“I got yelled at by people I love.” Monday November 8, at 7:30 pm, Arnaud Montebourg takes part in the program “Audition Publique” on LCP, Public Senate and Le Figaro. His intervention has been planned for a long time but his team negotiated to open the sequence with the controversy over money transfers abroad, which has agitated his campaign for twenty-four hours. They hope to clarify what the presidential candidate is saying and, perhaps, move on. In fact, the former Minister of Productive Recovery of François Hollande apologizes but refutes the term error, preferring to evoke a “incomprehension”.
However, Arnaud Montebourg had been perfectly clear on RTL in “Le Grand Jury”, broadcast the day before at lunchtime on Sunday. “I am determined to type in the wallet”, says Arnaud Montebourg. “Why can’t we integrate? Today you have 100,000 compulsory measures imposed on people who have to leave the territory that cannot be carried out. These people are there and moreover are often delinquents “, he asserts. By what means ? “There are 11 billion money transfers that go through Western Union to all countries of origin. We block all transfers as long as we do not have a reception of cooperation, he adds. These private money transfers are a windfall for these countries and today we need to say: enough is enough. “
On the set, it is stupor. “But, even the right does not offer that”, repeats, stunned, the journalist of RTL, Benjamin Sportouch. This idea has nevertheless already been put forward by the far right. Marine Le Pen has proposed since 2018 to block money transfers to Algeria while Eric Zemmour is on the same wavelength as Arnaud Montebourg. The polemicist has also jumped at the opportunity to congratulate, with irony, the former socialist.
Out of ideas, @montebourg replayed videos from my YouTube channel. Bravo Arnaud! https://t.co/N4Nn5S05r9 pic.twitter.com/NETZyrJ9Je
– Eric Zemmour (@ZemmourEric) November 7, 2021
Unsurprisingly, the reception on the left is freezing. “Do not pass on this murky ground”, urges the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on Twitter. “The Montebourg / Zemmour joint proposal against wage transfers to families in countries of origin will increase the causes of emigration. Cruel, unfair, stupid”, he decided. “Arnaud, come back with us! On the left, leaving the studio”, engaged the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau, also on Twitter.
On the side of Anne Hidalgo’s support, we drink whey behind the scenes. “Arnaud realized that he had said a big bullshit. By dint of making the big gap between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Xavier Bertrand, we hurt our legs”, tackle a close friend of the socialist candidate, ensuring not to want either “shoot the ambulance”. “It is not on the stupidity of others that we will progress. His very inappropriate words weaken and discredit the left as a whole”, regrets this same pro-Hidalgo.
On Europe 1, Olivier Faure, the boss of the socialist party and support for the mayor of Paris, also says “uneven” by this measure “extreme right”. He is not the only one. In Arnaud Montebourg’s team, it’s also astonishment. “It aroused excitement among some activists, a form of incomprehension among others, there is no point in hiding it”, recognizes the candidate’s spokesperson, François Cocq.
“We cannot advocate a less vertical policy and speak like that, it is a gross mistake”, plague as for him the socialist senator Mickaël Vallet, also spokesperson for the candidate. The latter assures that the presidential candidate has “recognized his mistake” during a crisis meeting with his main supporters Monday evening. “A very frank meeting”, according to former PS Minister Laurence Rossignol, for whom this proposal comes “technos, very respectable senior officials but who were unable to tell Arnaud that Zemmour and Le Pen had made the same proposal before”.
According to a relative, Arnaud Montebourg was actually to plead for “a diplomatic measure”, namely the freezing of the assets of States and officials of these countries in France.
“This measure is not in his program and will not be. He probably read it in a note that had been sent to him and, under the pressure, the example comes to him.”
A relative of Arnaud Montebourgto franceinfo
“It stirred internally, we spent a dirty Sunday, even a dirty Monday, we are not going to lie to each other”, continues this close. Arnaud Montebourg a “rectified right away on Twitter, but it went up in flames …” Before speaking on LCP, the candidate Montebourg therefore tried to clarify his thinking in a series of tweets published Sunday afternoon. “Should we come to threats of economic sanctions to obtain the cooperation of the States of origin in the repatriation of their nationals, illegal and illegal immigrants on our territory? It will be necessary because the rest does not work”, he writes. A slightly convoluted and above all very imprecise formula. “I understood that I had expressed myself badly”, ends up admitting Arnaud Montebourg on the parliamentary channel. “I wanted to target the States, I do not want to touch these families who work hard, send money to their families on the other side of the Mediterranean”, he adds.
His explanations did not convince the Young people with Montebourg who published, Monday evening, a statement announcing the withdrawal of the collective from the candidate’s campaign. “It is not for us a misunderstanding, but a mistake. The absence of questioning of these remarks in the hours which followed his intervention makes us say that this proposal was thought, willed and assumed . We note that the candidate is henceforth unable to rally around his project “.
“It’s crazy what he said. The question of the withdrawal came up very quickly because it is a major subject of disagreement.”
A member of the collective “Les Jeunes avec Montebourg”to franceinfo
According to two sources close to the candidate Montebourg, this collective has never been formalized by the former minister. “It is a group which led its own existence with interests of their own, they were not attached to the campaign organization”, provides support. An assertion undermined by those who slammed the door. They notably cite videos made with Arnaud Montebourg. Unable to verify since they deleted their Twitter account after the publication of their press release.
Despite this latest episode, Arnaud Montebourg’s entourage displays its serenity. “You have to stay calm in the storm”, we are reassured. “I understand very well those who were moved by this outing, certifies its spokesperson, Mickaël Vallet. However, I call on my comrades to be humble, because he is not the first to make a mistake. “ He knows it will be difficult to “make you forget what he said”, but tries to put an end to the controversy by calling for the support of the candidate to “continue to work and make people talk about their program in which we all believe”.
“The thing is behind us and for now there are no consequences”, wants to believe a loyal lieutenant of Arnaud Montebourg. The episode could however leave traces. On Twitter, Arnaud Montebourg’s slogan “La Remontada” was quickly hijacked and renamed “La Dégringolada”.