Autain, Corbière, Garrido… The purged LFI prepare for the Aftermath in Pantin

On Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June, the Après (Association for an Ecological and Social Republic), the party founded by the purged former rebels Raquel Garrido , Clémentine Autain, Danielle Simonnet and Alexis Corbière, held its "constitutive congress" in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis). Two days of work with activists on the functioning of the party, its political orientation and major issues such as the Sixth Republic. With the 2027 presidential election in sight, of course.

But if the Après has a candidate in its ranks for the candidacy for the supreme election (Clémentine Autain), the priority of the movement, a year and a half before the election, is not to throw itself body and soul into the small horse race. No, the former LFI members are instead devoting their energy to trying to convince the other parties to come together in a single candidacy of the entire left for 2027. So, both LFI and Raphaël Glucksmann and the parties of the ex-NFP. The only way, according to them, to prevent the RN from coming to power. "Being truly against the far right is not just about singing Siamo tutti anti fascisti [we are all anti-fascists, editor's note] . […] If we are divided, then we are not fighting against it," Corbière declared on Sunday in his closing speech.

The leaders of the Après know that convincing their comrades will not be easy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who loathes primaries, has already launched. Glucksmann has also made it known that he will not submit to a system of designation and intends to impose his candidacy through the polls. From the stage, Corbière therefore sent a few short messages to potential candidates. "Raphaël said during the European elections: "Neither Jupiter nor Robespierre." Today, when we hear him speak, we hear "neither popular nor unitarian," regretted the MP for Seine-Saint-Denis. Before deploring the LFI strategy which, by "concreting a base for the first round of the presidential election, only has the effect of cementing a ceiling for the second." "It is time to abandon the toxic dream of the providential savior. It is by putting forward a team that we are attractive, driving forces," added former MP Garrido.

If they insist so much on the need to come together, it is because the elected representatives of the After claim to have the people of the left with them. This is particularly what Autain observed in recent months while touring France. "In many venues, people told me a feeling of betrayal of the NFP by the parties. They said to me: 'What is this show? These people insulting each other?'" she testified. The MP for Seine-Saint-Denis believes that the activists who campaigned for the NFP in June 2024 "have not disappeared . " "If we rekindle the momentum, they will be there," she says. Especially since for the After, coming together is even more within reach since two years ago, the parties agreed on a common program. "The left, programmatically, has never been so close," Corbière insists. We all agree to repeal the pension reform, to put an end to the Fifth Republic, to implement the Zucman tax ..."