The four Nupes parties made their political comeback on Thursday in dispersed order against a backdrop of disagreements over the European elections and controversy around the rapper Médine, who was able to measure the support of environmentalists despite accusations of anti-Semitism.
The high point of this first day, the controversial artist was greeted with a standing ovation at the summer days of environmentalists in his hometown of Le Havre, for an “explanation of text” with the secretary general of EELV, Marine Clipper.
A clash-test at first sight successful for the boss of the Greens, who let her star guest unfold her arguments in front of a room won over to her cause. The rapper immediately burst the abscess: his tweet qualifying Rachel Khan, Jewish and granddaughter of deportees, of “resKHANpée”? “I was responding to an insult”, he justified, recalling that the essayist had previously called him “garbage”.
“I overreacted and I had this awkwardness to use this word (survivor, editor’s note) whose emotional and historical charge I did not measure”, he continued, adding that he does not was “apologized immediately”.
But still without recognizing the anti-Semitic nature of his response, yet denounced by party leaders such as Sandrine Rousseau, Julien Bayou, Yannick Jadot or even the head of the list in the European elections, Marie Toussaint.
“Disagreements (which) are expressed in complete transparency and with a lot of benevolence”, had defused in the morning Ms. Tondelier, who could only see at the end of the day that Medina was “welcome” when the activists cheered his call to “fight against social injustice and the rise of the extreme right”.
A happy conclusion to the psychodrama that has been tearing the Greens apart for two weeks? The case still leaves a feeling of waste, while the event was to serve as a launching pad for a campaign without the other forces of the left.
Supporters on the contrary of the union in all the polls, the Insoumis did not hesitate to support where the shoe pinches.
Like a Jean-Luc Mélenchon judging that “Medina is not racist” and denigrating the Greens “subject to what will be said of the hypocrites”.
On the contrary, there are no moods at LFI, “happy” like Mathilde Panot to welcome the rapper in turn – according to her the victim of a “despicable cabal” – on Saturday at her summer school in the Drôme.
The leader of the rebellious deputies intends to insist on the virtues of a “single list” for European women, which according to her could outdo the majority and the far right. “Otherwise the Nupes would no longer have any materiality,” she warns.
But their allies do not see it that way and are getting accusations of “double talk”. In particular the number one of the PS, Olivier Faure, strongly challenged on X (ex-Twitter) by Mr. Mélenchon who reproached him for “sectarian choices”, in particular in the next senatorial elections for which LFI was excluded from the agreements concluded between the PS, EELV and the PCF.
The rebellious leader gave a layer of it during a debate with the leader of the Spanish party Sumar, Yolanda Diaz, ironically on the “respect” given by the socialists to the radical left on the other side of the Pyrenees: ” So it’s possible!”
Tensions which weaken the coalition, but “no one is strong enough to break our union”, affirms Ms. Tondelier, for whom those who indulge in “provocations” place themselves “outside the collective game”.
Less optimistic, PS senator Patrick Kanner observes that “confidence is crumbling between the parties making up the Nupes” and considers that Jean-Luc Mélenchon must “accept that there are other legitimacies than that of the ‘presidential election”.
The Socialists, who are meeting in Blois from Friday around the reconquest of the “working classes”, must decide in September on an autonomous list, which Olivier Faure ardently wishes: “except for a major event, I do not see what would allow to hope for a single list”, he said Thursday in an interview with Liberation.
Former President François Hollande was also there on Thursday. In a speech, he castigated his predecessor at the Elysée, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had notably advocated Ukraine’s “neutrality” vis-à-vis NATO or the EU, and called on European socialists to be “on the initiative” of support for Kiev.
For their part, the Communists will meet in Strasbourg around their national secretary Fabien Roussel, and their head of the European list, Léon Deffontaines, but without Medina, who will however be on the poster for the Fête de l’Humanité in September .
08/24/2023 20:50:09 – Le Havre (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
