Saturday, December 14, national conference day at 2, place du Colonel-Fabien. Quite a program. The 500 national delegates exchange and debate the obstacles preventing the French Communist Party from becoming a majority force in the country. The next deadlines are in the viewfinder, including the municipal elections of 2026, for which the communists have delivered a strategy that is ultimately consensual, and faithful to its traditions. “We remain on the same line: strengthen the left-wing majorities, achieve new conquests in the face of the danger from the extreme right and the rights, elect the greatest number of communists in this framework throughout the country,” explains Christian Picquet , thinking head of the PCF. Because the communists, whose number of municipal strongholds is dwindling over the course of the elections, are playing big. Particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis, an emblematic stronghold of the Ile-de-France red belt, where the rebellious threat rears its ugly head.
“More losses than gains” from the 1980s
Backtracking. Seine-Saint-Denis, monolithic territory. We are in 1977, the peak of municipal communism, and the PCF, which has nearly 20,000 members, runs 27 town halls. The “93”, a number granted to the department at its creation, continues to arouse the pride of its elected communist representatives, echoing the revolutionary year of 1793. Popular education, active policies in the field of culture… the red suburbs do not is not just a song by Renaud, it is – sometimes a bit mythologized – a political reality, a laboratory: “The working world worked in industries established in the city. The party provided important social and political supervision, through the municipal networks, associations and sports”, analyzes David Gouard, political scientist and author of The red suburbs. Those who stay and what changes(Le Bord de l’eau, 2014).
But the disintegration is progressive, against a backdrop of sociological, economic and demographic transformations in the department. “The working population, integrated, unionized, often employed by large metallurgical companies, from which the PC drew its executives, its activists and its voters, is replaced, more and more, by a population of poor people, permanently excluded from the labor market or participating in it only episodically, in precarious statuses, in service or temporary work companies, and suffering from this additional factor of marginalization that constitutes a foreign nationality or an immigrant origin”, noted in 2004 the geographer Philippe Subra. The effects are political. “After each municipal election from the beginning of the 1980s, there were always more municipal losses than gains for the PCF,” continues David Gouard. The following two decades were marked by competition from the Socialist Party, symbolized in 2008 by the capture of the General Council of Seine-Saint-Denis, taken from the communist Hervé Bramy by the Pink Baron Claude Bartolone. “Since the municipal elections of 2008, the erosion has also benefited the right,” concludes the political scientist. 2020 is a massive blow: Saint-Denis, a red city since the Liberation, goes under the pink flag. In Seine-Saint-Denis, the communists only run six towns (including a few related mayors). Pierre Laurent, former national secretary of the PCF, puts things into perspective: “In this context of overall weakening of the PCF nationally, the department remains a point of strength for the party.”
“Mélenchon will be a key player in the municipal elections”
For how long? Saturday December 14, again, this time at the Representative Assembly of La France insoumise, in Paris. The Mélenchonist troops are also setting out their ambitions. This time, they will not ignore the local elections, a crucial issue for future senatorial elections; Jean-Luc Mélenchon has only too badly digested the fact that his troops have been swept from the Luxembourg Palace. “He was fooled last year, in 2026 he will be a key player in the municipal elections,” says one of his regular interlocutors. For its tenth anniversary, LFI wishes to transform itself into a “communalist movement” and reaffirm “the commune as the first level of democracy”.
Then we start to “arrow”. Seine-Saint-Denis, with its 7 LFI deputies out of 12 (all left-wing parliamentarians), is of course a priority target, where 37.13% of Sequano-Dionysians have placed their confidence in Manon Aubry’s list – against 2.82% for the communist Léon Deffontaines – the only department where she came first. “The electoral realities of the country cannot be dealt with by transposing the results one onto the other,” warns Christian Picquet. The communist mayors are observing a certain communitarian strategy of the rebels that the PCF has always fought.” David Gouard qualifies: “Nationally on this subject, the two parties are on a different tradition. But in the Paris region, there is an overlap of strategies between the PCF and LFI in terms of secularism.”
“When we make more than 50% in a city, we must expect that there will be lists with a No. 1 LFI,” warns Paul Vannier, “Mr. Elections” of the rebels. This is the case of several towns run by communists or related – often alongside LFI – such as Stains (52.59%), Bobigny (52.95%), or La Courneuve (58.12%). In the latter where the current mayor, Gilles Poux, has announced that he will not seek a new mandate after thirty years at the helm of the city, Mohamed Awad, formerly of the Young Muslims of France (founded by the sulfurous imam Hassan Iquioussen) has already announced his candidacy for LFI while the councilor seemed to have found his successor in the person of Nadia Chahboune, his deputy. The war of succession is open in this town of nearly 50,000 inhabitants. “We cannot avoid the desires of everyone, and we can only regret it,” breathes Emilie Lecroq, departmental secretary of the PCF in Seine-Saint-Denis. And what about the cities where the outgoing mayor would like to run again? “All this will be discussed. We arrive at a sequence where each political team wants to keep its gains: we are here to say that the one who decides is the people”, scathes Bally Bagayoko, the co-delegate in charge of unitary relations of the department. Suffice to say that in the rebellious galaxy, everything remains permitted.
“2026 is a new era”
In Saint-Denis, communists and rebels have the opportunity to find common ground. Together in opposition since the victory of pink mayor Mathieu Hanotin, they share the same ambition to overthrow the councilor in 2026. The two far-left parties, however, have a history. In June 2020, the communist list of outgoing mayor Laurent Russer and that of rebellious Bally Bagayoko were to merge for the second round. Failure: the first had accused the second of having wanted to maintain, until the end, the candidate Madjid Messaoudène in an eligible position. The outgoing councilor accused him of having taken “divisive” positions on the place of religions, secularism, gender equality, police-population relations…” Today, everyone says they want to turn the page.
On December 18, communists and rebels met to discuss the upcoming local elections. But nothing is won. “Here is the rule of the game: there is no one leaving to date, and the bonus cannot go to those who lost the city,” says Bally Bagayoko. “I will be a candidate for La France insoumise.” The communists, for their part, prefer to speak of “leader”. “2026 is a new era,” adds the rebel. And the emblematic Ile-de-France belt to sport a new shade of red?
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