L’Express: The Minister of the Interior has accused Nupes of “complicity” with “far left movements which terrorize”. Intellectual terrorism would therefore be you, the Nupes. What do you answer him?
Fabien Roussel: Does Gérald Darmanin realize the serious crisis our country is going through? Because of whom, if not a government that has turned a deaf ear to a historic social movement, with millions of French people and a united union front like never before? The Minister of the Interior is taking advantage of the serious incidents that took place in Sainte-Soline to highlight violence in the news, as if any form of protest today was the act of violent ultra-left groups motivated by political forces. Let him explain to us instead why he and the government have refused to listen to the social movement for two months. Democracy, Mr. Darmanin, is not only the rules, the Constitution and 49.3, it is also the meaning of dialogue. And if dialogue is no longer possible in the country today, it is primarily the fault of the government.
What is the “ultra-left” he denounces?
I don’t know, ask him! And again, I’m not even sure he knows it himself. I don’t feel concerned. The chaos, it is he who organizes it, him, the government and Mr. Macron. They divide the country, play democracy as one plays with fire. I am terribly worried. It is a government that is out of breath, even at the end of its life. It is an isolated, weakened power, confined to the Élysée. Mr. Darmanin can no longer implement his reform (on immigration, editor’s note), so he tries to look away. Nor will he find a majority for his reform on the institutional future of Corsica or on New Caledonia.
If he is not targeting you, he is not hiding to have Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the crosshairs. Does your rebellious ally, with whom relations are complicated, bear responsibility for the violence that has emerged?
I do not want to fuel debates that are not up to the moment, up to this united inter-union. I am not one of those who support violence nor condone it or justify it. And the communists have always respected the institutions and at the same time wanted to transform them radically, in a democratic way. I am in the Republican camp. It is not a story of individuals but of a collective of left-wing forces, trade unionists and politicians, who knew how to work together on an alternative to defend social progress within the framework of the rules of the Republic. A collective that knows how to carry people’s anger as well as hopes. It is unbearable to let the government say that anyone on the left would be on the side of violence. What Gérald Darmanin did is a fault.
“The Nupes, it is outdated. We must gather well beyond…”
In your book, you plead for a return to “happy days”, an old communist adage. Isn’t that naive in view of the current social crisis, also democratic, or even the debt, as well as the violence in Sainte-Soline?
It is vital to carry a new political hope, which must be leftist, progressive and republican. It is not enough for us to speak of alternation, we must bring an alternative, based on a collective, which respects the unions and which is ready to govern. And all this cannot be carried by a providential man, whoever he is.
We, that is to say the Nupes?
But no ! The Nupes, it is outdated. We must gather well beyond…
Until Bernard Cazeneuve and his social-democratic movement “La Convention”?
Yes ! We need to talk to the whole left. It is unimaginable to exclude anyone if one wants to embody a force for progress capable of winning. What will make us strong is as much our diversity as our program. And I say this to Bernard Cazeneuve, former Prime Minister: our program will not be able to adapt to capitalism, it will above all bring about a radical social transformation. We can no longer dampen the hopes of the people. The time of this left is over. She disappeared with François Hollande. The left must be sincere and transformative, and the democratic question will be central: you cannot propose a man to change another man.
What we see for the moment, despite a major social movement, is that the point goes to the National Rally, not to the left.
It’s wrong ! You only look at the points taken by the National Rally, without looking at those won by each union and each political force on the left. When we add all this up, we are far ahead of the RN. There is a change of consciousness today. Not all of those who demonstrated were on the left, but they saw and heard the debates and proposals put forward by the RN. They are not fooled. They have clearly seen that the extreme right does not like unions or the French social model. Marine Le Pen is the liberals’ best ally.
“The RN is the France of Pétain”
Are you not afraid of reproducing what happened in May 68: in the end, it’s a blue wave that breaks in the Assembly and the left is shrunken. This time, the wave could be extreme right, and not Gaullist.
We saw in broad daylight the weakness of the RN on the merits. Marine Le Pen was forced to come out of the woodwork on a major social issue, and she was bare-handed. Everyone has seen how far their project, which they unveiled with such timidity, was from the desire of the French. When they talk about retirement at 60, it’s only for those who started at 17… Still happy, that’s the minimum! Marine Le Pen promises to abolish social security contributions on salaries. With the RN, you can say goodbye to social security and hello to private insurance. They talk to us about the demographic challenge by saying to women: “have children”. Does it remind you of anything? This is what the extreme right said 80 years ago in our country: women at home, in the kitchen and with the children, and men at work. It is homeland family work. The RN is the France of Pétain. The far right has not changed.
The CGT congress has just ended and Sophie Binet was elected as its head, a former socialist, from the UNEF. What a decline: the CGT has definitively left the shores of communism…
You say “former PS”, I remind you that she left the PS at the time of the El Khomri law. It therefore has the honor of those who do not betray their convictions. To reduce it to its socialist past is unfair for it and for the whole of the CGT. I am proud to see this union being able to come out of its convention united, with a woman to lead. I feared the division, I told Philippe Martinez. It was difficult, but they managed to come out on top and united.
You are finishing your tour of the sub-prefectures, which started several months ago. Is it “play it like Mitterrand”, to better prepare for 2027?
The left needs to speak to this France of the sub-prefectures. She was waiting for us and she is listening to us again. It is necessary to know how to make the difference between the rumor of the polls which tells that the extreme right comes out reinforced and that the left would be exceeded. This is not the reality on the ground. I saw an appetite for a new left that is not limited to Jean-Luc Mélenchon.