L’Express: At the moment, the debate is raging between knowing which of the far left or the far right is more violent. What do you think ?
Julien Dray: I do not equate these two forms of violence, above all because they do not have the same historical responsibilities. The violence of the extreme right is consubstantial with its ideas, the other, that of the extreme left, is a betrayal and a perversion of the ideas of the left. Saying that means no complacency with either. My own story, which began as a young Trotskyist, led me to a certainty: democracy, the majority fact that stems from it, is an inescapable value and we must lead a permanent fight to defend it. Violence, even when it prides itself on noble values, inevitably leads to failure and authoritarianism. Democracy cannot be circumvented, or neglected, for a time, in the name of a noble idea. And when I speak of democracy, it is a value in society but also within political organizations. I remind Manuel Bompard that the seeds of Stalinism are in the prohibition of tendencies within the Bolshevik party. It’s a snap.
On the political level, some dismiss Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon back to back. And you ?
This is intellectual conformity! It’s not the same thing. Let’s already stop drawing a parallel between Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter, using the word “fascism” all over the place. It was one of the mistakes of my younger generation, the famous “CRS = SS”. It’s a catch-all word that prevents us from understanding reality, and relegating Marine Le Pen to this category is a mistake if not a political mistake. That she has far-right positions is one thing, but neither is she Mussolini or Hitler. To send it back to fascism is to say that we don’t know how to fight it. When I founded SOS Racisme, I already found it too simplistic to lock myself into a narrow anti-fascism, it seemed to me to be a political impasse. We must fight Marine Le Pen on the merits, on her program and her inevitable failures which will lead to what, after her, the one-upmanship will be that of these “black order” small groups which are beginning to reconstitute themselves everywhere on the ground French. And it’s not just far-right folklore.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon forgot that the big night always leads to dirty mornings”
And Jean-Luc Mélenchon then?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not a danger, he is a problem now. If he took power, he would be neither Stalin, nor Mao, nor Maduro. No, Jean-Luc has changed politically and that is why he is paralyzing the left. He took up an old pattern of thought: catastrophism. He thinks that everything is going to fall apart, and that only a minority, well led, with a hard core, should be in the vanguard. He can never be in the majority on this political strategy. He did not understand that one can be a consistent and radical reformist, without however believing in the big night. He forgot, too, that the big night always leads to dirty mornings.
But he got his hands on the left, with Nupes who have no competition on the left today…
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not in a logic of gathering, but of summons on the rest of the left. La France insoumise would be purity, and those who do not follow them are potentially traitors. He succeeded in the small union of the left, not the big one, because, deep down, he does not want to conquer power. A united left with only 26% suits him perfectly: it would be a form of purity but which would always remain in the minority.
If he is hegemonic, it is also because there is no alternative capable of winning 22% in a presidential election.
It’s true, but because the rest of the left – and I’m thinking in particular of the Socialist Party, but this also applies to the ecologists, the communists and the rebellious people fired by Jean-Luc – never did the job of redefining programmatic. She has not thought about the causes of the failures of the left, or very little, and does not understand the changes in society, especially on the question of work. Take the ecologists: they spend more time talking about societal issues than defining a new production model. I am angry with the current leadership of the PS, whose real position I still do not know on the rise of violence in society, for example, on the control of migratory flows by defending quotas, on the rise of radical Islamism anti-Semite, or even on the Sixth Republic. The PS shines especially by its unthought. If this intellectual work had been done, the PS would once again have become the left’s center of gravity and the debate with Jean-Luc Mélenchon would have been very different.
But are you saying that Nupes is a mistake?
No, that’s not a bad thing. I refuse the irreversible schism between two lefts which should rather feed each other. There is not a good left, that of Mélenchon, and a bad left, that which would not be Nupes. We must not go beyond but overcome the situation, by the substance, by the ideas. This is where Jean-Luc Mélenchon turns his back on what François Mitterrand did: synthesis. Today, the left cannot deny, for example, that it participated in the invention of a system of assistantships which certainly allowed people to get their heads above water but which could not be an end in itself. The same goes for a tax reform that should be leftist, that is not reduced to crushing the middle classes with taxes. The challenge for the left is not only to make a union or a turnkey program, but to have the consistent ambition of a National Council of Resistance, with a limited project, which does not promise everything change but which sets vital priorities to put the country back on its feet and correct this society which has continued to crumble under Emmanuel Macron.
Disintegrate, just that?
There is a very settled feeling in France, that of “nothing goes any more”. We are one year away from the Olympic Games, the fever should start to spread across the country, because it’s a dream (except for some environmentalists), but nothing is happening. On the contrary, we see the Olympics as an ordeal to come, with transport that will not work, an appointment to flee, which is not popular in view of the exorbitant prices of places. It would be unfair to lay all the blame on Emmanuel Macron, but his re-election has added to the harm. A re-election that makes no sense. Who is able to define what he wants, where does he intend to take the country and the French? We don’t know, it’s chaotic. And that amplifies this phenomenon of “nothing is going any more”, of doubt, of trouble. There is no more French pride and my example of the Olympics is just one of many.
“We need an educational revolution”
You speak of a CNR, with some “vital priorities”. Which ones?
There are of course the public services to regenerate, health and justice in particular. There is also the industrial reconquest, but the priority of priorities, the subject to put at the top of the pile, is the educational question. The left never talks about education when the French school is no longer coping, it has become a drunken boat. We need an educational revolution by revising programs from floor to ceiling, by revising school rhythms and restoring true educational equality. The school must once again become the second home for every child. And we must continue with a real youth policy. I defend the idea of a social endowment of 50,000 euros for each young person, at the age of 18, which would be their starting capital in life. In return, he would devote 6 months of his life to civic service between the ages of 18 and 25. It is not the UNS which is just an idea to call the youth to attention without offering them a single perspective. It will be objected to me that they will waste the money, etc. But it is up to society, parents and education to learn not to burn everything, to prepare them for entry into adult life with this capital. My proposal is unifying.
The Nupes and the rest of the left are torn today over the question of whether a single list is needed for the European elections. Aren’t the rebellious right to claim it, to create a springboard towards 2027?
The only election where the question of unity is not necessary to win is the European ones. It is even necessary to have a wide rake to send a maximum of deputies, elected by proportional representation, to the European Parliament. But before talking about a unitary list, the left must rather ask itself which Europe it wants. I believe that this current Europe will not evolve in the right direction, especially if it continues to expand haphazardly. Nevertheless, I believe in a European hard core around a new Euro-Mediterranean arc, with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, which already presents all the possibilities of a common model with France, and which would allow thus the rebalancing of Europe.