With 10 days left until Round One of the French Presidential election, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen still hold the all-important top two positions according to the latest polls. However, the outcome isn't as certain as it seemed a few weeks ago.
As Macron, Le Pen, and Fillon let their campaigns drift aimlessly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's campaign gathered momentum and surged into third place. Some of the latest polls have him tied with Fillon. Others put him ahead.
Mélenchon's Parti de Gauche (Left Party) stands to the Left of the Socialists which means that the Anglo-Saxon press, particularly in the US, has no idea what to make of him. ‘He's making the markets nervous’ is one of their favorite themes when they cover Mélenchon, if they cover him at all. The more heavy-handed throw in the epithet, 'communist,' too.
However, Mélenchon isn't running as a Left Party candidate in this election. Instead, he's running as the leader of a new movement, 'La France Insoumise.'
The phrase is hard to translate into English without losing something. Take it from a loyal Mélenchoniste who speaks English. 'Disobedient France' is as close as it gets to 'La France Insoumise.' It sounds enough like the English phrase 'civil disobedience' so that the political context is easily recognized and understood.
France 24 ran an article today that that catalogued a number of awkward translations found in the media:
- Unsubmissive France
- Indomitable France,
- Untamed France,
- Rebellious France,
- Unbowed France
Mélenchon is a gifted orator and his explanation is the best. In this short clip, he defines the Left and explains why it would be nothing without women. It’s in French with English subtitles.
Here’s a transcript of the video content in English:
“Here, the starting point is that we need hard heads. Stubborn people who don't give up, or accept the order of things. People who don't say they have no other choice. There's always another choice.
The disobedient, the rebellious, the people who have not resigned themselves, however they refuse resignation. Whether it's the woman or man, who stands up against the social conditions they were dealt, or the ones who don't hesitate to give a hand to people left abandoned in the street, or the ones who take part with others in labor union strikes, or the ones who resist just by keeping their lives and their families together instead of giving in to demoralization after setbacks.
The disobedient are the salt of the earth. Defiance is the foundation upon which everything is based.
It's good to be in Rennes, because it's one of the places where people have had the hardest heads against the El-Khomri law. (The El-Khomri Law, named for the Labor Minister who sponsored it, reversed decades of progress achieved by labor unions. The applause is for local efforts to defeat the measure.)
I can begin by saying that if you elect me, the El-Khomri law will be abolished, and you will have won. You will have had the last word. No need to go grumble in a corner because you don't believe in anything anymore. You demonstrated, you were in the fight, you also lost days of pay by going on strike.
Your ballot will continue your efforts which for the moment have not succeeded but they can succeed in a month, if you want it. Make your decision!
Ah! I have a present for you. You may have heard that I spent 5 hours at the agricultural fair. I went to see a farm that exemplifies what I believe in, namely a break with factory farming. There were farmers at the fair, who exhibited how they broke with factory farming. And I went to a farm where I was shown how it could work.
Then I went to the book fair. Since it's well-known that I read, they offered me truckloads of books. Now I have something to read until the end of my days, and even beyond. I'll continue on the other side if it's necessary.
I brought something back for you, because it concerns you. It's a comic book, and it was drawn by a woman, Laëtitia Rouxel. You know It's important for the next generations to have coeducation for all. Everyone knows that there are heroes, and heroines with whom we can identify. Boys, you all have someone to identify with. Girls, who are the role models offered to them, apart from Snow White?
Women, don't you know, it's women who trigger revolutions. Don't you know? Yes, it is! Yes, it is!
When they lose women, the powers that be lose everything. Has anyone here heard of the 1917 Revolution? A few? It was women who took the whole system down.
Off they went to demonstrate on International Women's Day. One day, then two days, then three days. On the third day, a Kossack pulled out his revolver, another pulled out his, and he fired on the first.
At that moment, everything fell through. The government collapsed. It was defeated. On the list of the dead of that day, there were girls no more than five feet tall.
They challenged armed men who towered over them on horseback. It took courage to do that.
The same goes for the Revolution of 1789, which would never have been what it was without the women who marched on Versailles looking for the King.
So I recommend to you, since I'm here in Brittany, the biography of a Breton woman, Nathalie Lemel, a communard and partner in combat of Louise Michel.
This is a superb comic book that teaches you about the adventure and misery there was in the struggle for a dignified life and how women carried it forward.
Give it to everyone but first to the boys so that they understand.