Just over a month after being removed from the government, Arnaud Montebourg, the former economy minister, has emerged from a brief period of silence to continue his attack on the government's “austerity” policy. In particular he has criticised the government's “obstinate” attempt to meet budget deficit targets which he says has become a“kind of obsessional cult”. The former education minister Benoît Hamon, who made it clear he did not want to join the new government formed by prime minister Manuel Valls at the end of August, has meanwhile regretted the government's “unkept promises” since it was voted into power in 2012 and attacked what he called the “dismantling of the state”.
Now, in an exclusive interview with Mediapart, it is the turn of Aurélie Filippetti, the former culture minister who, too, made it clear that she did not wish to be a part of the new administration, to have her say. Her decision to leave the ministerial team was based on “conscience”, she says, and was one that she had “long considered” after the failure of the government’s economic policy, its botched handling of the Florange steelworks saga and the cuts forced on her own culture ministry. She portrays a president unable to resist either the “liberal orthodoxy” of the day or the technocrats in Brussels and France.
Having resumed her position as MP for Moselle in the north-east of France, Filippetti will sit on the National Assembly's finance committee where she hopes to change the government’s current focus on supply-side economics, by backing measures favouring a demand-led approach. “We can and we must carry out a real change in economic policy. There is still time to do it,” says Filippetti, who has also been irritated by some of the sexist comments she has attracted since the revelation of her relationship with Arnaud Montebourg.
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Mediapart: You left Manuel Valls' government at the end of August, writing a letter attacking the rejection of left-wing policies by the government. Do you regret this decision?
Aurélie Filippetti: Nothing that has happened since leads me to regret my decision, quite the contrary. I was not one of those ministers “without scruples” and gladly so. It's a decision that I had long considered and that I took for fundamental political reasons. It was a choice based on conscience. I had a series of disagreements and I thought that there needed to be some rapid changes in the policy being carried out to restore the trust of people on the Left. You should never forget who put you in charge. When I took this decision I thought that the conditions governing this trust were broken. I considered that I would better off on the outside, by regaining my ability to speak and act freely on the ground to represent a section of the Left. You can't think you're heading into a brick wall and then not try to do something to stop it.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Mediapart: Even so, you stayed a minister for two-and-a-half years. At what point did you think that you no longer belonged in the government?
A.F.: The Florange episode was a revelation [editor’s note, Aurélie Filippetti had supported the temporary nationalisation of the blast furnaces at Florange, which is in Moselle where she is an MP, and had publicly distanced herself from then prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was opposed] but it was too soon. When you agree to ministerial office you have to accept things and know how to grit your teeth for a certain time, and the cultural issues I was dealing with meant a lot to me: a plan to help bookshops, cultural exception [editor's note, l’exception culturelle is the idea that, in relation to trade issues, cultural output such as films or television should not be treated in the same way as other commercial products; it is widely seen as allowing France to protect its culture industry from, for example, American TV, film and other cultural output], the law on broadcasting independence and getting more women nominated in the world of culture.
It's not easy to take the decision to leave, even when you have profound doubts. You have to decide at the right moment; and the discussion about the economic line was such a moment. This debate should have been able to take place inside government, for the simple reason that it was taking place everywhere, in the country, in Europe and among economists. It should have led to changes.
I was the minister who had to accept – and it's the role of a minister to accept a collective decision even if they have fought against it – a reduction in the culture budget of 6% over two years, 4% of which was in the first year. It was a very serious decision and an unnecessary one. Culture represents 0.75% of the state budget; so that’s not how you reduce deficits. Culture should have been left intact because it's a symbol and is one of France's strengths. It was an early symptom of the policy of austerity that has pushed France, and Europe too, into a situation of economic gridlock.
Mediapart: The decision on the culture budget was taken quite quickly after François Hollande's election...
A.F.: It was taken straight away.
Mediapart: Was the change of direction of Hollande's administration towards supply-side economics and a focus on reducing the public deficit carried out immediately, from May 6th, 2012, the date Hollande was elected?
A.F.: The issue of reducing the deficit was there in the election campaign. But the pact of trust and hope with the people on the Left - which was the only pact that should have been pursued – didn't just boil down to this one issue. It should not have become a mantra.
Mediapart: You were in François Hollande's campaign team, you were even his spokeswoman. Did you not see any sign of this coming? Is this political change the consequence of a crisis more serious than the presidency had foreseen, or does it in fact reveal the head of state's true convictions?
