“I am told caricatural, yes, because the situation is caricatural”: Jean-Luc Mélenchon ridiculed inequalities and “crisis profiteers”, Sunday in front of some 8,000 sympathizers in Montpellier, setting out his plan for a government “by needs” .
As at each meeting of the Insoumis, several members of parliament from the People’s Union made the introduction by recounting their struggles, which once morest the “breaking of the public hospital”, which once morest the “violent police”, which once morest “climate inaction”.
With these speeches, Jean-Luc Mélenchon notably praised several highly symbolic “takes” for the left, such as the “yellow vest” jostled in Nice in 2019 Geneviève Legay, the climate activist Alma Dufour and the former head of the Young environmentalists Claire Lejeune.
“We are rich in all these struggles which have concerned millions of citizens”, exclaimed the president of the Parliament of the campaign, Aurélie Trouvou, former spokesperson for Attac.
Surprise this time, a clip that the Cameroonian rapper Valsero sent spontaneously to the Insoumis was broadcast, to give life to the 8,000 people who came to fill, according to LFI, a soulless Arena Sud de France. “They present Mélenchon as a leftist without lucidity, so that in the end Macron benefits from the vote of the French”, he chants, calling to vote for the tribune.
– “Assist class” –
The latter, at the head of a scattered left in the polls but at several points of voting intentions in the second round, then delivered a speech centered on inequalities, a unifying theme capable of activating the useful vote.
“Them, they governed by the goods, we will govern by the needs”, he proclaimed.
“Them”, they are “the class of assisted people” that the “French capitalists” are according to him: “The deficit of the State is 140 billion euros. It is equal to the sums that we have given capital this year” via the CICE, the research tax credit, the abolition of the ISF and other gestures towards companies, he said.
Mr. Mélenchon described at length, often with irony and jubilation, what he calls the “crisis profiteers”, the holders of the great fortunes: “The French billionaires are 109 in number, and do not think that it will increase in the so much so that there are 68 million!”
He gave other figures, arousing angry exclamations from the public: “French billionaires have earned 236 billion euros in 19 months, that is to say 12 billion per month, 414 million per day, 17 million per hour, 287,000 euros per minute, 4,790 per second”.
And he gave as an example the payrolls among the lowest: “home help / household help on average 680 euros per month, maintenance worker 766 euros per month, cashier 859 euros per month …”
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon, what is “accumulated in one place is not distributed to others. I am told + you are caricatural +, yes, because the situation is caricatural”.
He presented his solutions, in particular the creation of one million public jobs, 100% taxation of the part of an inheritance exceeding 12 million euros, a young student allowance of 1,065 euros or the investment of 200 billion euros in the “ecological bifurcation”.
He concluded: “If you want, in two months, the minimum wage will be 1,400 euros per month. If you don’t want to, vote Macron”.
