Manon Aubry, the candidate chosen to head the list of La France insoumise (LFI) for the upcoming European elections, and Chair of The Left group in the European Parliament, has long fought against the far right. With the European elections taking place from 6 to 9 June, her party has been forging closer links over the last few months with other parties allied to LFI in an attempt to breathe new life into the European Left. EUROPE spoke to the French MEP about taking stock, priorities, the rise of the far right and the future of the European Green Deal. (Interview by Thomas Mangin)
EUROPE – How would you sum up your term of office?
Manon Aubry – It’s my first term of office, so I have no point of comparison, but looking back, it was a term of crises with Covid-19, soaring energy prices, the climate, war, an unstable and tense situation. Against this backdrop of repeated crises, some of our ideas on the left have been taken up, such as, from an environmental standpoint, public control. There have also been findings about the fact that austerity kills. We have said things that have been heard and that were unthinkable 5 years ago. Our group has scored points from a political point of view, but these have not always translated into political victories. Things have changed, but not dramatically. It’s about saying ‘stop or else’ to austerity, free trade and alliances with the far right. Our answers are very clear: we need to create an alternative.
Talking about alternatives, you were in Copenhagen on 16 February, at a meeting of some 15 left-wing parties. You worked on common priorities for the forthcoming elections and you will publish this document on Tuesday 27 February. What are these priorities?
We had a meeting with 15 European left-wing parties – both members and not of the Party of the European Left (PEL) – to try to extend the scope of action of the European Left. There were Czech, Polish, Irish and Danish parties. The idea is to provide a left-wing alternative to the current right-wing, social-democratic majority. There are 10 priorities, and the general principle is resistance to the far right. We need to state this principle very clearly and establish a policy horizon that addresses priorities, immediate problems such as heating and eating. This is done by taxing the profits of those who have made even more money from the crises, by dealing with budget cuts with a new stability pact, by tackling the fight against climate change, by changing our software, by changing our agricultural model, by putting an end to free trade agreements. We also need to know how to defend fundamental rights, which are increasingly under threat from the far right. These are a few general principles.
Is this a way of distancing yourself from the Party of the European Left, which has just elected Walter Baier as its lead candidate (see other news)?
It’s not a question of distancing, the aim is to build something bigger, something that inspires today’s left wing. If you draw up a list of the strongest left-wing formations in Europe, most of them are not members of the PEL. Yet it is these left-wing parties that will govern tomorrow. There are new ways of doing politics that are driven by these movements. We should not be competing with the PEL, but going beyond it, creating something broader. If we weren’t here, I’m not sure we would have heard about Qatargate (see EUROPE 13082/1). It had an impact in Parliament because we didn’t let it go. With all due respect to others, I believe that we have reached a new moment for the Left in Europe, that we need to build on what already exists and not wipe the slate clean. We need to make the Left of the 20th century capable of responding to the problems of the 21st century.
If you are not distancing yourself from the PEL, are you nevertheless distancing yourself from the status of ‘Spitzenkandidat’, in the broader sense?
I chair a group in which less than half of the movements are part of the PEL. My aim, as chair of the group, is to bring together a diverse political family, but that needs to break down existing barriers. I have some reservations about the ‘Spitzen’ process, which masks a type of democratic fraud. Ursula von der Leyen was not a ‘Spitzen’, she never faced a democratic mandate, an election or universal suffrage. This process makes you feel like you are taking part in a democratic cover-up, with a loaded dice. The majority of left-wing parties are keeping their distance from it.
The far right is climbing in the polls in a number of Member States. What is the strategy for trying to stem this tide?
The far right is the gravedigger of social rights and our climate future. We need to unmask who they are and propose an alternative. That’s what we’re trying to do by offering a counter-narrative. We should be offering this rather than chasing an alliance with Ursula von der Leyen, whose track record we know. Jordan Bardella has tabled 21 amendments this term. I’ve proposed over 3,500. When they are there, they systematically vote against the right to abortion, against taxing super-profits and the richest, against workers’ rights: that’s the reality today in Parliament. They take advantage of the lack of transparency, of the fact that nobody really knows what goes on in Parliament, thanks also to the existing rules and the closed-door nature of negotiations.
The right and the far right have also come together on certain texts of the Green Deal. Will the next term be the death of the European Green Deal?
The Green Deal may be living out its final hours under attack from the right and far right, who have made it a completely totemic issue. They opposed our demands when we were voting on the CAP at a time when farmers were calling for minimum prices. They want an end to unfair competition with free trade agreements. Who voted for them? The right. None of my group voted for the free trade agreement with New Zealand. All the other groups voted for it. They’re a bunch of hypocrites when they come along afterwards, hand on heart, saying they’re thinking about farmers. If that were true, they wouldn’t have agreed to bring in milk from the other side of the world.
What do you think the composition of the next European Parliament will be?
Parliament will be more fragmented than ever. We have already seen how difficult it is to build majorities, and the issue of the right with the far right will become even more acute. I ask the social democrats if they are prepared to collaborate with an EPP that works with the far right. For us, the answer is a very clear no. For all those with the same answer, let’s talk. We need to move away from co-management with the far right. (...) We’re not interested in knowing how to create a co-management majority to get the few positions we can grab. I’m interested in the political positions we’re going to take. We have to make a complete break with the current majority.
Does this risk weakening your group within the European Parliament?
You know, I have chaired a group that was small. And yet, these 40 votes were sometimes decisive in tipping majorities.
See the 10-point document of the common political platform of the European progressive left: https://aeur.eu/f/b16