Published on Sep 15, 2023 at 12:11 p.m.
The Nupes parties will each present an independent list at the next European elections . If the socialists and ecologists remain deaf to the incessant call of the rebels for a union for the community elections, they have reaffirmed their desire to do everything possible to unite behind a single candidate in the next presidential election. The communists, for their part, reject this. Fabien Roussel says “no” to a joint candidacy in 2027, this Friday, in “Liberation” .
Building on its popularity acquired in 2022 – the Elabe barometer for “Les Echos” in August crowned the communist leader favorite politician of the left -, the deputy from the North strives to cultivate his differences. “I don’t talk about degrowth,” he emphasizes in “Libération”.
He praises his differences with the rest of the Nupes: importance of the value of work, support for nuclear power, defense of good food and the “French art of living”. “I ask for the right to defend such a project: for the moment, I embody it and I wish to carry it forward,” he says.
Cultivate dissonance
If Fabien Roussel decided the day after the presidential election to join Nupes for the legislative elections the Communist Party has played his own score from the start , often dissonant. On Thursday, the deputy from the North once again threw a wrench in the pond by calling on the people to “invade the prefectures”, “a question of self-defense”, he justified on franceinfo.
Role reversal that is unprecedented to say the least – Fabien Roussel has often criticized the rebellious leader for his positions on police violence, for example -, Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced on X (formerly Twitter) a “purely personal violent initiative”.
Mine clearance operation, Fabien Roussel then spoke on X of a call to “mobilize everywhere, in front of service stations, supermarkets, prefectures, peacefully”. “We completely ume, but we do not want to reach that point,” explained Léon Deffontaines, head of the communist list in the European elections, on France 2.
Bronca in the rest of the left
Once again, Fabien Roussel’s public distancing has sparked a large number of criticisms from his Nupes partners. “By wanting to play the darling of the right too much, we wonder if he doesn’t sometimes work for the opposite camp,” criticized the environmentalist deputy Aurélien Taché on Sud Radio, clearly calling on the communists to leave the Nupes if this framework no longer suits them.
On BFMTV, Clémentine Autain was less radical. If she said she was “fed up” with seeing the divisions within Nupes publicly displayed, she shared the observation of a lack of debate within La France insoumise and the left. “Everyone must speak in their diversity, we need pluralism, but we also need to have overall coherence,” she explained.