on Wednesday by encouraging the French in Quebec to “use [leur] right to vote to support the New Popular Front. “You have until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning,” he specifies in a publication on X.
“They do what they want”
“Really, I believe in freedom of expression, so they really, really do what they want,” maintains Roland Lescure. “But,” he adds, “we must still be clear: if we campaign in Quebec for the New Popular Front, it is not a campaign against the National Rally”!
“Effectively, if we campaign in Quebec for the New Popular Front, that means that we are campaigning against Roland Lescure, and that must be assumed, rather than looking for slightly more roundabout explanations,” he said.
Mr. Lescure, who holds French and Canadian nationalities, is playing his position squarely: the National Rally (RN) has promised to close important government positions to “dual nationals” like him.
“Pushing back the extremes” from the center
According to the economist by training, the best way to “resist” the extreme right and “to a lesser extent the extreme left” is to unite “through the center” to create a coalition that will “push back the extremes.”
What is more, by joining the left-wing coalition, the Solidaires are indirectly joining the Insoumis of Jean-Luc Mélanchon, “who has had an extremely serious position on Ukraine” and supported “Russia in veiled terms”, who has tried to “exploit the conflict in the Middle East” and who “is proposing 200 billion euros more in spending and taxes”.
The left party plans, just like the RN, to tear up the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) which increases trade between Quebec and France, raises Roland Lescure.
The latter returns to Montreal on Thursday for the final lap of this blitzkrieg campaign. French voters in the North America constituency largely supported left-wing parties in the European elections earlier this month.
The latest polls in France give Jordan Bardella’s National Rally a significant lead in the legislative elections, which will be held at the beginning of July. The left-wing coalition New Popular Front comes second and the centrist group Ensemble pour la République, which includes the Renaissance party of current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, is currently third.
– With Marc-André Gagnon
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