Froggy

In France political movements and the remaining political parties (Socialist party, Communist party) hold annual ‘summer universities’ rather than conferences.  The Melenchon outfit with a ridiculous name designed to put off adults (France Insoumise/France Unbowed) held its summer university where a grown up actually spoke.  This is François Ruffin, deputy for France Insoumise in Northern France.  He is known for a film—Merci Patron— about Bernard Annault, the chairman and CEO of the  Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) group of luxury brands and the world’s richest man, on the occasion of a trade union battle.  He is also known for his magazine ‘Fakir’, a platform for workers life stories of holding down three jobs, of getting sacked, or low pay and precarious employment.

The magazine is light on theory and heavy on case studies. 

At the Summer University François Ruffin tried to persuade the militants present that the left needs to present itself to the population as reassuring and common sense.  This is a newspaper report of his efforts:

“For several long minutes, François Ruffin explained to an audience that was far from convinced that “what we need to do is reassure people and bring people together”. “We’re telling the French that we want to take the helm of the liner France but that the hull has a hole in it, there will be a storm, and that the crew is inexperienced and screaming at each other … There must be a better way of instilling confidence,” he says. So much for the idea of bringing people together. But reassurance seems even more important in the MP’s mind because, he asserts, “today in France it’s not so much happy days as fearful days”. François Ruffin assures us: “What we should say is not that our project is radical, but that it is based on common sense”. And he asks the question: “What does ‘radical mean’?  Are we trying to win the applause of a general assembly  of Social Science students at Nanterre University or are we trying to convince people in Moselle or Picardy and other places in France?”

François Ruffin did not go down well when he tried to join the Gilets Jaunes on the roundabouts in 2018, in fact no one would talk to him.  He didn’t go down well at the summer university this August.  He does put his finger on one of the left’s problems, but doesn’t have a programme of his own.