Saint-Etienne, Jean-Luc Mélenchon assumes to play “lightning rod”

Righting the mobilization against pension reform, the former deputy distilled some allusive sentences on the internal crisis in rebellious France, a “precious tool” which he intends to preserve.

by Julie Carriat

It could have been an evening of settling of accounts. At the end of a week of strong turbulence to rebellious France (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon held a meeting in Saint-Etienne, Friday December 16, just hours after the publication of the interview with the world of Alexis Corbière , criticism of the reorganization of the movement. But the former MP for Bouches-du-Rhône does not like to be where we are waiting for him. His speech, almost silent on internal debates, returned to his great classics, between scenes of strike and development on inflation, quote from Michel-Edouard Leclerc in support.

However, some elements on the current crisis in LFI could be read there. “I said that I was withdrawing and not retired, I was trying to imagine what the role could well consist of and I couldn’t find … I found, I am the lightning of all the hatreds of our adversaries, and sometimes all the ambitions of our friends, “started the former socialist senator. He also praised the deputy of the Loire who welcomed him, Andrée Taurinya, “confirmed activist, tenacious patient”: “You know like me what it is to build a force, to tear it away from nothing.” As a response to deconstruction attempts.

targeted movement on all sides

In the game of clues, always, he praised the work of four elected officials, three in the European Parliament – Manon Aubry, his colleague Leïla Chaibi, who had estimated, Friday, December 9, that the reorganization of the movement returned “almost” to A “purge”, and Younous Omarjee-, and finally Alexis Corbière, who wore The project of the increase in the minimum wage to 1,600 euros net in the National Assembly. Without ever pronouncing the name of Adrien Quatennens – the Northern MP is sentenced to four months suspended prison sentence for domestic violence – he spoke of an episode that has nothing to do, but however strangely resonates in his conclusion: the Sorry that he had granted, in 2021, to one of the defendants of the trial of the far -right group OAS, who had counted it as a target. “Which falls once must have the possibility of rehabilitating, that is the republican conception of the fault, the one who fell must be able to rehabilitate by his behavior,” he said.

The tribune has brushed the portrait of an rebellious France targeted from all sides, by the far right first, in view of the recent violent actions of identity groups targeting activists and deputies of LFI. Through the Liberal camp and the “comments” of the other’s press, these “despair forces which hope for resignation”. As for the pension reform and the battle which opens in January, Jean-Luc Mélenchon almost shares the analysis made by Alexis Corbière: “The first round, it begins there with the pension battle. For my part , this is the seventh reform that I would face, “he said. “You must oppose it, with all your might, if you are unionized with the union, if you are not, with your mass political organization, the NUPS [new ecological and social popular union], and the” rebellious “, this precious tool that you have!” A tool in the future very uncertain these days.

/Media reports cited above.