Refoundations: Reviving the Left and Restoring Hope – A Dynamic Movement within the Socialist Party

Can you tell us about the association Refoundations ?

Refoundations is a dynamic, a current within the PS and a movement that we initiated with many comrades – Lamia El Aaraje, Anne Hidalgo, Carole Delga, Michaël Delafosse… – during the Congress last January, around a strong idea: the Socialist Party and the Left must be refounded on a line that is neither social-liberal nor social-populist. The gathering of the left must be rebalanced and enlarged. In the space of a few weeks, we succeeded in uniting half of the Socialist Party.

Today we have structured Refondations, with the aim of increasing the work on ideas, on substance: because if the left does not tackle the substance of the problems, it touches… the substance. In 9 months, thousands of comrades and sympathizers have joined us. It is extremely exciting!

Refondations therefore aims to restore a capacity for proposals to the Socialist Party and a capacity to govern to the left.

What are the objectives of Refondations and why is it necessary to breathe new life into the left?

Far from sterile qualifiers which reduce our initiative to a frontal opposition to the NUPES, we especially wish to bring a new method to the Socialist Party to give back to him this capacity to propose a vision for the country and thus all his place within the union of the left, which today remains dominated by LFI.

Rebalancing the union of the left means giving it the ability to go beyond the glass ceiling it faces as long as it is dominated by LFI. The left is weak and unbalanced today: it does not exceed 30% of voting intentions. But to win an election you need 50% + 1 vote. It is by restoring hope, with a credible, feminist, pro-European, republican and secular project, built on the social-ecological transition, that we will be able to overcome this glass ceiling.

This dynamic is imperative because opposite it is indeed the threat of the extreme right which is watching. We cannot, we must not stand idly by in the face of this unfortunately very real prospect, which would be a disaster for the country.

Refondations therefore aims to restore the Socialist Party’s ability to make proposals and the left’s ability to govern. By proposing a social and environmental justice project, we want to be able to change people’s lives and prevent the extreme right from gaining power.

Living, growing up, working abroad is an inexhaustible source of enrichment because it leads you to open up to others, to different cultures.

We are one year away from the European elections and only a few months from the senatorial elections. Do you think a Nupes list is possible?

I am Mayor of Rouen, at the head of a gathered left-wing team (including with LFI). The union of the left, some talk about it, I practice it in action every day. What I want is for the left to win. What I don’t want is for a political force to unbalance the union and make it a loser. There is room for everyone, when working in the service of the Republic while respecting the convictions of each and everyone.

In the senatorial elections, especially among French people living abroad and faced with the risk of division, what is preventing, even at this time, a common list led by EELV, assisted by the PS and bringing together all the forces of the left like the PRG, Générations and if they wish, the Insoumis? Unfortunately, the individual initiatives taken ultimately contribute to disunity. If it wishes, the National Office of the Socialist Party can still act. Refoundations will never be an obstacle to sincere union.

Moreover, the elected socialist Refondations who sit on the Assembly of French people living abroad are fully integrated and active in the left-wing union group Ecology and Solidarity. On the left among the French abroad, a majority of elected officials is for the union, I hope it will happen and that pride will be left in the locker room.

For Europeans, the stakes are different. On Ukraine, NATO, Europe of defence, the Uyghurs, the primacy and respect for European law… everyone can see that different leftist formations have different positions. But politics cannot be reduced to device agreements to save places, as was the case in 2022. For me, politics is first and foremost about convictions. I carry with many others a pro-European left, not euro-blissful but euro-volunteer. Compromise, okay. But no compromises. A single list would make no sense. Moreover, Marine Tondelier, Fabien Roussel or Raphaël Glucksmann say exactly the same thing as us on this subject. Let’s not reduce the European election to tactical considerations, an opportunism of struggle for places, small Franco-French calculations. Europe deserves better than that.

