“If we start a hunger strike today, our hope is that Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon reflect and agree to enter this popular primary”, explains Pierre Larrouturou, candidate for a popular primary of the left, Friday January 7 on franceinfo. The Nouvelle Donne MEP is one of twelve activists who are starting a hunger strike today.
franceinfo: Who do you want to convince with your hunger strike?
We, if we start a hunger strike today, our hope is that Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon reflect and agree to enter this popular primary. Anne Hidalgo and Christiane Taubira have said very clearly that they want to participate in the popular primary and the two who do not agree are Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But I know that there are relatives of Yannick Jadot who tell him that if he wants to save ecology, if he is aware of the climate emergency, of the social emergency too – if there is five more years with Emmanuel Macron, we will lower pensions, we will damage the hospital – and if Jean-Luc Mélenchon is also aware of it, they must enter the popular primary.
“If they think they are going to win the presidential election, they shouldn’t be afraid to go into a primary that they can win.”
Pierre Larrouturou, New Deal MEPto franceinfo
For the moment, Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon categorically refuse the idea of participating in this popular primary. What makes you think they will change their mind?
Xavier Bertrand had said that he would never go to the primary on the right and he did. Yannick Jadot said in May that he would never go to the environmentalist primary, he went and he won. Among the people who are starting the hunger strike with me today, there is Anne Hessel, the daughter of Stéphane Hessel, the great resistance fighter, but also activists from Europe Ecology-Les Verts.
“There are more than 1,000 EELV activists who have petitioned Yannick Jadot to enter the popular primary, otherwise there is no chance he will win.”
Pierre Larrouturou, New Deal MEPto franceinfo
They’ve all been in the countryside for a year. They all tell us “it’s gonna take off, it’s going to take off”, but there’s nothing taking off. They are all between 5% and 6% of the voting intentions in the polls. On the other hand, what we see is that it discourages a lot of people. The total of the five left-wing and environmental candidates stood at 31% a few months ago, it has fallen to 23%. We are discouraging all those who want social justice, who want to win the climate battle. But there is no inevitability, even if the rally does not take place until around February 10, we can still win the presidential election thanks to this popular primary.
How will this hunger strike go?
We are all together. Today, we are Place de la République in Paris, and we invite all those who want to join us via the primarypopulaire.fr site. We’re going to meet Yannick Jadot. We are going to ask for an appointment with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“We are going to go to cities, to Bordeaux, to Poitiers, to Strasbourg, where we have seen that a rally makes it possible to win and change people’s daily lives.”
Pierre Larrouturou, New Deal MEPto franceinfo
We think what is happening is really very serious. Last night I was with my children and they asked me “Aren’t you going to have a stomach ache, a headache?” Jthink of those who will die of thirst and hunger in Africa when they are 20 years old. I am thinking of those who died in the Var in the floods a few months ago. I think of the 180 people who died in Germany in the floods in July 2021. Politics is no laughing matter. A presidential election is for real and it is fundamental. With Emmanuel Macron, we will have nothing for five years on pensions, to improve the minimum wage, on the climate. I have proven that Emmanuel Macron blocks the idea of a tax on speculation at the European level. So, it would be really dramatic to have an Emmanuel Macron-Valérie Pécresse second round in April, and it is in January that it is played out. It is in January that we must build a rally.