EF

Before I can answer I should say that I think we – the PCF, and the transformative Left – have interrogated our own strategy rather too much in terms of its relationship with the PS. It was hegemonic on the Left, and faced with a PS that organized social democracy entirely in terms of a neoliberal project, we needed to say that is not what the Left is. I think the 2017 presidential election allowed us to say this, which opened up new definitions and markers for the people.

That was one of the wagers that Jean-Luc Mélenchon made, and partly succeeded in. It is something to be welcomed, and I share in that need for a rupture with social democracy in order to rebuild. It clarified things, and was a step forward – so I do not want to return to a time when the reconstruction of the Left was posed in terms of what will happen with the PS. They have problems to solve for themselves.

But there is a part of French society that remains loyal to the PS, who feel represented by its politics. I do not think that we want a clash with them: they are still part of the Left. I imagine that they are today looking for a compass, and we have to be up to the task of providing them with an environment where they will feel welcome.

It is difficult to say what the PS is today. Its figures, its staff, its members are not one single entity. Part of it has gone off toward Macron and En Marche. And it is also important to be clearly aware that the reason it got 6 percent was that it embodied defeat and had no prospect of winning after the Hollande years. There was a very strong sense of disillusionment. I do not know what will become of the PS. But it has often been said that the Communist Party is dead and it has outlived these claims.

The necessary work of stopping the Parti socialiste being the leading force on the Left has now been realised. That does not mean we will be able to take all of the Left vote. To give a very concrete example, in my own constituency (Gennevilliers) there was a PS MP. He was elected on the Hollande wave of 2012, whereas beforehand there had been a PCF MP, Roland Muzeau. In the town of Colombe, within the constituency, in 2012 Muzeau scored two thousand votes. If you take my own score in the first round of the parliamentary elections there and add on the vote for France Insoumise, it is exactly two thousand votes. Even while the Parti socialiste has collapsed and even though Jean-Luc Mélenchon did well in the presidential elections, in Colombe at least the transformative Left has done no better than in 2012.

The Parti socialiste is no longer the leading force on the Left, but the Left is not yet in good shape. What really interests me is how we can accomplish the challenging task of rebuilding the Left. That means a Left that concerns itself with the March for Dignity and Justice, a Left that makes feminism relevant for our own time, and a Left that can bring the popular classes back onto the political terrain. That means the people we aim to represent coming into the National Assembly, in all their diversity. That is the challenge we face. We have some of the ingredients for that, but not the whole recipe.