We must build a real Republic of territories, a Republic of popular neighborhoods. This is one of our proposals to Refondations

You lived a large part of your childhood in Mali, before studying in the United States and passing through Brussels. As a former expatriate, how did this experience mark you? Does she still influence you?

It is a permanent influence. Living, growing up, working abroad is an inexhaustible source of enrichment because it leads you to open up to others, to different cultures. This openness is in a way the guarantee of universalism: beyond our differences, cultural, societal, religious, we all belong to the same group within which we must defend equal rights.

Recently in France, there have been numerous riots in protest against the death of Nahël, and Rouen has not escaped this violence. Do you understand the anger of the population?

The anger is understandable, it is the consequence of several years of inaction and even contempt. But violence has no place in the Republic. It cannot be a solution. Expressing this anger through violence, by attacking public services whose agents do their best day to day to help French people, is not possible. In Rouen, for example, one of our town halls was burned down. Beyond the building, it is the files of fellow citizens who have gone up in smoke, files that were necessary to obtain the aid they need and provide them with the best possible support. This violence primarily penalizes the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods.

I unequivocally condemn all violence. Anger cannot and should not be a justification for violence. The Left has a responsibility to translate this anger into policy proposals – not to fuel it or stoke it by relativizing or even justifying violence.

We want to be able to change people’s lives and prevent the extreme right from gaining power

What can the government, and the various parties, do to calm the situation?

Above all, you need respect, consideration, appreciation, listening. The President and the Government are singularly lacking in it.

It is then necessary to recreate hope, with strong, concrete, rapid, useful actions. This must go through creating commonality, we need to rebuild society. Today we are too divided, everyone looking at each other out of the corner of our eyes, block against block, social class against social class, neighborhood against neighborhood, when we have so much to do together. The President spoke of a period of 100 days to appease the country… we can see what that has achieved. We must build a common vision that gives us collective hope. The left and in particular the Socialist Party have always carried this hope, perhaps we have forgotten it too much in recent years?

This is also what we are working on at Refondations: to recreate hope on the left, by tracing a path made up of proposals and concrete actions. It is the left of ‘doing’, of solutions, not of incantation. If we make people hope without being able to make real the ideal that we hold, then we feed frustration and ultimately anger. The first political beneficiary of this (im-)posture? It’s the extreme right.

We must build a real Republic of territories, a Republic of popular neighborhoods. This is one of our proposals to Refondations. By giving real means to communities, and in particular to cities, mayors, intermunicipalities, whether financially or in terms of regulatory powers.

Political, administrative and technical time must also be closer to civic time. Today, changes in our working-class neighborhoods linked to city policies (demolishing an old building, building a new swimming pool, etc.) take far too long to see the light of day. This is largely due to the administrative slowness of the State, which is disconnected from daily reality, while local elected officials live it day by day.

Let’s trust the communities, the local elected officials, to concretize and make real the changes promised for years. Let’s trust the associations of our popular neighborhoods, let’s invest in people (in particular by going back to the elimination of subsidized jobs), Education, Culture, Sport, and not just in concrete!

Finally, we must courageously and lucidly embark on a reform of the police. I do not make any amalgam, neither in the working-class neighborhoods which are not limited to ‘rabble’ and which harbor extraordinary talents, nor in our police forces. No, ‘the’ police don’t kill. But there is clearly a problem of training, organization (the lack of local police is glaring), and extreme right-winging of part, I say part, of the workforce. The RN has obviously made the police an electoral target, which it exploits. G. Darmanin and the government deny the subject. For my part, I do not make any amalgam, but I do not ostrich either. Like many elected socialists, I have to manage security and public tranquility issues every day. So there is no taboo to have. We need a major reform of the police.

It is with all these conditions of effectiveness and truth that our fellow citizens can again hope in the Left, and that the Left can once again hope to return to responsibilities.

#Nicolas #MayerRossignol #mayor #Rouen #expat #launches #Refondations