Guest of France Bleu Nord this Friday, March 25, 2022, Adrien Quatennens, deputy from the North and support of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) in the presidential election, answered questions from Cécile Bidault two weeks before the first round.
France Bleu Nord: A first topical question related to this war in Ukraine. The Mulliez Auchan and Leroy Merlin group brands are under pressure at the moment. Even the Ukrainian president asks them to leave Russia. Do you think, like Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that these brands sponsor the Russian war machine?
Adrien Quatennens : I think you have to be a little more careful than that. There is one thing that seems certain to me, and that is that French companies in Russia must cease, suspend their activities during the war. It is another thing to ask them to leave Russia. In any event, and this is our fullest wish, there will be an end to this war and the sooner the better. And we will continue to trade, to have diplomatic and economic relations with Russia. That they suspend activity in times of war, yes, that they leave Russia, that’s another thing.
Are you thinking of employees? Leroy Merlin, for example, there are 45,000 employees in Russia.
Yes, but things have to be said: of course, continuing economic activity poses a problem, but for all that, we must not imagine asking these people to leave Russia in a hurry. Especially since we must hope for a diplomatic outcome to this conflict as quickly as possible and since France must speak out capable of helping to resolve this conflict through diplomacy.
So one of the consequences of this war in Ukraine is soaring fuel prices. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, if elected, proposes to block prices at 1.40 euro per litre. How is it possible ? Who compensates? Is it the state, for example?
First, one thing must be said. Inflation did not wait for the conflict in Ukraine to start. People listening to us have seen that prices have been rising for some time. So, of course, the international situation makes this worse. But we must remember one thing, it is that the increase in prices is the result of speculation. Do you know the market law of supply and demand? If we want to lower prices, we increase production. Why don’t producers do it? Because it’s speculation. Indeed, the first time that Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke of price freezes, the price at the pump was 1.40 euros per litre. So yes, if we are in power in a few weeks, we will lock prices down at 1.40. How technically? First, from a regulatory point of view, it is simple. It’s a decree, it’s the Commercial Code. Prices can be regulated overnight. A recent example, Mr. Macron himself, when the price of hydroalcoholic gel soared by anarchic market effects of the law of supply and demand, he blocked the price of hydroalcoholic gel. It is the Commercial Code.
How do you do ? Do you put pressure on producers?
In our Overseas Territories for example, you have the prefect in Reunion who can block 153 prices. There are citizens’ councils where we decide which products are to be priced because people, as you know, are taken by the throat. So yes, it’s not up to the State and the taxpayer because the small obols that Jean Castex gives of 15 euro cents per litre, ultimately, it’s the taxpayer who pays in the end. There, it is a question of taking advantage of the profits of the producers. You know that in this period of crisis, for example, Total made record profits. It is the largest net profit ever achieved by a company. Yes, it is indeed up to the producer to take their share and to the State to regulate prices. This price freeze measure is probably not permanent, but in any case, it is necessary to relieve people’s lives. This is the price of fuel at 1.40 euro blocked as long as inflation continues. And it is also the price of basic necessities, there are a number of them. For example, Jean-Luc Mélenchon proposes to block the price of five fruits and vegetables because every day, perhaps on your antenna, but also on television, French women and men hear that to take care of their health, you have to eat five fruits and vegetables a day without anyone bothering to see if they can afford them.
How do we block these prices without denying farmers’ income, which is already problematic?
You are right, it is first and foremost the farmers who must be protected. This is why we are going to play on the famous multiplier coefficient. You know that between the producer and the production price and all the distribution margins there too, there are efforts to be made, so a certain number of prices will be regulated. The most important thing is to relieve people’s lives because as we speak in this country, there are 10 million people living below the poverty line. Eight million depend on food aid. While wealth has grown in a few hands, things have to be said. In our country, France, five people, five billionaires own as much as 27 million French people, or 40% of the population.
So you also want to tax them? It is also one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s proposals to reform the tax. And it is the richest who pay?
The reality is who pays? For us, the small should pay small and the big should pay bigger.
What is already the case?
