A divisive quote. Revealed on Saturday without including several of his figures, the decision to take control of rebellious France by Manuel Bompard, close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, threatens according to some managers to plunge the party into a crisis due, according to them, to the lack of democracy
At the LFI Representative Assembly in Paris, the composition of the various management units was announced to the 160 executives and activists present. Manuel Bompard, who announced to AFP on Thursday that he “will continue the work” unofficially begun after the withdrawal of Adrien Quatennens in September, will not be formally appointed on Saturday by these poles, but will be in the coming days, said a source close to the address. .
Although several young followers of Jean-Luc Mélenchon such as Bastien Lachaud, Paul Vannier or Antoine Léaument are part of this “coordination”, this is not the case with figures such as the deputies Alexis Corbière, Clémentine Autain, François Ruffin or Eric Coquerel.
plague of pillars
At a time when the other parties of the Nupes left-wing alliance are in Congress and are voting, Manuel Bompard says that he continues to prefer “consensus” to elections to avoid “the confrontation between majorities and minorities.”
“While the moment demands cohesion and openness for LFI, the leadership chooses closure and blockade,” Clémentine Autain stings AFP. “Spearhead of the Nupes, our movement has a historical responsibility, particularly in the race against the extreme right, but the message sent is likely to weaken the concentration.”
If the appointment of Manuel Bompard at the head of the movement is “natural because he knows how to organize himself very well,” Eric Coquerel, president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, also said this Friday, “to find out.”
In general, “it would be desirable for all the nuance of the movement to be represented in the leadership”, the elected representative of Seine-Saint-Denis claimed, but was not heard.
“I didn’t find out anything, no info, no phone call,” another pillar of the group plagued privately. “I applied (for one of the poles) and made proposals… with no response.”
“Machine”
Along with this limited operational management will be created a “political council”, a place of debate on strategy made up of elected officials, personalities and rebel executives. This body, without a leader and with a consultative function, was not planned until very recently, testify several deputies who learned of its existence this week.
That they accept to sit there is not acquired, warns a heavyweight of the LFI group. “They decided to take us out, so they created a thing to create a distraction. It will meet every month, just kidding…”
And the same to criticize a Manuel Bompard who “appointed himself, made an address in his hand – a purge – while retaining the money” from LFI.
These turbulences overshadow reforms to “change the nature of the movement,” according to the new leader: creating departmental loops for local action groups, hitherto self-sufficient, to communicate with each other; “voluntary contributions” that activists can allocate to local or national spending items, purchase of premises in rural and peri-urban areas to try to compete there with the National Rally, creation of a school for executives…
“This is all going in the right direction” to anchor and diversify the movement, believes Eric Coquerel, although he does not say that he is against future internal elections because “people want to give their opinion.”
“The LFI was created (in 2016) for electoral campaigns, now that we have 75 deputies and we are the first force on the left, we must give it a lasting framework,” sums up the former leader of the Left.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, spoke in the morning before the Representative Assembly, to which journalists do not have physical access before a press conference at 6:00 p.m.
He will co-direct the Institut La Boétie, an insubordinate think tank, with deputy Clémence Guetté, and integrates the “coordination” of the movement. He wants to remain the “cornerstone” but be less directly an “actor,” says an intimate of the tribune who has been a three-time presidential candidate.
Source: BFM TV
