"It's Everest in flip-flops that we'll have to climb several times": François Ruffin launches his new movement, "Debout", with 2027 in his sights

On Saturday in Paris, Somme MP François Ruffin launched his new Debout! movement, a national offshoot of his micro-party, Picardie Debout, with the intention of structuring itself to influence the left in the 2027 presidential election.

Launched in 2017, François Ruffin's small party became, by its name, almost antithetical to François Ruffin's national ambitions.

"It's Everest that we're going to have to climb several times in flip-flops," warned the former deputy of La France Insoumise, in front of around 200 activists and supporters . "But when has it ever been easy? When has it not been David versus Goliath for the left?" he asked.

Its niche remains the same: to address the working and middle classes of France, denouncing globalization and the elites, in order to win back former left-wing voters who have moved to the far right, particularly in peri-urban and rural areas.

"There's a psychological motive in our leaders; they want to make the country suffer, they want to make the people suffer," the Picard accused. "When we talk about the left, we have something that risks becoming an oxymoron. The people are the arbiter of the nation. It's like the referee in football; even when he's wrong, you have to understand his reasons," he warned. And this fervent supporter of the Yellow Vests emphasized: " When the beautiful word ecology becomes the most hated in the country, it must be noted."

Baumel and Corbière at the meeting

A figure of the left-wing union, engaged in a process (still to be constructed) of a primary for the presidential election, François Ruffin could notably count on the presence on Saturday of the socialist deputy Laurent Baumel , of the deputy Alexis Corbière - also a former rebel who currently sits with the Ecologists in the Assembly - or of the former communist deputy Sébastien Jumel .

Taking care to recall the importance of the fight against climate change and for the rights of LGBT+ people on this day of pride, François Ruffin also called upon his references in terms of popular mobilizations: the demonstrations against Alain Juppé in 1995 or the French Revolution, "birth certificate of the French left."

Finally, to underline the importance of direct democracy, one of those metaphors he loves so much: "Making love once every five years is not a sexual life. Voting once every five years is not a democratic life."