A hundred artists called on left-wing candidates to participate in the popular primary. You who do not wish to be associated with it, what do you think of this initiative?
I am shocked by the violence of these processes, like putting Mr. Jadot, Mrs. Hidalgo or myself as candidates against our will. I say no more. Three hundred thousand people sponsor me, dozens of trade unionists and personalities. So I don’t feel concerned by this initiative.
Faced with inflation, you propose freezing food prices. How to defend this measure and fair remuneration for producers?
There is no contradiction. For one euro that the consumer spends, 8 cents…
A hundred artists called on left-wing candidates to participate in the popular primary. You who do not wish to be associated with it, what do you think of this initiative?
I am shocked by the violence of these processes, like putting Mr. Jadot, Mrs. Hidalgo or myself as candidates against our will. I say no more. Three hundred thousand people sponsor me, dozens of trade unionists and personalities. So I don’t feel concerned by this initiative.
Faced with inflation, you propose freezing food prices. How to defend this measure and fair remuneration for producers?
There is no contradiction. For every euro spent by the consumer, 8 cents go to the farmer. The blockage will therefore be passed on to large retailers, which will lower their margins. We will apply a multiplier that will limit by how much she can multiply the actual cost of production for sale. And there will be no selling at a loss. Price blocking has already been done by Michel Rocard in 1991 on fuels and by Emmanuel Macron in 2020 on masks and hydroalcoholic gel.
Organic products are more expensive. How to make them more accessible?
Wages must be increased to be able to pay for organic. The agricultural model must change from A to Z. The current one has exhausted the land and contaminated 99% of French people with pesticides. I want to abolish the ministry of agriculture and replace it with a ministry of food production. Producing anything for the global market is over. We must produce well to eat everyone and eat better.
In the South-West, poultry farmers are confronted with avian influenza. What do you offer them?
This is the fourth wave of bird flu. Hyperintensive farming, beyond animal suffering, facilitates zoonoses, that is to say the passage of viruses from wild animals to domestic animals and then to human beings. They must be banned. For the moment, in France, there is no example of passage of the avian influenza virus to the human being, but in Asia yes. Producers need to convert. The state must fund it.
Faced with soaring energy prices, the government has implemented a tariff shield. Has the opening of the energy market to competition reached its limits?
The demonstration is made that the market creates chaos.
Emmanuel Macron proposes to bet on nuclear power with the development of mini-reactors…
Nuclear does not make us independent. We have no uranium in France. We will look for it in Kazakhstan, whose regime has shown its limits, or in Niger. By 2030, nuclear will be more expensive than other energy sources. I will restore our energy independence thanks to energies at sea or hydraulics on rivers. Macron wants to install mini nuclear reactors? But who will want it near home?
Wind power is also controversial…
Onshore wind is struggling to be accepted. And people are right to consider the beauty of a landscape important. But in the bay of Saint-Nazaire where the first models of offshore wind turbines were installed, there are no problems. They are offshore. The sea contains 64 times the energy we need on land. It is unavoidable.
You plead for a rise in the minimum wage. But what about other salaries?
We have 9 million poor people and 8 million people on food aid. We cannot live on the current income. In France, five people hold as much as 27 million. We must therefore share the wealth. I am for raising the minimum wage to 1,400 euros net. As for other wages, I will urgently call the mandatory annual negotiations with two adjustments: they will take place at branch level and not at company level and must be conclusive. It will also be necessary to block rents.
One of the markers of the left is public spending. Is Emmanuel Macron’s “whatever it costs” a left-wing approach?
It was not the market but the state that saved the economy. It is thanks to the financing of technical unemployment that the productive apparatus has not collapsed. Mr. Macron discovered a fairly classic Keynesianism.
The government maintains that the debt will have to be repaid “whatever it costs”…
It’s absurd. How to repay the debt? With 10 billion euros of budget surplus each year, it would take 270 years. With 1.5% growth, 248 years. Claiming that we will one day repay this debt is just a pretext to reduce state intervention. Yet it is the most powerful lever for development. My proposal: cancel the debt already bought by the European Central Bank. No private saver would be harmed.
Does the health crisis prove that there is an alternative to austerity?
Austerity serves no purpose except to spread unhappiness. I am asked how much my program costs, I will answer them. But what is the cost of unhappiness? How much does it cost to raise the retirement age for health? I will reinstate retirement at age 60.
Can a presidential candidate say “The Republic is me” or “my person is sacred”?
The proof ! These two formulas were very successful, we made t-shirts and mugs out of them. As the President of the National Assembly recalled recently about the death threats that weighed on the deputies, the elected officials are statutorily inviolable. These two sentences recalled in a moment of great tension the founding principles of the republican state.
On Saturday, you questioned a polling institute claiming that it was linked to the head of state, which is false. Since you deleted this tweet. An error or you fear manipulation?
A survey that forgets to specify that it excludes from its result all those who are not 100% sure of going to vote 3 months before is in my eyes a manipulation. It expresses the dream of an election from which today’s very hesitant popular circles would exclude themselves.
At a meeting in Bordeaux on Monday
Jean-Luc Mélenchon will be meeting in Bordeaux at the Théâtre Fémina on Monday at 7:30 p.m.