The deputy La France insoumise (LFI) Eric Coquerel wants “convince” its Nupes partners need to have a single group in the National Assembly. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s proposal responds “to an emergency”he says on franceinfo Tuesday, June 21.
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“We must stop with this hope of tampering that the majority tries to give themselves the opponent they want”continues Eric Coquerel, LFI deputy for the first constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis, re-elected this Sunday with 71.29% of the vote under the Nupes banner. Jean-Luc Mélenchon estimated that “the Nupes should constitute itself as a single group in Parliament”but this proposal was rejected by its partners, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.
franceinfo: What does Jean-Luc Mélenchon want?
Eric Coquerel: It was to adapt to a situation. We have a stronger RN than we imagined with nearly 90 deputies and a government that plays with that. Obviously, he prefers to have the RN as the first opponent, to the point of imagining leaving them the presidency of the Finance Committee when it horrified them that it was someone from the Nupes who had it. We must stop with this kind of fiddling that the majority tries to get the opponent it wants. So we adapt to the situation. There was this proposal, but I would like to point out that it is a parliamentary group with delegations which allows each party to have strong autonomy, which makes it possible to adapt the idea of an intergroup on which we was understood in the protocol and that it must evolve.
Why make this announcement without notifying your partners?
Stop dramatizing the situation. Instead of looking at how the proposal was made, we could perhaps look at why it is made. It is made because there is this urgency caused by the result of the National Rally. There is also another fact, which is that Christian Jacob announced that LR would be in opposition. So the government has no possibility of having a vote of confidence in the Assembly if it asks for it. We are in an ungovernable situation and in this context it is important to show that the RN is not the main opposition force today. The main opposition force is Nupes.
Do you maintain your proposal?
We will try to discuss with our partners, to convince them and if this is not the case it will end up in a political intergroup. It is not tension, there is no crack. We are going to meet them, explain why we are doing this, what methods we are proposing, the possibility within this group of being autonomous in terms of delegation. This is done in the European Parliament where there is a common group of the united left and inside each component has its own autonomy. If this is not the case, it will end in an intergroup which will be very political, not just technical. In the period, it would be desirable that we have a common group.
Emmanuel Macron receives this Tuesday and Wednesday the political forces intended to form a group in the National Assembly. Will Jean-Luc Mélenchon go there?
No, it’s Adrien Quatennens and Mathilde Panot who will meet him. They are the ones responsible today. Adrien Quatennens is the coordinator of France insoumise and Mathilde Panot the president of the group.