Fabien Roussel pleads for "a new agreement to emerge on the left"

The national secretary of the French Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel , took advantage of this first day at the Fête de l'Humanité 2025, to call for social mobilization this fall, during a press lunch. Current events oblige , the mayor of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (Nord) confirmed that the PCF "does not censure a priori" the next government led by Sébastien Lecornu, appointed Prime Minister on Tuesday, September 9. And immediately clarified: "It must send rapid signals to the French: increase in wages, repeal of the pension reform, taxes on the richest, debate aid for businesses , believes Fabien Roussel. But if it is to go from 44 billion to 39 billion in savings , there is no point in even calling us. We are not afraid of censorship or dissolution."

By coincidence, the national secretary of the French Communist Party met Sébastien Lecornu on Monday, September 8, one day before the latter was officially appointed Prime Minister. "He made demands of the man who became Prime Minister," confirmed Léon Deffontaines, spokesman for the Communist Party. He had argued for the appointed Prime Minister to be left-wing.

"Fabien Roussel has asked that the pension reform be submitted to a vote in Parliament, that the austerity policies of the Macronist camp be abandoned in favor of a plan to revive employment, the economy, and industry ," confirms the former candidate for the 2024 European elections . "He has finally asked that a discussion on taxation be initiated, by seeking new revenues, notably with the Zucman tax ."

The latter, named after French economist Gabriel Zucman , was rejected by the Senate last June. This tax planned to apply a "differential contribution" known as a minimum tax. Initially adopted by the National Assembly, it targets assets exceeding 100 million euros.

If adopted, the bill would have ensured that these ultra-wealthy taxpayers pay at least 2% of their wealth in tax. Left-wing elected officials have announced that they intend to reintroduce this measure next fall, during the examination of the Finance Bill. The Zucman tax could bring in €15 to €20 billion to the state budget.

"We were expecting a left-wing prime minister, but they preferred Lecornu, a man from their own camp ," castigates Fabien Roussel. "I hope that the French will get involved and push the September 18 movement as far as possible, but also that Lecornu will turn away from the Élysée Palace and turn towards Parliament." He added: "There are those who say compromise. Others who say no compromise. I hear and respect both points of view. But what is needed is the strongest possible September 18 to influence decisions." Without a change in policy, the communist leaders are not giving the Lecornu government "one month."

If the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, prefers to continue his coup by appointing his carbon copy, he could therefore be dismissed. And "the communists are not afraid of a dissolution," asserts Fabien Roussel. In the event of early legislative elections, the national secretary of the PCF affirms: "We will not renew the New Popular Front agreement. We prefer that a new agreement emerges on the left , department by department, with established personalities as candidates and without parachuting."

The president of the Democratic and Republican Left (GDR) group, Communist MP Stéphane Peu, insists on the need for an agreement, given the emerging juncture between the right and the far right. "There is now an intellectual and cultural porosity between the right and the far right. Cultural victories precede political victories, said Gramsci, and political agreements too," analyzes the leader of the Communist and overseas MPs.

Another hypothesis pushed by part of the opposition, notably La France Insoumise: the resignation or dismissal of Emmanuel Macron. "I understand the French people who are fed up and want Macron to leave now ," confides Fabien Roussel. "But we will be more ready by waiting for 2027, on the condition that there is a powerful social movement to carry us forward." He assures that he understands "those who want a dismissal. But in the PCF we do not delegate change to new elections. We are not a presidentialist party. We are parliamentarians. We are in favor of the social movement exerting pressure and having full influence. And we will make its voice heard in Parliament. The Popular Front of 1936 is not just an alliance between socialist communists and radicals, it is 12 million strikers!"

"To break the glass ceiling of 28-29% on the left," he believes, " we must accept having differences and not starting together sometimes in the ^first round." These differences, according to him, can be found on the issues of peace, NATO, industrial production, and energy. Moreover, "a part of the left does not know how to listen to what is being said in the country and speak in the words of the people," he worries. Therefore, the national secretary of the PCF does not intend to participate in a primary of the left, whatever its form. "That would make people believe that Fabien Roussel and Raphaël Glucksmann could start together in the ^first round ," he mocks. "Nobody can believe that." An agreement of the entire left to beat the right and the far right in the second round, on the other hand, is on the table.

Fabien Roussel also urges not to be obsessed with the presidential election. "Before the legislative and presidential elections, there are the municipal elections. And the left must show that it is capable of uniting," he warns, threatening not to support any MP who does not support the outgoing mayors. The PCF sees these municipal elections in a spirit of conquest. Ian Brossat, leader of the communists in the capital, indicates that he is working in Paris to bring the left together with the socialists, the ecologists, and Danielle Simonnet's Après party, who currently sits on the opposition benches. "We have a duty to unite" to respond to the aspirations of Parisians, "attached to social justice and the ecologists."

The other PCF spokesperson, Léon Deffontaines, leader of the communists in Amiens, is trying to unite progressive forces in the capital of the Somme and intends to make it a model. "Amiens can become the Hénin-Beaumont of the left, an alternative to the far right," a symbol in a department where the far right has three deputies. In addition to Amiens, the PCF intends to be at the forefront of bringing Nîmes and Tarbes back into the hands of the left. At the forefront of the fight against the right and the far right.