L’Express: Facing Jean-Luc Mélenchon and these rebels who refuse to qualify Hamas’ acts as “terrorist”how is it possible to continue working with La France insoumise?
Boris Vallaud: The inability of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a certain number of those close to him to describe the terrorist acts of Hamas – there is no other word – reveals a fundamental disagreement between him and the other left-wing parties. that the fact that Nupes, for several months and particularly since the pension reform episode, has failed to produce what it should: an alternative to the left in a context of unprecedented threat from the extreme right. We are at this impasse. The legislative election of June 2022, this alliance of the left and ecology, aroused great hope and, today, our divisions give rise to despair.
So the Nupes is dead?
The Nupes is broken down, while the union of the left has never been so necessary. Is it understandable that we have received no political benefit from the pension battle? We are going backwards. We were elected on a program of rupture, to which we remain attached, because the times, the social, environmental and democratic challenges require ruptures. I say it with pain: Nupes doesn’t work, it works badly! The construction of this alternative is hampered by the heavy, overdetermining presence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He is no longer party leader or deputy, but he interferes, he prevents. The one who was the architect of union is now the architect of disunity. Nothing new seems to be able to be built in the shadow of the one who wants nothing to grow. However, there is goodwill on all the benches of the left and environmentalists. And there is no shortage of battles to fight!
What will the socialist deputies do?
We have decided to stop the work in progress and are freezing our participation in the Nupes intergroup to propose a new perspective on the left. A moratorium. We propose two projects: tackling the fundamental disagreements that the 2022 negotiations have not resolved or which have emerged since then; and review the practical functioning of the intergroup, its coordination, so that the positions decided collectively are not called into question by the simple tweet of an external element. We want to take Jean-Luc Mélenchon at his word when he tells us “do better”, with all those who want to do better and without hindrance. I see socialists, ecologists, communists and even rebels who are ready for it but are discouraged by it. Our aspiration is that of rebound. It is not us who are moving away from the union, it is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. We must make a major shift to reconnect with hope. This is the position of the Socialist Group. We pleaded for act 2 after the retreats, and the collective wrong is not to have followed up on this observation of dysfunction. Let’s do it, and quickly! Let’s invent the rest.
But, within the PS, many assure that it is not just a “Mélenchon problem” but a question of values, and that we must be clear and uncompromising with regard to LFI…
These people who constantly rehash the conference tire me. Let us say it once and for all: the socialists believe in bringing together the entire left for an alternative in 2027. We will not be among those who work to make the left irreconcilable. We will not return to the isolation of the PS which causes electoral defeats. We need a new Socialist Party, not a return of yesterday’s PS.
For the past week, haven’t you seen that there are indeed two irreconcilable lefts?
There are those who, by their refusal to qualify Hamas attacks as “terrorist”, are in fact working to make the left irreconcilable. The person who is the architect of the idea that there would be irreconcilable lefts is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The line which is his, and which I believe to be in the minority, cannot be that of the union of the left, neither today nor in 2027.