“I wish that we are at least able to come together in the legislative elections”, said Ian Brossat, Fabien Roussel’s campaign manager, on franceinfo Monday, April 11. The communist candidate only won 2.2% of the vote and a wind of reproach is rising among the rebels. They believe that these votes could allow Jean-Luc Mélenchon to qualify in the second round instead of finishing in third place, with 21.95%.
>> Follow in our live the reactions the day after the first round of the presidential election
But Ian Brossat wants to see further and calls for a rally of the left during the legislative elections: “What we weren’t able to do for the presidential election, let’s be able to do it for the legislative elections!”
franceinfo: Fabien Roussel collected around 800,000 votes on Sunday. Are these the voices that Jean-Luc Mélenchon lacked?
Ian Brossat: No, I do not think so. You don’t build anything positive and great with bitterness. I hear well the trial that a certain number of people have been hearing since Sunday. I don’t want to be in the settling of accounts.
“I see that 12 million people abstained. So I find it a little easy to accuse the 800,000 people who voted Fabien Roussel of having prevented the left from reaching the second round.”
Ian Brossat, PCFat franceinfo
If there were reserves of votes to allow the left to be in the second round, we must look at the side of the 12 million abstainers, much more than the 800,000 people who slipped a ballot for Fabien Roussel.
However, this is what the great figures of La France insoumise like Adrien Quatennens on franceinfo reproach you for. According to him, the second round was at hand, with the communist voices…
Universal suffrage must be respected. In the end, it is not Fabien Roussel who decides, it is the voters. If they voted for Fabien Roussel, despite the very strong pressure of the useful vote, it is because they approved of his program and his candidacy and they did not want to vote for another candidate.
There are voters who had chosen to vote for Fabien Roussel and who, at the last moment, chose to vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, because there was this useful voting movement. I don’t blame them, I respect everyone. Simply those who, until the end, made the choice to vote for Fabien Roussel, would not have voted for another candidate.
When you saw the score of Fabien Roussel, Anne Hidalgo and Yannick Jadot this morning, what did you say to yourself?
I tell myself that the left has a lot of work to do because it must once again find the working classes and the middle classes who have turned away from it. We have a lot of work to do in the years to come, no doubt. There is undoubtedly a collective responsibility, but in any case, we have an immediate prospect which is the question of the legislative elections.
I hope that we are at least able to come together in the legislative elections. What we weren’t able to do for the presidential election, let’s be able to do it for the legislative elections! We said from the start that we were ready to work with all the forces of the left. Fabien Roussel has today contacted the other candidates Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Yannick Jadot, offering them that we can work together. Now, of course, we are waiting for the answer.
Why does the union of the left work at the level of local communities, but not at the level above?
In local communities, we are able to work together. In the last regional elections, we won because we were able to work together. What we are able to do locally, let’s be able to do it nationally. In recent years, there have not only been failures, there have also been victories because we have known how to work together.
“It’s not just a question of ego, contrary to what some say. There are substantive issues that are more difficult to settle on a national scale, such as the relationship with the European Union, for example.”
Ian Brossat, PCFat franceinfo
We do not all think the same of the European treaties and therefore this inevitably weighs. But despite these differences, we should be able to work together.
I do not believe at all in the thesis of irreconcilable lefts and I am convinced that we can do things together. But we still need to talk to each other. Anyway, one of the lessons that can be learned from these two failures in the presidential election for the left is that no one can win alone. So, we are condemned to work together since this situation is there, so let’s do it.