FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS – The united left starts again from Montreuil, the “red belt” city on the outskirts of Paris where in the last legislative elections in 2022 it had received 63% of the votes. Yesterday evening, in the Place Jean Jaurès in front of the town hall, the first rally of the Nouveau front populaire. Before going on stage, the famous economist Thomas Piketty answers the Corriere’s questions.
Why did you decide to support the Nouveau front populaire?
«The next elections will see the confrontation between the right-wing bloc formed around the Rassemblement national, with the support of the Républicains (Gaullist right, ed.) and Reconquête (Éric Zemmour’s party, ed.), and the left-wing bloc that unites all left-wing and environmentalist parties (socialists, communists, insoumis, ecologists). The Macronist liberal bloc, which presented itself as centrist, had a social base that was far too narrow to govern the country in a lasting way. That block has collapsed, paving the way for a new left-right bipolarism.”
And what characterizes the two blocks?
«The right-wing bloc is becoming more and more national-liberal: in addition to its ethnocentric, anti-Islam and anti-immigrant foundation, which does not allow people to vote on financial laws and govern the country, it now adopts an increasingly anti-tax and antisocial, illustrated by the alliance between Jordan Bardella, Éric Ciotti (president of the Républicains, ed.) and Marion Maréchal. In contrast, the Nouveau front populaire proposes a platform of social and fiscal justice and investment in the ecological welfare state. I support the NFP without hesitation, because it prepares the future of the country infinitely better than the right-wing bloc.”
In the latest book recently released in Italy, «A history of political conflict» (The Ship of Theseus) written together with his wife Julia Cagé, you two describe the abandonment of the rural world by the left, but you are optimistic because you identify the reasons why it is possible to win it back, in perspective. Now there are only 10 days left until the first round, is this a feasible feat?
«The left-wing bloc certainly cannot overturn everything in one election, especially since this territorial division worsened even more during the European vote on 9 June. But what is absolutely within our reach is to get ahead of the right-wing bloc at the end of the legislative elections, and therefore have a relative majority.”
Years ago you coined the formula “Brahmin left and mercantile right”, alluding to a left now locked in the intellectual caste. Is this a concept we see at work these days too? For example in the fact that Jordan Bardella, less successful than his opponents, showed himself to be in difficulty in the TV duels and then won anyway?
“But we must not forget that the left has a solid popular base in the urban world, regardless of its origins.”
Do you think that this union of the very heterogeneous left, which goes from the former president François Hollande and the social democrat Raphaël Glucksmann to the extreme left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, will be able to hold?
«Yes, I think so. The left has its contradictions, but ultimately it is much more coherent than the national-liberal bloc, which would collapse as soon as it came to power. Having said this, we can spare ourselves the experiment, and I am convinced that many voters of the National Rassemblement know this well. I think that in these elections they will distance themselves from the RN precisely because of its liberal and anti-social turn.”
Your opponents are highly critical of the economic program of the Nouveau front populaire, deeming it unsustainable for an already highly indebted country like France. What do you think?
«Of course it is a sustainable program. Because it is the one that invests the most in training and energy transition, which are the keys to the future.”
Do you fear a negative reaction from international markets if the Nouveau front populaire were to impose itself?
«It is certain that the markets would prefer to keep Macron in power forever and without elections. But they should understand that it is not possible and that the left bloc is better equipped for the future than the national-liberal bloc.”
