Speaking with few words was a necessity for Philippe Poutou: because of the rules of equity, and not of equality, which still apply three weeks into the first round, the candidate of the New Anticapitalist Party only had six short minutes to defend his proposals – just like others, Fabien Roussel or Nicolas Dupont-Aignan in particular.
However, unlike Fabien Roussel, the word of Philippe Poutou was relatively rare in the media until recently. How, then, to apply in such a short time? Philippe Poutou has found a strategy. He uses a very specific type of word: “A radical, anti-capitalist, feminist, anti-racist left. The overthrow of the capitalist system. We are anti-capitalists, we are for expropriation. Defending a perspective, a unitary anti-fascist response. We have an anti-racist, internationalist, anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist campaign.”
For NPA activists, these words have a very specific meaning. They cover a set of proposals, practices or struggles that they have been carrying for years. For left-wing voters in general, on the contrary, there is more room for doubt.
Of course, anti-racism and feminism, everyone sees more or less what that covers. On the other hand, for internationalism and anti-colonialism, this does not seem self-evident to me. It is not even certain, moreover, that these terms have totally positive connotations. Finally, for right-wing voters, these words are real foils, regularly taunted in the front page of the conservative press. For Philippe Poutou, it is therefore a very convenient rhetorical tool: in a skewer of concepts, he certainly cuts himself off from part of the electorate, but signals to another that he could be his candidate.
Philippe Poutou also says who his opponents are. And there too, everything can be summed up in a few words: “The campaign is dominated by reactionary ideas. The anti-democratic aspects of the campaign. An increasingly undemocratic society, a fascist, misogineous, LGBTphobic, racist danger. We are in a very harsh atmosphere, we are trying to break all that .”
Here too, we are faced with concepts which can have a precise content, which have been well worked out by history, sociology and political science. But Philippe Poutou is content to throw them into the air, to call on all those who hate them to join him: it’s a form of what is called “the scarecrow strategy”.
For lack of time to develop his ideas, he mainly handles labels, which he sticks as much on himself as on his opponents. It is not without a certain effectiveness: with such an intervention, it is possible that Philippe Poutou manages to mobilize the convinced. On the other hand, it is much more unlikely that he will succeed in convincing those who were not already convinced. This is the labeling limit. But to overcome it, we will have to wait for speaking times to pass from fairness… to equality.