ArcelorMittal: the specter of Florange haunts the union of the left

A few hours before socialist elected officials were targeted in Paris during the May Day parade, a nearly united left-wing movement demonstrated in Dunkirk in support of ArcelorMittal employees . Several hundred people gathered at the call of the CGT to protest against the steel giant's plan to cut around 600 jobs at its sites in the north and east of France, the majority of which were in the port city. Among the protesters: Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist Party; Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the Ecologists; Fabien Roussel, the leader of the Communist Party; and the deputies of the ecologist group François Ruffin and Benjamin Lucas, all calling for state intervention.

This joint mobilization comes at a time when the supporters of the unity movement are trying to build a united path. After a call for the organization of a primary launched by Lucie Castets in Libération , a Harris Interactive poll published by the left-wing magazine Regards came to comfort the unity movement by showing that united, the left could reach the second round .

"It's a left united on substance," François Ruffin rejoiced in Dunkirk. With one exception: no rebels were among the signatories of the joint statement published on April 30. The president of the Economic Affairs Committee, Aurélie Trouvé, and MPs Aurélien Le Coq and Gabrielle Cathala were present in the procession, but the movement was not involved in the procession. "It was published without being proposed to us," reacted Manuel Bompard, the coordinator of France Insoumise.

Dov Alfon's editorial

For several weeks, François Ruffin, Marine Tondelier, and Fabien Roussel, all elected officials in Hauts-de-France, have been following the issue. The national secretary of the Ecologists, who campaigns for a broad union and is in constant contact with Olivier Faure, had discussed it with her socialist counterpart. A few days before the demonstration, the Somme MP therefore suggested that his partners co-sign a press release that he offered to draft. "He told me he didn't know the rebels would come," says one of the signatories . "I myself saw that Aurélie Trouvé was coming the night before." Since the dissolution and brutal ouster of rebel figures during the 2024 legislative elections, the founder of Fakir and the rebel leadership have had no contact, apart from attacks through the media. Marine Tondelier, who is campaigning for a broad union of the left, including the rebels, is annoyed: "I find it exhausting, we're here for the employees and we end up talking about the scope of the press release, it's indecent."

Jean-Luc Mélenchon's troops, for their part, took the opportunity to mark their difference from the rest of the left, and in particular the Socialists, who were brought back by Hollande's five-year term. "Will Macron betray Dunkirk like Sarkozy betrayed Gandrange, like Hollande betrayed Florange?" asked Aurélie Trouvé.

The Florange trauma is still fresh, seen as a manifestation of the Socialist Party's renunciations. On February 24, 2012, presidential candidate François Hollande, perched on the roof of a van, promised ArcelorMittal workers fighting against the closure of the Florange blast furnaces that once elected, he would pass a law to force Mittal to keep its two blast furnaces, or sell all of its factories in the valley. A year later, the fate of the blast furnaces was sealed, and Arnaud Montebourg, then Minister for Industrial Recovery, who had advocated for temporary nationalization, lost the Élysée arbitration. His special advisor at the time was Boris Vallaud, who would later join François Hollande as Secretary General of the Élysée. He now chairs the Socialist group in the National Assembly and plans to run against Olivier Faure for the leadership of the party. On Thursday, François Ruffin, who has consistently denounced the Socialists, stood alongside Vallaud and Faure. A sign of their rehabilitation?