“I am told: the debate must take place internally, we wash the dirty laundry as a family,” says Alexis Corbière. “I am still looking for the places or the room where this is happening.”
“I question the strategy of La France insoumise at the moment”confides Thursday November 16 on franceinfo, Alexis Corbière, LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis. “I think that sometimes we ourselves create the conditions for this gathering [de la gauche au sein de la Nupes] don’t be simple”estimates the rebel.
Created in May 2022, before the legislative elections, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union is going through a major crisis. For several weeks, Fabien Roussel, the secretary general of the PCF, has no longer hidden his hostility towards this alliance of the left and La France insoumise. “The Nupes is buried, it’s over”, he declared in particular. For its part, the Socialist Party had the group name changed in the National Assembly. The acronym “Nupes” no longer appears there.
Alexis Corbière regrets this decision. “It doesn’t have to be over. I am for continuing the idea of unity, of coming together,” he declares on franceinfo. “Jean-Luc Mélenchon said something true: ‘La Nupes is the shortest path to victory in 2027’. I keep the idea of the necessary gathering.” But the rebellious deputy cites another “old formula in the labor movement: ‘Unity is a fight'”. Because he has “well understood” that maintaining the Nupes was not “not easy”. The LFI deputy remains optimistic about the future of Nupes. “We must continue to move forward and we need words that allow us to come together,” he pleads.
Manuel Bompard and “the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon” are problematic
More broadly, Alexis Corbière questions the “internal function” from La France insoumise. “I want to apply Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s instructions: do better”. Because “indisputably, we must do better on a democratic level”. For the deputy, the sanction against Raquel Garrido is proof of this. On November 7, the latter was removed from the LFI group in the National Assembly for a period of four months, after her comments on the functioning of the party and on Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “We must lift the sanction. We cannot resolve political debates with measures of this type”, repeats Alexis Corbière. Like him, François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain and Danielle Simonnet protested against this decision. “I am told: the debate must take place internally, we wash dirty laundry as a family,” says Alexis Corbière without citing anyone. But, he adds that internally, this debate is not possible. “I’m still looking for the place or the room where it’s happening.” Because that makes “I’ve been told for a year and a half that it’s not the time, there was the pension battle, etc.”
The LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis wants to raise “a collective problem”. He “don’t want to name anyone” because “if we personalize too much, we depoliticize”. However, Alexis Corbière believes that the coordinator of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard, is part of the problem, as “the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon” or “the strategy put in place” by the party currently. He reiterates that his will is “discuss” to overcome the divisions within La France insoumise. “I hope that this will be possible in the coming months. Why wouldn’t that be the case?” he concludes.