Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left party France Insoumise, was recently in Montreal for the “How to Fight the Right” conference. I attended his presentation at the conference, where he shared the stage with Ruba Ghazal, the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire (QS).
To fight the right, the first thing the left has to do is assert itself, said Mélenchon. In a context where the QS leadership has been moderating its rhetoric for years, and constantly bending under the weight of the capitalist establishment, I found this refreshing to hear.
Then, asked by Ghazal about the approach QS and the left should take to the media, Mélenchon said we shouldn’t whine that the media aren’t our allies. “They’re on the other side,” he said. We have to “give up trying to be well regarded”, and “accept being divisive”. Without realizing it, Mélenchon put his finger on the problem with QS, which seeks to maintain a “respectable” image in the eyes of the political establishment.
He insisted on the need to “trust the intelligence of the people” to eventually see through the lies of the right against the left. Mélenchon may not be a communist, but his message echoes a profound truth for every revolutionary: knowing that we have the right ideas, and having full confidence in the working class, we should never be afraid of being divisive and defending our ideas loud and clear. It’s the only way to rally masses of people to our ideas.
However, the day after the conference, Ruba Ghazal gave an interview in which she explained her takeaways. Having learned that the left must “assert itself”, she nevertheless stated her disagreement with Mélenchon on one issue: “In France, being divisive, and here in Quebec, it’s not the same thing. I mean, seeking social consensus is part of Quebec values.”
In other words, Ghazal understood nothing of what Mélenchon explained. Above all, she has learned nothing from QS’s setbacks. The party languishes in the polls precisely because the party leadership foolishly imagines that there is such a thing as a “social consensus” and avoids ruffling the feathers of the hated establishment. QS’s attempts to appeal to everyone—at a time when capitalism is increasingly discredited—mean that it appeals to no one.
In reality, society is divided—into classes. There are the workers and the poor on one side, and the minority of rich bankers and bosses on the other. To become a voice of the working class, to denounce capitalism, it is necessarily to be “divisive” and to alienate the rich. As long as QS remains incapable of taking this stance, it condemns itself to insignificance.
That said, beyond Mélenchon’s great eloquence and his much more cutting rhetoric against the ruling class than Ghazal, he didn’t present any real plan to fight the right, or to get us out of the crisis of capitalism. Unfortunately, this is what QS and France Insoumise have in common. While Mélenchon is highly critical of the old left-wing parties, which have, as he put it, “accepted capitalism”, he himself has no plan for breaking with that system.
Yet what the left lacks in the fight against the right is a genuine alternative to capitalist misery. This requires a socialist program that can cut through the rhetoric of the “anti-establishment” right and rally the masses of young people and workers. It is this fully “divisive” discourse that we Communists proudly defend!
