The five candidates for the left-wing primary refused Thursday, during a debate on France 2 and France Inter, to fall “into the trap” of criticizing LFI, suspected of fueling violence, rather than talking about the demands of high school students. Questioned about the violence on the fringes of the high school movements, Raphaël Glucksmann, Olivier Faure, Jérôme Guedj, Ségolène Royal and Emmanuel Maurel, condemned it, but also deplored the violence committed by certain police officers.
“We condemn violence, including violence against law enforcement. But when we see a police officer firing a tear gas grenade into the face of a teenager, we strongly condemn him too,” underlined Mr. Glucksmann. For the MEP, leader of Place publique, “the left must make a firm speech” against the violence but also “hold a firm speech on the state of national education”, he added.
“Unbearable violence”
“The violence is unbearable and it completely derails this movement which is a peaceful movement,” added PS boss Olivier Faure. But he called for us to “look at the moon, not the finger.” That is to say, do not focus on the violence but on the reasons for the high school movement. “They are demonstrating because the study conditions are simply unbearable.”
The socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj, for his part, judged that “it is not up to political leaders to tell young people how” to act, in a criticism of the Insoumis, who according to him are “playing with fire” and “divert the sincere fight that these young people are led to carry”. Olivier Faure regretted that we were entering “a controversy which will completely obscure the high school question”. Mr. Guedj assured that he did not want to “comment on rebellious France”, so as not to give “the feeling that it is they who are holding the movement”. Recognizing that certain comments made by LFI officials regarding the high school movement were “irresponsible”, Raphaël Glucksmann also recognized that the real “subject was the school and the future of these children”. And no, La France insoumise.
Former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal called on high school students to “go home” because “this power will give you nothing”. But when LFI “pushes them to escalate violence, they push them to take risks,” she added. The deputy of the Republican and Socialist Left (GRS) Emmanuel Maurel replied that he was not asking high school students to return home: “I tell them to express themselves, to say what they want and to make gains.”
