La France Insoumise organizes this Sunday a march against the high cost of living in Paris after a difficult return to school. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement knows that it is waiting around the corner, in a context of social protest, and must at all costs obtain a show of force.
“We have mounting pressure. We can’t be halfway successful after the last few weeks,” a rebel elected official bluntly admits to BFMTV.com.
“The only way to break Macron is the balance of power”
Launched in July, this mobilization was first intended to mark a return to parliament and send a message to the government amid rising prices. But the political context has changed since then. Caught in the whirlwind of the Quatennens affair, the rebel multiplied the bad sequences between tweets, words of support from Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a risky press conference.
What pushes the movement to want to turn the page on this episode, with some success. Despite strong hesitations, especially from the communists, all the components of the Nupes will finally be present together with the deputies of the LFI.
Proof that the left feels the need to unite to hit the pavement: even the controversial words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, comparing the march to the French Revolution, which upset Olivier Faure and Sandrine Rousseau, will not stop them from marching this Sunday.
“In a way, the entire left feels that the only way to break Emmanuel Macron is to go to the balance of power with the government, which only understands that,” translates the rebel deputy Alma Dufour.
“We couldn’t have dreamed better”
Nupes is convinced that the social context plays in its favor between inflation at its highest point, the review of the Treasury Bill whose austerity it denounces, and the pension reform scheduled for next winter. In this context, the blockade of almost all the refineries in which the employees ask for salary increases was added. Given the fuel shortage, the government announced the requisition of the strikers.
“Add to all of that the threat of 49.3 for a vote on the budget and therefore the accusations of forced passage. Mix all of that together and it may well lead to people coming out and hitting the pavement. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better just 6 months after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron”, greets an elected LFI.
Which encourages some on the left to call “the general strike” like environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau in France info. If the CGT refused to participate in the march, several Nupes directors hope that part of their troops will make the trip. Suffice it to say that La France insoumise would see his departure as the prelude to a great social mobilization against the government. According to information from RMC, the trade union center is also preparing a day of interprofessional mobilization for the week following this march.
“The Little Spark”
“What we want is to be the little spark that brings the French to the streets,” says LFI MP Antoine Léaument, one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s close friends.
The party has taken care to mount strict logistics with one goal: to gather at least as many people as during the March for the VI Republic last March, 100,000 according to the organizers.
81 cities will be served by buses going to Paris, more than 3.5 million brochures have been distributed and more than 450,000 posters have been put up, says LFI. Now it remains to find the right tone for this event.
Some in the ranks of the party evoke the possibility of landing all elected officials in turtlenecks. This little nod to Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, who explained that he would now swap ties for winter sweaters to save heating at Bercy, could also symbolize the launch of a new strategy.
Doubts about the strategy
Several of the rebels are wondering about the direct opposition so far in the National Assembly and want a mobilization in the street that is more festive than frontal.
“I no longer want to shout on the benches of the National Assembly,” François Ruffin even explained about France Inter last Tuesday.
The one who had organized “La fête à Macron” in 2018 advocated a demonstration with a similar model. At that time, in a carnival atmosphere, the Somme deputy had gathered several thousand dozen people, between picnics, concerts and costumes.
The obsession with credibility
If the figures had varied -from 160,000 people in Paris according to LFI to 38,900 according to the firm Occurence-, the parade would have been considered a real success. Some tanks had shrunk in the presidential majority, like the one with a Macron puppet hanging on a gallows.
“We are on a very narrow ridge line. We have to put a little disorder in the street, show that we know how to mobilize. At the same time, we must stand very firmly in our boots and have a match strategy that is ready. take power in case of dissolution”, deciphers an insubordinate deputy.
It is that the march against the high cost of living has another objective: in case of a strong mobilization, it would allow to remember Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is no longer a deputy, and who explained “he wants to be replaced”. for 2027 – it is always legitimate to lead the union of the left.
Put Mélenchon back at the center of the game
“If there was a dissolution tomorrow, it would necessarily be the leader of the Nupes. We could not waste 6 weeks of campaigning for the legislative elections to designate the potential future prime minister”, assumes Antoine Léaument.
The statue of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s commander has certainly paled in recent weeks within his own field. But the former presidential candidate has not said the last word about him and is counting on protesters to remind him.
Source: BFM TV
