the left seeks to make its vision heard during a meeting in Saint-Ouen

The left is trying to make itself heard. Faced with an immigration bill that it considers too right-wing, the left intends to defend a more humanist vision. It met on Thursday, December 7 in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) in a meeting without Jean-Luc Mélenchon, several weeks after the implosion of Nupes. The left is trying to find itself around a “common cause”, defend a different vision of immigration than that reflected by the text which will be examined from Monday in the National Assembly.

In particular, there were the First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, the former presidential candidate Yannick Jadot, the head of the environmentalist deputies Cyrielle Chatelain, the communist deputy Elsa Faucillon, but also two rebellious elected officials, Raquel Garrido and Clémentine Autain, on bad terms with the management of LFI.

Desire to regularize all undocumented workers

The various elected officials present said they wanted to lead the cultural battle. “The left has avoided debate for too long. We should have accepted confrontation when Nicolas Sarkozy brought the debate on national identity to the table”, judged Olivier Faure, in front of nearly 200 people. The bill arriving in the Chamber aims to toughen the conditions for legal immigration, but also to provide the possibility of regularization for undocumented immigrants occupying jobs in professions in shortage.

On the left, we want regularization of all undocumented workers. That constitutes “a minimal base”but “It’s far from enough”, added Boris Vallaud, leader of the PS deputies. All have also called for a real integration policy, and intend to dismantle the arguments for “migratory submergence”. “The assumptions are not good”insisted Cyrielle Chatelain.