After Nael’s death, resignation gave way to anger that nothing seemed to be able to quell. Town halls and schools are on fire, violence is emerging in cities and suburbs, while some irresponsible police unions are calling for civil war. No strength is spared.
Far from the pain of the Nanterre tragedy, all French fractures are beginning to show. The abandonment of rural areas and popular neighbourhoods, the deterioration of public services, the exacerbation of social injustice, the insufficient action to remember our colonial past or even the powerlessness in the face of the climate crisis all feed the crisis of order provoked by the authoritarian practice of the current power.
sequel after announcement
We have to look for new political formulas to get out of a five-year term which, if it comes to an end, will leave behind nothing but a field of ruin. But to this day, it remains impossible to sketch out the democratic alternative: a kind of tetany has emerged, as if citizens can no longer find a way to control their collective destiny.
Last year, the Nupes, which were held in a state of emergency, certainly prevented Emmanuel Macron from obtaining a parliamentary majority for his second term. Against pension reform, the mobilization force of the finally found trade union unit also demonstrated a strong will to resist neoliberalism within French society.
scarecrow of fascism
However, the refusal to end Big Tendency does not, for the time being, open up the perspective of the majority for the left and the environmentalists because the popular classes continue to distance themselves from politics. Unfortunately, it does not seem improbable at this stage that the extreme right, with its exclusionary rhetoric and libertarian projects, is pulling the chestnuts out of the flames of the current crisis with the help of the reactionary and rapidly spreading media.
But to avoid this great danger, it is not enough to wave the scarecrow of fascism. Fear of the far right will not be enough to return leftists and environmentalists to power, nothing more than to denounce bigotry.
sequel after announcement
Behind the Scenes of Nupes: The Secret Story of the Left’s Unprecedented Union
To achieve this, we must do a lot of work on ourselves to meet the expectations and hopes of the popular classes and make the desired world grow. These two fronts actually constitute only one: it is impossible to build an attractive, ambitious and credible project, without genuine listening and direct dialogue with French men and women, especially in the working-class neighborhoods and the rural world.
Doing this joint work of listening and articulating is the collective responsibility of all left leaders and environmentalists without exception. In the current context, anyone looking to play a single score would have a huge responsibility.
François Ruffin: “I ask the left: do we want to abandon the urban popular classes to the RN? »
To achieve this, we must also prohibit any dangling position. If the working classes turn their backs on us, it does not mean that they do not understand what we want to say to them, and it would suffice to explain it to them better. This is because we have strayed too far from their interests, from their everyday concerns, from their proposals … In recent decades, leftists and environmentalists have not been able to give people of the working classes their place in their bodies or during elections.
Time is running out to begin this transformation that requires innovative and deep questioning and avoidance of self-dealing, dealing with slow routine and certainty. Away from the 2027 presidential election, leftists and environmentalists have an amazing opportunity: to finally take a risk…to talk and listen to the country. However, parties cannot meet this challenge alone. Around the table, political leaders, leaders of trade unions and associations, people in the field, committed scholars and scholars must all work together.
sequel after announcement
Make projects that work visible
To shape the winning left again, let’s show the projects emerging from the community, the great local successes, the successful environmental transformations, the groups that innovate… Let’s discuss the ideas that characterize and the solutions that work. Let’s get ideas together so that we can then join forces.
This is the work for which we propose to participate in the next Festival Idées 7, 8 and 9 July in La Charité-sur-Loire to continue it by building a platform of proposals in the public interest, without copyright, in a way that is neutral and hospitable enough to gather on a very large scale , sufficiently required and committed to making clear choices that transcend the dilemmas that constitute French drama today.
Said Ben Mofock, Joanna Buchter, Aurelie Schompreter, Guillaume Duval, Mathilde Emmer, Nina Karam-Leder, Benoit Lhermitte, Christian Paul, Jérôme Sadir. In partnership with “l’Obs”, they are attending and hosting the Festival of Ideas on July 7, 8 and 9 in La Charité-sur-Loire (Nièvre).
