“He proposes to de facto expel eight million of our fellow citizens. (…) It is an absolutely totalitarian vision.” Franceinfo guest on Wednesday, October 27, the deputy La France insoumise of Seine-Saint-Denis, Eric Coqurel, openly attacked Eric Zemmour. He “is part of a fascist tradition” and “he is deeply racist”, he said of the polemicist, putative candidate for the presidential election of 2022.
Also asked about the closure of beds in public hospitals, Eric Coquerel estimated that France’s health system was “on the verge of breaking up” due to several years of “austerity policies”.
franceinfo: Several demonstrations by opponents of Eric Zemmour have punctuated some of his trips, as recently in Ajaccio or Biarritz. What do you think of these demonstrations?
Eric Coquerel: He is someone who comes to make speeches that are for me racist, xenophobic and – I say this very clearly – essentially fascist. I weigh my words. I think Mr. Zemmour is part of a fascist tradition. He proposes to de facto expel 8 million of our fellow citizens, through these absurd theories of the “great replacement” which, I remind you, caused massacres, in particular in Christchurch, in New Zealand. It is therefore an absolutely totalitarian vision.
It brings to mind dark times in history. Someone who says that, for me, does indeed follow a fascist vein. On top of that, what he is proposing is deeply racist. He divides the country and also avoids talking about other subjects because, on the other hand, his liberal speech is Mr. Macron for the worse. In short, it’s Reagan / Thatcher. From that point of view, it is therefore a danger. People demonstrate because they think it is heard too much. We are bathed with Mr. Zemmour all day long.
Yet it is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France insoumise, who debated with Eric Zemmour on BFMTV?
Precisely, why at some point have to debate with Mr. Zemmour? When someone is not even contradicted by journalists on fake news repeatedly he pronounces, at some point, you have to get your hands dirty.
The daily Release reveals that an investigation by Jean-François Delfraissy, the president of the Scientific Council, shows that 20% of hospital beds are currently closed in France for lack of personnel. Who do you think is responsible for this situation?
They are the ones who made this policy, who brought us into the wall. Since 2017, this government has voted for a 4 billion euros reduction in allocations to the public hospital. They are not the only ones [à avoir baissé les budgets] but they accentuated the decline in funding of hospitals by Social Security. So much so that last year, for example, after the Covid-19 crisis, there was still € 800 million less in structural funds for the hospital. This resulted in the closure of 5,700 beds in the midst of the crisis. Once again this year, we vote on a bill to finance Social Security which confirms a structural reduction in health allocations. This is no longer possible. Do not be surprised afterwards when the caregivers leave because they are not paid enough.
The crisis hit a hospital that was already very badly in shape. The hospital stood and held firm during the Covid-19 thanks to the competence and the quality of our caregivers. But they had already demonstrated, in 2018, in front of Emmanuel Macron, who replied: “There is no magic money.” Magic money, it was necessary to find a little later, once there was the Covid-19 crisis. This crisis therefore hit hard a health system which the American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said about fifteen years ago was the best health system in the world, and which has managed to be weakened, injured. It is now on the verge of breaking up because of these austerity policies.
The Ségur de la Santé represents an investment of 19 billion over ten years, or 1.9 billion per year. In your opinion, is this still insufficient?
Of course that is not enough. This just helps to slow down the fall a little. We must break with what is called the National Health Insurance Expenditure Target (Ondam). Until its creation in the 1990s, budgets were adapted to needs every year. This has changed. We adapted the needs to the decided budgets. And it is a disaster.