As I write these lines, the results of the second round of the legislative elections are not yet known. We are in the heart of the campaign and this heart is boiling. Perhaps the improvisation born of a mad dissolution, the short time of the campaign, the panic – intense, palpable, stupefying –, the narrowing choice, the attitude to say the least disconnected from President Folamour of the Republic, the fog as a future, perhaps all these ingredients have precipitated the reversal of values, the authorization to insult, to despise, to lie, to deny oneself. This campaign has also been revealing of what we suspected, of what was already being analyzed, of what was spread out before our eyes but still covered with a layer of hope for reconciliation, of the possibility, however small, that this could only be an intermediate time: the time of brutalization and chaos.
After a first week of campaigning where it was obvious that La France Insoumise made fun of republican values, where it was coherent and moral to reject the LFI vote following a European campaign where the Israel-Hamas conflict took up all the space, where suddenly “the Jew”, deliberately confused with not only the Israeli but also with Netanyahu, took a disproportionate place, a place of ideal culprit, a Dreyfusard place, the situation has nevertheless changed after the results of June 30. Republicans from the left and the right do not vote LFI. Period. Neither the RN, nor LFI. It makes sense politically and morally. LFI made a political choice, it is coherent that it pays the price. And this price was reasonable, proportionate. And then suddenly, in a few hours, the roadblock is installed. A roadblock that is now one-way. A roadblock only against the RN. We hold our noses, but we vote LFI against the RN. We’ll see about anti-Semitism later. After what? Abandoning the fight against anti-Semitism for even a few days in the name of the fight against national populism is giving a blank cheque to racism. History has proven this to us so much. We do not negotiate with anti-Semites or racists.
Barrage also means commitment. We demand hard cash commitment. The far right is on the steps of Matignon, it’s no longer about subtleties, it’s a luxury! Contradictory platforms follow stupid platforms. How to sort it out? Vote PS despite the agreement signed with LFI? Vote Greens despite Marine Tondelier’s “I don’t care” about Melenchon and anti-Semitism? Vote LFI anyway? After the athletes, the rappers are getting involved with a song composed against the National Rally. The announcement was made on public radio, without precaution. Had they already heard the whole of “No Pasaran”? Had they read the lyrics? Had they read the conspiracy theories, the reference to Kadyrov, the hatred against France, the calls for murder, the uninhibited misogyny, the unheard-of violence at the turn of each comma? Is there a better ad for the RN? In defense of the committed song, we put forward this idea as astonishing as it is paternalistic: it is the vocabulary of young people, they understand when we speak to them “like that”. As if to violent anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists?
A few hours later, a video of Aymeric Lompret and the one who was still for me the immense Blanche Gardin was circulating on social networks. On July 1, they participated in a “sketch” during the Voices for Gaza evening on the stage of La Cigale, in Paris. This is not humor, it is militant anti-Semitism, Hamas would applaud, it which has no humor. Moreover, in case there was any doubt, Blanche Gardin’s first sentence is clear: “Since October 7, I have been anti-Semitic.” Complicit sniggers in the room. Since October 7, anti-Semitic acts have jumped by 1000%. Gardin follows up with a disgusting attack on Sophia Aram. An attack that is like a spit in the face of the Republic of which the comedian – a real one, she – is the child. Sophia Aram would be “Islamophobic”. Sophia Aram Islamophobic because she is capable of recognizing the deaths in Gaza and the pogroms of October 7.
I don’t know where France will be in terms of seats on July 8. But chaos and brutalization are now clinging to the coattails of the Republic, severely damaging it.
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