A.F.: The orthodoxy of liberal ideology exercises an extremely strong pressure on all governments. Just as technocracy does. And I'm not just speaking about the technocracy in Brussels but also the one that exists in France. It's very difficult to resist this pressure. You need a very strong political will. Faced with the prevailing view that presents austerity as the only solution, we needed to be more imaginative.
Unfortunately, even if there was the jobs for the future [contract] and notable efforts in national education and the justice system, the priority was to try to convince the markets rather than the people. Our electorate was disoriented. And saw no results. On unemployment the situation in fact got worse. That's an absolute tragedy. Because a reduction in unemployment can allow growth to return and thus bring money into the coffers to reduce the deficit.
Mediapart: But you were one of those who supported François Hollande right from the Socialist Party primary in 2011, and when you were a minister you were one of those who defended replacing former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault with Manuel Valls in March 2014. How are these choices consistent with what you are saying now?
A.F.: I believed François Hollande was in the best position to win in the primary and against [editor’s note, former president] Nicolas Sarkozy, and to give back confidence to those who sought a real change. And that is what happened. He won the election. His position was to bring people together, and I appreciated the natural way he took on the presidential mantle. The idea of a 'normal president' was wrongly interpreted, but I found his wish to demythologise attitudes to power very healthy. His aspiration to be president of the Republic did not prevent him from being clear-eyed about himself, something to be welcomed in a political world that is often tainted by the myth of a providential leader. He surrounded himself with motivated, politically-committed people, not with technocrats who are cut off from the world.
As for Manuel Valls, he played a crucial role in the presidential campaign. He was the lynchpin of it. After nearly two years in power we were going through a real crisis in the way the government functioned, which called for a major change; we needed a person with both charisma and authority, someone who could bring together the various sections of the Left. The composition of the first Valls government [editor's note, from 31st March, 2014], with Benoît Hamon [editor's note, who is regarded as on the left of the Socialist Party] at education, for example, showed that the cards had been reshuffled and that all the various socialist strands were represented.
Mediapart: But the greens had left. Does that mean you were one of those who thought that even if Manuel Valls was on the right of the Socialist Party, he would have the tactical intelligence the situation required?
A.F.: Yes. And that he would be able to understand the discontent and, to be precise, act in ways he was not expected to. And to be the vehicle for a fundamental change of direction. The government functioned more efficiently straight away. But as for the political line, it wasn't what was expected. However, before I left I did manage to protect the culture budget and culture jobs for the next three years.
Mediapart: Has François Hollande's election campaign speech at Le Bourget in January 2012, in which he said his real opponent was “finance”, been betrayed?
A.F.: The speech at Le Bourget showed that you could be elected President of the Republic in 2012 on a left-wing programme. That means we do not have to apologise for being on the left. Or to seek to give guarantees to those who advocate a very ideological, neo-liberal view of the world and who have other representatives in politics. I often hear that the Left is not in a majority in this country. But it was in 2012. We should take our inspiration from economists, researchers, civil society and grass-roots participation to find new economic solutions that can become the Left's responses. Neo-liberal formulas have proven their harmfulness.
Mediapart: So François Hollande has betrayed the speech at Le Bourget?
A.F.: The speech at Le Bourget seems to have been forgotten.
Mediapart: While you were culture minister your budget was cut and entertainment workers who work intermittently demonstrated against the imposition of new conditions for them to be able to claim unemployment benefit. You disagreed with the government on both these points. Why did you lose these negotiations?
A.F.: Bercy [editor’s note, the finance ministry] launched a very strong attack on the culture ministry's budget. I also opposed MEDEF's[editor's note, the French employers’ federation] attack on entertainment workers.
Mediapart: But did you fight hard enough? Or were you also caught up in the technocratic machine you are criticising now?
A.F.: I fought very hard on the inside. I tried to do so as long as possible while maintaining the greatest possible loyalty. I tried to influence decisions without having to express disagreement publicly. That was my conception of being a minister: to fight to the end, and only seek media coverage at the last minute.
Mediapart: Now you are an MP again, you want to represent a "part of the Left". In your resignation letter from the government you talked of a "policy that is realistic but on the left". What is this Left?
A.F.: Being on the Left means ensuring equality between all citizens. This is not only an aim, but also a starting point. And the idea that the success of individuals is the result of a collective effort. Society is not the enemy of individuals but one of the levers by which they can flourish. Therefore we need to give each person the means to find their way in society. That involves redistributive policies, and promoting values that are not solely materialistic but also humanistic, with culture and education as priorities.
