This marks the end of an intense behindthe scenes battle. After a battle of nerves with the National Rally and some Republicans who tried to block his path, Eric Coquerel, the “rebellious deputy”, becomes the new Chairman of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly. He said that it is the first time in history that this position has been given a break.
Jean-Luc Melenchon asked him to prepare before the presidential election. He was the only candidate at La France insoumise. Valerie Rabault (an expert in budgetary issues) was another candidate within the New Popular Ecological and Social Union. Although the Socialists tried to force it, the political balance of the left has spoken.
This is a highly coveted and prestigious position that confers certain powers. Although the president of “ComFi”, cannot change the tables on his own, he does have more than symbolic prerogatives. So he can request the opening a parliamentary inquiry, reject amendments to the state budget, or lift tax secrecy.
Eric Coquerel is trying to be reassuring. He has no intention of leaking tax forms of bosses in the media or of transforming Finance Committee into “AG de Tolbiac”, like they say in RN.
His passion is the open ocean. He was the son of a secretary and a sailor dad. He made a career organizing sailing races. He was a long-term employee of Isabelle Autissier, Michel Desjoyeaux and even managed the communication for the Vendee Globe. He was elected deputy in 2017. In 2017, he gave up the shares of Effects Sea, his com box. He leaves for a month to sail his sailboat. He lives on the Balearic Coasts these days. Is this his home base? A windy, but affordable city in the Mediterranean.
The Finance Committee’s new chairman failed his Baccalaureate. He was finally able to get it as a free candidate. He also failed his History Capes a little later. He has good memories of Jussieu University’s evening classes. Eric Coquerel is actually an “autodidact”, who was primarily trained in activism.
He was a teenager when he saw Jules Valles, an anarchist writer, as a model and envisioned himself carrying the black banner. He finally got his teeth cut at the Revolutionary Communist League, (LCR). It was during the time of great rigor that he entered it in 1983. He was able to get out at the end the 1990s, when the League became closer to Lutte Ouvriere. Alain Krivine, who was killed at the beginning of the year, welcomed him with “Liberation”: “Activists such as that, there aren’t many. His job was difficult, particularly in material terms, but he did it with passion.
It was a brief, but intense, relationship. Eric Coquerel was a politician in the aftermath of Jean-Pierre Chevenement for a few weeks in the early 2000s. After the 2002 presidential election, “Che”, who tried to bring together sovereignists of both sides, he finally distanced from himself. Coquerel, the red, was left in a dead end.
Melenchon launched the Parti de Gauche in 2008, after Coquerel left the PS. Coquerel, a talkative apparatchik who was also an experienced debater, was for a long period the number two in the “PG”. Eric Coquerel, Melenchon’s right arm, was one of the few lieutenants who could walk alone. After several electoral jackets, he was elected deputy in Seine-Saint-Denis for the first time in 2017.
It was changed by the 93. He is the one who said it. Coquerel had challenged the term “Islamophobia” before, but that was before. He says, “In the field I found that the veil wasn’t a sign of a particular vision of Islam but more of a cultural attachment.” He has been trying for five years to bend La France insoumise’s line, and he succeeded in doing so. He is regarded as a “communitarian” and would, for some, be responsible for Jean-Luc Melenchon’s shift in terms of anti-racism, secularism, and feminism. He says, “I was an actor but I didn’t have to push him.”
We saw him on the ground a lot over the past five years with his tricolor scarf. He had tried to raise the facs at the beginning of the term with some success. Three Action Francaise activists threw Eric Coquerel under the bus one day. Three Action Francaise activists accused Eric Coquerel of having occupied Saint-Denis basilica in the company of migrants. Two figures from LFI were seen around him in the demonstrations. One was Taha Bouhafs (an activist accused of sexual violence) and the other was David Guiraud (who has just been elected deputy to Roubaix). Two young men who were his collaborators at the Assembly.
He was a diligent deputy during the previous mandate. He is fourth in the Palais-Bourbon’s ranking of “Capital” as the most active elected opposition member. He was one of 17 LFI deputies responsible for presenting the budget counter-budget. He was also a leader in his constituency on priority issues. We owe him a bill to legalize cannabis and one against facies control. We should be able to see him less because of his new job: “I might not be as present at the demonstrations.”
