In the old train returning from Clermont, this June 25, 2020, the sound of the train slamming on the rails and a conversation that enlivens the front of a carriage. Face to face, Raphaël Glucksmann and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. By coincidence of political life, the two men found themselves in the same place at the same time, with the Cégétiste Philippe Martinez and the ex-employees of Luxfer, the Oxygen bottle manufacturing factory closed for a year. A dark story of delay put them in the same intercity car which must head towards Paris. Five hours leaves time to debate the French revolution, Europe, China, Russia, France’s place in the world, and the future of the left too.
“I remember a very pleasant discussion, between two intellectuals who listened to each other and took pleasure in exchanging,” says the rebellious Paul Vannier, a witness to the scene. “You want to leave NATO, very good, but you will have to make a European defense in this case,” provokes Glucksmann. Mélenchon balks: “Never! It will be under the aegis of the Germans.” And at certain moments, convergences too. “Geopolitics controls politics which controls the economy,” explains the leader of La France insoumise to Glucksmann who nods in agreement. “Deep down, you’re almost a rebel,” Vannier mocks. Laughter on the train. We invite the face of Place publique in Valence, the rebellious back-to-school party which takes place at the end of August. It ultimately won’t happen. “In this Clermont train, Mélenchon understood that he had an ideological competitor facing him,” wants to believe Pierre Natnaël, advisor to the socialist MEP, who will get up from his chair this day in June 2020 to immortalize the moment.
Mélenchon’s obsession
Sweet memories of politics fade with time, and all the more easily now that the European campaign is in full swing. The left is going into it divided. Two and a half months before the election, everyone is trying to differentiate themselves from the other, yesterday comrades of the late Nupes. You have to “create your dynamic”, watch the polls out of the corner of your eye. They are hardly famous for the ecologist Marie Toussaint, catastrophic for the communist Léon Deffontaines, sluggish for the rebellious Manon Aubry, happier for Raphaël Glucksmann. The most favorable offer him 13% of voting intentions. The socialist family even dreams of a post-European renaissance, just that. And the entire architecture of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, created in 2022 with Nupes, would falter. A rebellious MP despairs: “Jean-Luc told us that the socialists had fallen into line, that with the Nupes, there would no longer be anyone between us and the macronie but here, it’s social democracy who comes back into the game on the left.”
Glucksmann, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s new obsession. Late in the evening, he published and republished the same article, taken from an online leaflet close to LFI, explaining why “Raphaël Glucksmann is not a comrade”. Forgotten, the intellectual curiosity for this socialist of whom he said was “not like the others”, less plastic than Pierre Jouvet, number two on the socialist list, sometimes pro-Macron, sometimes pro-Nupes. Stuttering sometimes indicates feverishness.
Is this why Jean-Luc Mélenchon got back in the saddle a little earlier than expected? The one who chanted “Do better” and swore “want to be replaced” gave a speech in Villepinte as a candidate for the presidential election, erasing that of the rebellious champion Manon Aubry. “No one wants to go through with such a speech. It’s not a gift,” gritted her teeth as she left the show. The next day, on the set of Sunday in politics on France 3, Mélenchon adds on the subject of 2027: “I am one of the hypotheses, everyone knows that.” A way to “take your competitors by surprise”, wrote The world, which annoyed him to no end. “Gossip,” he belched on X (formerly Twitter). “I repeat: I wish to be replaced. François Ruffin, Mathilde Panot and Manuel Bompard are working there successfully. I wish them good luck.” To be or not to be a hypothesis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon gets lost in it overnight.
Bringing useful voting to life
In the rebellious kingdom, when everything is not going so well, it is important to say that everything is okay. Tuesday March 19, during the traditional group meeting, Manuel Bompard comes to mobilize the deputies on the European elections. Europe? It’s good to talk about it, but we must also and above all focus on peace in Gaza and on national issues. The 2027 presidential election is at stake, Jean-Luc Mélenchon said in front of students in Nanterre: “June 9 is not a European election, it is the first round of the 2027 presidential election. “
Only around thirty elected officials attended Bompard’s speech, and some pouted. A rebellious executive calls out to the LFI coordinator. At the gathering in Villepinte, in Seine-Saint-Denis, why was the local MP, Clémentine Autain, not given the right to speak on stage as is customary? And François Ruffin then? He is popular. Why don’t we take advantage of it? “To campaign, you have to put yourself at the service of the campaign,” replies Bompard coldly. François Ruffin left before the end of the meeting. The affront will be repaired a few days later: a campaign trip by Manon Aubry, with Younous Omarjee, number two on the LFI list and close to Mélenchon, is organized. They will meet Métex employees in Amiens, with Ruffin, the following week.
Polls ? They are brushed aside at La France insoumise. “If we get 6%, it doesn’t matter. We can get 22% in the next presidential election,” Bompard proclaimed in front of the few deputies, recalling the little influence of the 2019 election on the 2022 presidential election. which followed. Jean-Luc Mélenchon looks at them. He spent his life watching them, just as he spends his time reading the bourgeois press. He sees clearly that she is making eyes at Raphaël Glucksmann. It even seems that Erik Orsenna requested an audience with him, before the start of the campaign. The chief rebel is annoyed that progressive networks of all kinds are falling under the spell of the socialist candidate, curious as they are to look for a champion with a view to 2027 and to avoid the trap of the useful vote from which Mélenchon took advantage the last time. “Glucksmann took up the language of the old PS, that of François Hollande, corrects an LFI cacique. He does our business. If he gets a good score, he will only add one more name to the list of contenders. We will count the points at the end of the game, in the meantime there is an election.”
Past loves
Raphaël Glucksmann delights in rebellious concerns. “If we are too high, behind Mélenchon is dead”, does not hesitate to say his entourage, who hopes to “suck up” the environmentalist vote and the Macronist vote, and who exclaims: “there is no duel between Jordan Bardella and Valérie Hayer. She is 13 points behind him in the polls, and she will fall back. The match is between the extreme right and the left. And who is the dam facing the extreme right? It is not not Mélenchon, it’s Glucksmann.” The latter feels himself growing wings and likes to remind the left of his freedom, he who has never had a blind love of Nupes. When the left coalition emerged, he supported it, but only half-heartedly. “We need this gathering […]. My differences with France Insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon are known and they are immense, on more than fundamental subjects,” he wrote in a press release.
At the time, however, behind his words, another tango was playing out between the two men. Around a hundred legislative candidates labeled Place Publique had withdrawn so as not to lose the momentum of Nupes. Place publique, which was already discussing with the socialists and ecologists, had sent an emissary to contact Paul Vannier, the elections man at LFI. Several messages to try to settle down at the negotiating table for this new union of the left, remained unanswered.
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