The Somme MP loves confrontation. In his triple career as a journalist, director and politician, he has made it his honey. But, at the Fête de l’Humanité, Saturday September 14, a few minutes before his debate facing several left-wing personalities, including the rebellious and “antifa” figure Raphaël Arnault, François Ruffin seems a bit tense. He probably knew what to expect, after the publication of his latest book (Itinerary. My France in its entirety, not halfway), criticizing the strategy of La France insoumise and its “racial profiling campaigns”. Also, perhaps he knows his former family too well to understand that upstream the boss of the LFI deputies, Mathilde Panot, and the newly elected representative of Vaucluse meticulously put together the sequence.
Melted into the front rows, in a remote-controlled operation, a few activists from the Young Guard collective – Arnault loyalists – and other young rebels booed the arrival of the Picard and began to sing anti-fascist songs. “I have nothing to do with it,” the rebel MP defended himself off-mic to the communist parliamentarian Nicolas Sansu, the headliner of the debate.
And the latter, close to the jeered, retorts: “Do you take me for an idiot?” The rest of the exchange is more peaceful. François Ruffin even manages to sometimes win over the crowd… Backstage, on the way back this time, it is Raphaël Arnault who pulls a face. And Ruffin wears a satisfied face.
“It’s going to explode, because you talked about blacks and Arabs”
Such is the life of the deputy of the Somme, since he, in his words, “cut the rope with Jean-Luc Mélenchon” between the two rounds of the legislative elections. Cultivating his freedom, trying, if possible, to use it wisely, free from any suspicion of hypocrisy towards the rebels. Now also condemned – and it is the price to pay – to pass under the yoke of the latter, as now, during the media tour of his latest work. The main reason escapes him, however, when he walks through the door of the BFMTV studio, on September 11, for his first audiovisual interview. François Ruffin is convinced of having “dropped a bomb”, by affirming that LFI “is a party where there is fear”. His friends reason with him: “It’s going to explode, because you talked about leafleting based on race, of Blacks and Arabs.” The counter-offensive is launched in Mélenchonie.
Who, internally, had already gone so far in criticizing the rebellious patriarch? Had dared to send LFI and the National Rally back to back, reproaching the Mélenchonists in particular for their “silence” concerning young Thomas, fatally stabbed at a ball in Crépol, in the Drôme – a tragedy politically recovered by the extreme right – when they had been outraged, in an inverse symmetry with the RN, by the racist attack on Mourad, a gardener stabbed in Val-de-Marne a few days later?
There was a time when the reproaches of the rebels were mainly limited to the lack of democracy within the movement. The career journalist also “cracked off the record” to illustrate Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s alleged “contempt”. “When he told me about Hénin, it was on the verge of disgust: ‘We didn’t understand a word they were saying, they were sweating alcohol from the morning, they smelled bad, almost all obese…'”, Mélenchon allegedly told him. And transcribed a few other statements, noting the strategic break between LFI and certain territories: “The regions that voted RN are lands that have never adhered to democracy and the Republic”, he allegedly said the day after the 2022 legislative elections. François Ruffin has lost a few feathers, he knows it. On the rebellious side, in any case, there is no doubt, François is no longer, for the time being, a comrade.
“When our historical adversaries use our words, we must be careful”
Who are his comrades, by the way? He has a few, scattered throughout the left-wing families. There are those whose common adversity at the Palais Bourbon has forged bonds, like these other purged rebels: Alexis Corbière, to whom he is close, also Clémentine Autain, Hendrik Davi, Danielle Simonnet, or Raquel Garrido, who, together, formed their own association, “L’Après”. But the co-founders did not understand why François Ruffin had not joined them in turn. The latter preferred to integrate a form of liaison agent, between him and the collective, Guillaume Ancelet, his right-hand man and president of the microparty Picardie debout. “He is attached to keeping a margin of action, the collective executives, he prefers to act like that”, sighs Alexis Corbière. A blessing in disguise, in a way. “He is leading a head-on fight against Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and is protecting his freedom by protecting that of others,” says Raquel Garrido, with kindness.
At L’Après, some describe the Picard’s latest outing as “clumsiness”, which he himself acknowledged. “The fight against the far right involves changing the conversation. The far right conversation is about sending people back to their origins. François’ speech can be hurtful when you are black or Arab. That is not what we expect from the left”, believes Raquel Garrido. “When our historical adversaries use our words to come and divide within our camp, we must be careful and close the sequence”, concludes Guillaume Ancelet. Which camp is his? He comes from the radical left, he stays there, too bad if the hegemonic part of this fringe rejects him. And too bad for those who dress him up as a potential socialist: the PS? “It will never be the engine of History”, he writes in his last blog post, quoting his hero, the communist figure Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont. The PCF has been watching him for some time with appetite and a hint of suspicion. Léon Deffontaines, from Amiens like Ruffin and former head of the communist list for the European elections, is fighting as best he can to get Fabien Roussel to meet him. A communist bigwig analyses: “I have the impression that François and Fabien think they are in competition.”
“Is he interested in being connected to devices?”
Landing with the Greens, in this new legislature, was not really his first choice. But “they offered him hospitality”, a friend quips, so we’re not whining. And the parliamentary group even added a particle for the occasion, now calling itself “ecologist and social”! What we remember about him is that he was keen to meet his colleagues during the parliamentary days. That, during the first three meetings, “he walked a little on eggshells, […] speaks a little less, and listens above all to what is happening”. Last Tuesday, during the traditional group reunion, an environmentalist bursts the boil. “At some point, we may have to have a group position when one of our members is booed or mistreated in public, no?” An angel passes. Some had not held back their blows against Ruffin. He himself had warned some colleagues of the publication of his book, but not the president, Cyrielle Chatelain. “For the moment, he is doing without us, I don’t have the impression that he has decided that the environmental group will be his team”, presses a parliamentarian.
His team, the real one, is “in the structuring phase”, assure his close friends. The same ones who are demanding that Picard start the foundation of a political party. “It must come, I plead in this sense, affirms Baptiste de Fresse de Monval, mayor (The Ecologists) of Margny-sur-Matz, in Oise, who is helping him to build a network of local elected officials. With his program of rupture, it is mandatory that the adventure be collective!” Everyone has in mind the last legislative elections, where François Ruffin was swept away from the negotiations, because he did not have a machine, even though he had launched the idea of the “Popular Front”, on the model of the 1936 elections. The microparty Picardie debout is set to evolve, they whisper. “Finally, the name itself is blocking”, Guillaume Ancelet ironizes. Confidence of a friend, who betrays no secret: “Is he interested in being connected to the machines? I don’t think so.” François Ruffin will devote himself mainly to promoting his new documentary, Let’s get to work! co-directed with Gilles Perret, on the “social reintegration of the rich”. A pretext, they say, to start a tour of France.
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