Fabien Roussel had already explained in May that he did not really like the formula “elect me Prime Minister”, used by the leader of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The communist, former candidate for the presidential election, went further, Tuesday, June 7, in the columns of the newspaper Humanitystating that “the confusion and personalization of the diet is already great enough”.
Even if he is a signatory of the agreement of the left for the legislative elections, he distances himself from the Nupes. “It’s not worth adding to it”, says the national secretary of the French Communist Party. However, “Melenchon Prime Minister” is the first point of the agreement signed on May 3 between La France insoumise and the PCF. The agreement, still online on the PCF website, announces in black and white that, “from the perspective of a left-wing majority in the National Assembly, the Prime Minister would come from the largest group in the Assembly, namely Jean-Luc Mélenchon”.
This is not the first time that Fabien Roussel has played different music. He was one of the most virulent against Taha Bouhafs, the candidate who retired to the Rhône after accusations of sexual violence. Since the signing of the Nupes agreement, the former presidential candidate has been regularly absent from common events on the left, meetings in particular.
This singularity begins to exasperate his partners. “He’s a guy who builds himself politically against Mélenchon”creaks one of the negotiators of the agreement, who accuses him of doing everything, from the start, “to derail the union by putting a spoke in the wheel”. “For Roussel, it’s a forced marriage”analyzes another. “He was outvoted in his party on this agreement. As long as his line did not win, he tries to find arguments to register on the margins and get the icing again.” Scathing conclusion of a rebellious: “We are better with him, obviously, but we can move forward without.”
At the PCF, there is no question of denying that the personal dimension exists, between an agreement “without knowing of his own free will”confirms an elected, and “probably a little bitter” after the disappointing result of the presidential election. But according to those close to Fabien Roussel, this reading is reductive. They first invite us to look at the electoral sociology of the 20th district of the North where the boss of the PCF is running. Marine Le Pen obtained 37% of the votes there in the first round. “At Roussel, the total left / environmentalist is enough to qualify for the second round, but not to win”explains a communist executive. “So you also have to talk to people who voted for the right or the far right”, voters who see Jean-Luc Mélenchon as a scarecrow. Hence this campaign “one foot in, one foot out”.