For left-wing activists too, unity is a fight

August 26, 2023

For the activists of left-wing parties too, speaking with one voice is anything but obvious. And if the union is often imposed as a necessity, or even an ideal, those met by AFP during the various summer universities sometimes come to the same conclusion: “We have too many differences”.

Between Valence, Blois, Strasbourg and Le Havre, the differences are not only meteorological, especially when we talk about the European elections in June.

First there are the optimists, those who still believe in union. Not necessarily for 2024, but for the future.

“Union is the only solution. Without union, the left cannot win”, believes from Blois, Corinne, a 54-year-old socialist from Haute-Vienne who does not wish to give her surname. .

“On the European question, we are not yet ready to have a common position. But that does not mortgage the union at all”, she continues before adding: “People on the left are waiting for us to be united to come to power and implement left-wing policies”.

Same story in the southeast, under the heat wave of the Drôme, where rebellious France holds its “Amfis 2023”.

“I am for a common fund and an alliance, from the senatorial elections, even if that will not be the case. Politically and for the image it would be better to be united and first in front of the RN in the Europeans”, defends Louis Hardy, 27 years old.

“I have trouble with the idea that we are adversaries with the other left-wing parties for the Europeans”, continues the activist from the Paris region, who also sees a strategic interest in this alliance.

“The other three have a national anchor that we do not have, even if they represent less at the national level”, he deciphers.

La France insoumise, it is true, defends relentlessly and for the moment without success the idea of a common list.

Ségolène Royal, who announced Friday her desire to lead a union list, could she be a providential figure? Within the base, its service offerings are viewed with caution.

“I don’t really know… We have to see, discuss it within the PS. But I don’t know if that’s the solution,” judge Ernestine Cissé, a 31-year-old socialist activist from Essonne.

There are also the skeptics, who agree on… disagreeing.

“We have too many differences, especially with LFI and the PCF, our voters would not understand,” argues in Le Havre, among environmentalists, Brigitte Alban, 64, who made the trip from Lyon.

“Who imagines (Carole) Delga and (Jean-Luc) Mélenchon on the same list for the Europeans? I believe more in the union of European environmental parties”, abounds Nathan Guedj, 22, also from the capital of Gaul.

The majority of activists have nuanced reservations about an extension of the agreement which allowed the left to win 75 seats in the National Assembly last year. The one who gave birth to the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes).

“I am for the union lists when possible but on a political program, not on the union at all costs if it does not make sense”, declares on the side of Strasbourg and the communists Luce Sauret-Théry , 44, from Paris.

“For us, the union is yes, but not at any price. We must not make any concessions. We must keep our starting line: overthrow the government and create the Sixth Republic”, the mantra of the Insoumis, says Marie-Laure Scheling, a 43-year-old LFI activist from Puy-de-Dôme.

“If we spare the goat and the cabbage too much, we are not going anywhere. But we have to go somewhere”, she asserts.

In Strasbourg, it is not a surprise, the Communists are not the most enthusiastic vis-à-vis the Nupes.

“I’m not a pro-Nupes, it’s pragmatic”, notes among the communists Florent Pierré, 40, from the Vosges. “If it’s a political vehicle to score points and votes, you have to continue to be in it,” he concedes.

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