Mediapart: But your former government colleagues say that the redistributive Left belongs to the 20th century, that it is no longer appropriate to the world we live in, and that the electorate doesn't want it any more since they vote for the Right or the far right rather than for the left of the Left.
A.F.: But the electorate voted for that in 2012! That was the Left of 2012. If people are turning to the Front National today, it's more in defiance of established political positions than because they agree with its proposals. Their solutions are dead-ends, everyone knows that. The FN vote is a very harsh criticism of the betrayal of trust in politics. To succeed, we need trust and innovative solutions.
As for this accusation of being stuck in the past, it is itself very ideological. A fair economic balance is a modern ideal. By contrast, you could say that neo-liberalism without borders is an economic vision from the 19th century. Take an example: comparing Amazon's destructive, monopolistic business model, which hundreds of authors criticised vocally this summer, and a varied, plentiful, regionalised network of bookshops, the most modern and the most pertinent model is not necessarily the one you would expect. Distributing films on the internet is good, but participating in financing their creation is what has allowed the French film industry to be the second largest in the world.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Mediapart: You have gone back to being a member of the National Assembly's finance committee What do you think of the 2015 budget presented last week, which you will be examining?
A.F.: In Europe we're in a deep recession because of austerity policies. In this budget there has been a very slight re-orientation on the rate of deficit reduction. But the so-called supply-side policy is still the only guiding force. There is clearly a lack on the demand side, which is currently completely at a standstill. We are giving 12 billion [euros] to companies and 3 billion [euros] to households: there is not enough rebalancing. I will support some amendments that move in this direction.
Mediapart: The ones to be put forward by the so-called rebels?
A.F.: My voting will be free. I work a great deal with Pierre-Alain Muet, who backed the vote of confidence but nevertheless has a strong position on economic policy. I will vote with my conscience and, most of all, keep in mind my responsibility to my electors.
Mediapart: Would you have supported the confidence vote?
A.F.: The question didn't arise. I had not yet become an MP again. I gave my views on August 25th, and in a strong enough way, I think, when I left the government.
Mediapart: Do you think your electors want you to defend a re-orientation without breaking with the government?
A.F.: Voters, including young people, are discontented, disconcerted and even disillusioned. They expect results in terms of jobs and want to be able to believe what politicians say. We can and must put into practice a real change in economic policy – what I call a change of direction in mid-flight. There is still time to do this. Everything is possible.
Mediapart: But François Hollande and Manuel Valls have shut down the debate...
A.F.: The National Assembly has a role to play. There is life within the Socialist group: it is very turbulent, and that's very healthy! We cannot remain deaf to what people are saying to us everywhere, all the time. That must be reflected within the majority. It is very useful. Otherwise we would be dealing with a Potemkin syndrome. Government solidarity should end at the doors of the National Assembly.
We must also go back to working for institutional change. We need a Sixth Republic with a less monarchic allocation of power. The system of a diarchy at the summit of government [editor’s note, under the current Fifth Republic the president and the prime minister in effect rule together, even if the president ultimately has far more power], which borders on Kafkaesque absurdity, has run out of steam. We need a more horizontal power structure, and more structured checks and balances.
Mediapart: Is this institutional structure one of the reasons this five-year presidential term faltered early on?
A.F.: François Hollande is a victim of the way power is ultra-personalised under the Fifth Republic. It does not reflect his personal way of being. But someone who has been given the powers of President of the Republic tends to want to exercise them and to seek refuge in them. You allow yourself to be taken over by this mechanism, and it is very difficult to escape from it. So an institutional change is needed so you don't have to rely on individual 'virtue', as philosophers say.
Mediapart: Revelations of your relationship with Arnaud Montebourg led to a sexist reinterpretation of your departure from the government according to which you had simply followed him...
A.F.: I won't allow this interpretation to stand. I have been an MP for Moselle since 2007. I have been in politics for 15 years and I have won parliamentary and regional elections and local elections in Metz together with the mayor, Dominique Gros. I explained the reasons for my departure very clearly in a letter that I made public. It is regrettable that we still see these attitudes to women in politics, but sexism is also a very useful way of avoiding the embarrassing questions I put in the letter, to which I have had no response. So it is up to us to invent the new responses that the Left needs.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Sue Landau and Michael Streeter