No. In proportion to their income, you know that the rich are those who pay the least in proportion to their income. It is the middle class that takes all the effort on its back. Listen to this, you will be interested as we have both costed your program and brought a certain level of detail to it on the Mélenchon2022.fr platform you can simulate your tax under Jean-Luc Mélenchon and you will discover that 90% of households will pay less tax. With Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the 14 tax brackets that we want to make to smooth the effort, if you earn less than 4,000 euros per month, I think that concerns a lot of people who listen to us, you will pay less taxes.
You have probably heard it on our antenna, we are experiencing an episode of pollution. Differentiated circulation has been activated since this morning. What part does ecology play in the program of insubordinate France and Jean-Luc Mélenchon?
It is central to this program, the common future. It is a program that pursues a philosophical goal first of all, which is the harmony of human beings among themselves and with nature. Once we have established this philosophical goal, it’s 694 measures to make it operational. On the climate issue, you know, the latest IPCC report, it is overwhelming. We are very late. There is already a part of irreversibility in climate change, so we have to go fast and hard. What we could have done quietly over the past forty years, our generation will have no choice but to do quite radically. We are proposing a method for this: it is called ecological planning, that is to say ensuring that the entire economy of a large country like France is at the service of this great challenge. And so, it’s going to require that we organize things in new sectors, a lot of jobs at stake, it must be said, because we’re going to go from a supply policy that has been dysfunctional for years, which consists in producing anything and everything, no matter how, as long as it’s cheap and it sells, to govern by needs. What do we need ? How do we organize the economy? How we also challenge the companies of this country with the State to create the conditions that we can solve this great challenge. I take a few examples. Agriculture: we need to move from agriculture that is not very intensive in labour, too intensive in chemicals, to peasant agriculture, relocated, organic. It will require 300,000 more peasants. We’re not going to find them overnight. People will have to be trained. We want to make the energy transition to eventually go towards 100% renewable energy by 2050. All that will be a lot of jobs, a lot of activities to finally settle the big debt that should concern us, which is the ecological debt. . We can’t go on like this. The ecosystem compatible with human life is indeed in danger and we have this method of planning/ And I will end by telling you that this will also require a form of protectionism, not chauvinistic protectionism, but a solidarity ecological protectionism. If you ask farmers in France to stop using pesticides, you must ensure that products do not arrive from everywhere, filled with pesticides, which come to compete with farmers, thus assuming a form of protectionism at our borders.
If we look at the polls today, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is credited with between 13% and 15% of the voting intentions, a positive dynamic. He is being referred to more and more as the third man. In any case, for the moment, this is the place behind Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. And so, comes back this idea of the useful vote on the left, it would be the vote of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Are you comfortable with this notion, you who most often call for voting by conviction?
We don’t talk about useful voting for one reason, which is that we ourselves have suffered the effects in the past. And there are no unnecessary votes. On the other hand, we can say one thing, and that is that now, and two weeks before the deadline, everything indicates that it is being played out in a trifecta between, on the one hand, Mr. Macron, who is almost certain to be in the second round Mrs. Le Pen, who has a few points in front of us and the gap tends to narrow between us and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is in an upward dynamic, which we perceive. So the question that is asked for the next two weeks is what do you want for the second round? Do you want Ms. Le Pen to face Mr. Macron again and therefore rediscover the pitiful debate that we had in 2017? I believe that opinion polls say that 80% of French people do not want to see this poster again or else you have the historic opportunity, which would be a huge event, for Jean-Luc Mélenchon to face Emmanuel Macron. And in this case, the second round of the election would both be rid of the extreme right and we would stop constantly telling people to block. We would have chased them into the polls in the first round and alongside that, we would have an election that would be about the real concerns of the French and which, in a way, would have a characteristic of a social referendum: retirement at 65 with M Macron or 60 years with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, salaries, the index point of civil servants, do we take care of it or do we do nothing like Mr. Macron? We have 15 days left. We have gone in the last 15 days in the polls, in any case from 5th place to 3rd. There is upward momentum. Our events are progressing, there is activity. Yes, it is possible that Jean-Luc Mélenchon will be qualified in the second round and after that a new match will begin.
Concerning the legislative elections which take place in June, you, the deputy of the 1st district of the North, do you want to return there?
Yes, I want. Now, one step at a time, and I think everyone has to remember that the first step in a legislative election is called a presidential election. So maybe, if you give me an appointment after the presidential election, I will tell you in more detail what I intend to do. In any case, the desire to fight first, if possible to constitute a majority to apply this program. I really want to.