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The French left has rarely been so united – and rarely so divided.
Five months after a new, left-wing parliamentary coalition emerged amid much fanfare in June, its parties are divided among themselves and among themselves by personal hatred and ideological differences.
Topics of contention included “work” (is paid employment worth the left or the right?) and “red meat” (are barbecues sexist and dangerous to the planet?).
There are also questions of personal behavior and hypocrisy. There have been a range of openly feminist, male, left-wing leaders Guilty Violent or indecent behavior towards women.
The fights may be disparate but they illuminate the same political battlefield – one that stretches from France to the US, Britain and other countries.
21 canscheduled tribe Century left to reconnect with popular classes? Is left-wing politics doomed to become a haven for conflicting pressure groups for “middle-class causes” and racial minorities?
Three French parliamentarians – let’s call them “the three R’s” – have emerged in recent months as eloquent standard-bearers for the Left’s various visions of the future. All three have provoked their comrades.
The first, Sandrine Rousseau, 52, is a Green deputy who speaks passionately for “intersectionalism” – the belief that all social struggles, from feminism to anti-racism to ecology, are interconnected. She believes, among many other things, that Work is a “right-wing value” and that the Left and Greens should campaign for the “right to idleness” and against wealth, prosperity and growth.
He scared a lot of people in my own green party ,Europe-Ecology-les Verts) in October when she revealed on live TV that a senior party colleague and rival had been accused of “psychological” abuse by her former partner.
The second “R” is Fabien Russell, 53, leader of the French Communist Party, who defends the right of working people to eat “a good steak” and argues that There should be “party of work” on the leftNo “party of welfare”.
He will hold several meetings across France this winter to promote his “traditional” views. His comments angered other Leftists but made him Most Popular Leftist Politicians in France Who Vote Right,
The third “R” is Francois Ruffin, 47, a journalist and filmmaker-turned-politician who sees himself as a “pragmatic socialist” — someone who wants to improve the lives of ordinary people, not A thinker or theorist.
In his new book: “I am writing to you from the front of the Somme” (“I am writing to you from the Somme battle-front”), he describes the alienation from leftist politics To the working and middle class people of his constituency in Amiens in the struggling Somme Department of northern France.
The vote of provincial, outer-suburban and blue-collar France — the heartland of the Gillettes Jaunes rebellion of 2018-19 — is being left far, says Ruffin.
Left risks becoming a fractious nexus between “eco-bobos” (the middle class, the urban left) and the multi-racial, inner suburbs.
The provincial working class wants higher wages; Green people want little, or no, development. want blue-collar provincial jobs; The radical left is more interested in defending the “rights” of welfare claimants.
All classes of people want security; The hard-hitting La France Insumis (France Unboded) appears to be the anti-police. working people fear immigration; They associate the Left with the defense of racial minorities.
Ruffin says the time has come to abandon the culture of enduring resentment within the pan-left coalition (Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Social or NUPS), The Left must rebuild the culture of government.
“I believe passionately in the values of feminism, ecology and anti-racism,” Ruffin says, “But we must not fall into the trap of speaking only for ikolo-bobos or only the rural poor. We must find a way to speak to everyone and find a message of hope.
It has been suggested that the charismatic Ruffin could succeed Jean-Luc Mélenchon (who will be 75 at the next presidential election) as leader of La France Insomées (LFI) and the radical left. Ruffin’s comments also suggest that his ambitions may have been even greater, but his opponents see him as more temperamental than the LFI’s leading man, seeking to replace their flamboyant leader.
He not only wants to heal the divisions within the LFI and the wider Knoops left-green coalition. He wants to recapture many of the center-left voters who fled to Emmanuel Macron since 2017.
He says it is time for the radical left to make its peace with the pro-European, pro-market, reformist center-left or “social democracy” (a harsh term for many hard-lefts). “I’m going to social-death myself,” says Ruffin, a politician with a sense of humor.
What his joke meant in practice is unclear. Ruffin’s recent book is eloquent on the social, regional, ideological and generational differences that underlie the French left. It offers little on what a unified leftist program might entail.
Although he himself speaks of “society-despair”, he calls himself a “revolutionary reformist”. He remains staunchly anti-European, anti-market and anti-big business. These positions alienate centre-left voters who now support Macron; Ruffin’s move to the center alarmed his allies on the purist-principled left.
Like Ruffin, Fabian Russell, a communist leader, is eyeing a possible successor to Mélenchon, the pan-left presidential “nomination” in 2027. His comments on red meat and welfare resonate with blue-collar workers who have migrated to the far South.
His views on work match Ruffin’s but his personality is less appealing to the “eco-bobo” wing of the Left Alliance. Like Ruffin, he offers little to the old pro-European center-left that could be homeless in 2027 (when Macron can’t run again).
Sandrine Rousseau talks about uniting all left-wing and green causes, but for many, a woman has become a symbol of fanatical sectarianism.
All three “R’s” are searching for common ground large enough to win the national election in their separate ways. No one has shown much willingness to compromise on their core beliefs or passions.
Compromise, like social democracy, has become a dirty word on the French left (unlike Britain or Germany).
The French Left, although nominally included in the same coalition, remains a mass of conflicting truths.
franCOis Ruffin says he wants to find the center of this strategic and ideological maze. There may be no “center” left to find.