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French Communist Office: “Does Anyone Live Here Anymore?”
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After supporting Jean-Luc Melenchon in the presidential polls, communists in France have gone their own way in elections to the National Assembly by contesting against him.
By Saeed Naqvi
Imagination conjures up sounds of the organ as I stand in the shadow of that brooding architectural wonder. It feels like I am at a service for the repose of the dead.
I am brought back suddenly, as in an abrupt Bunuel sequence, by a bearded, kindly looking receptionist, directing me almost in slow motion, towards the elevator to the fifth floor where Laurent Perea, from the International Department of the French Communist Party, a tall, burly man, ushers me into a room, which overlooks a terrace with puddles and bird dropping and torn awnings.
Intimations of mortality are not in the DNA of political parties – unlike, human beings. When the great Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, builder of Brasilia, set about diligently building the iconic headquarters of the Communist Party of France, from 1967 to 1981, he was firmly in possession of the party’s self-esteem. The great Georges Marchais was the party General Secretary towards the end of the architectural enterprise. The nine-floor giant arc, dominates Place du Colonel Fabien, a legendary figure of French resistance against the Nazis. Nearby, to this day surprisingly, is the Stalingrad square.
Faded associations came alive suddenly when the Left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, sprinted so fast on the straight that he found himself among the top four candidates. He was a rank outsider. And yet, 600,000 more votes and he would have been among the two candidates for the crucial run-off. French history could have taken a turn.
Well, the cookie crumbled differently. A 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron mostly old wine in a new, opaque bottle, won. He heads a movement, En Marche, March Forward but does not have a party. Come the critical June 10, elections to the 577-member National Assembly, all the defeated parties with residual cadres will rush to help Macron block Marine Le Pen, who does have motivated cadres in the drill for far-right politics.
To use a football image, does Melenchon have to be “marked” in the assembly elections? He is fielding candidates in most of the constituencies. Most people outside France appear not to have registered a cardinal point: the French Communist Party (CPF) is also running helter skelter to field as many candidates as Melenchon.
How have cooperative relations during the presidential election given way to conflict? There are deep differences in interpreting the mandate. Melenchon believes the 19.6 per cent vote he received as presidential candidate should be credited to him. The party places some of the credit at the door of its cadres.
It is a complicated tussle. Let me explain. There are, for instance, 101 “departments” – a department is greater than a district and smaller than a state.
Laurent Perea, who greeted me on the fifth floor, happens to be the Mayor in Dordogne which has four assembly seats. Melenchon insists his influence in Dordogne is paramount and therefore all four seats must go to him. CPF says they should split two seats each. At this level of bickering, talks between Melenchon and CPF collapsed last week.
The appeal of Melenchon, like that of Pablo Iglesias of Podemos in Spain, comes not from having timidly followed some party discipline but for pitching it audaciously for unambiguous change, within the Left framework but innovatively, without being hemmed in by rules.
In the Indian context, if, say Kanhaiya Kumar, the former president of the JNU students’ union, were to break loose from CPI affiliations, he would have the Pablo Iglesias-Melenchon potential. By universal consent, Melenchon is the best speaker in French public life. Kanhaiya Kumar, likewise, has left even right-wing audiences mesmerised by this oratory.
Rather than stride along the straight and narrow, Melenchon projected himself as a friend of the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela; he incorporates into his rhetoric Cuba, the Bolivarian revolution. While the romance was on, CPF tolerated Melenchon’s Bolivarian flourishes. But today the comrade from Pondicherry, P. Dassardane openly chastises President Maduro’s “dictatorship”. Forgotten are the “machinations of US imperialism” against the Venezuelan revolution.
With this level of hostility between the party and the candidate, even their respective sympathisers are not expecting more than a handful of members in the Assembly.
If Melenchon ends up with respectable double digit figures in the House, it will be to the credit of La France Insoumise or Unbowing France which he launched late last year. The one lakh CPF membership was called into urgent session to consider the critical issue: should CPF support Melenchon? Party secretary-general, Pierre Laurent threw his vote behind Unbowing France. Never did he suspect that it was “Unbowing” Melenchon the party was supporting.
Should Melenchon zoom ahead of the party which once supported him, Pierre Laurent will, from the loneliness of the secretary-general’s room, once occupied by Marchais, contemplate the future of the party and the building.
Mirza Rafi Sauda’s description of a deserted palace, shares the mood of Shelley’s Ozymandias.
Sauda describes a voice echoing through the corridors:
“Does anyone live here anymore?”
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Suicide bombing near Turkey Parliament building in Ankara, 2 cops injured
Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has slammed the attack in Ankara and stated that terrorism is a crime against humanity.
Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya on Sunday asserted that two terrorists carried out a bomb attack in front of the ministry buildings in Ankara. He added that one of them died in the explosion and the other was “neutralised” by authorities there.
Earlier, Turkish media reported that an explosion was heard near the parliament and ministerial buildings, and broadcasters showed footage of debris scattered on a street near the Interior Ministry. A footage from Reuters showed soldiers, ambulances, fire trucks and an armoured vehicle gathered near the centre of Turkey’s capital, where the police have blocked multiple key roads.
Taking to social media X, formerly Twitter, Ali Yerlikaya, the interior minister, said that two police officers were slightly injured in the incident at 9:30 a.m. He added that two terrorists came with a light commercial vehicle in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of their Ministry of Internal Affairs and carried out a bomb attack.
The interior minister further mentioned that one of the terrorists blew himself up and the other was neutralised, which usually means was killed. He noted that their struggle will continue until the last terrorist is neutralised.
Reports said that Ankara’s chief prosecutor initiated an investigation into what it also called a terrorist attack. Authorities did not identify any specific militant group, as yet.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has slammed the attack in Ankara and stated that terrorism is a crime against humanity. The leader of the Republican People’s Party mentioned that no matter from whom and where it came from, they will fight it together as a country and will never give treacherous ambitions a chance.
The concerned authorities in Ankara have cautioned the citizens over suspicious packages and bags that are being detonated in a controlled manner. Ankara Security Directorate asked citizens not to panic.
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Balochistan blast: Pakistan alleges India’s involvement in suicide attack, toll rises to 60
Sarfaraz Bugti told media that civil, military and all other institution will jointly strike against the elements involved in the Mastung suicide bombing.
Pakistan interior minister Sarfaraz Bugti in a shocking claim alleged India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency for the suicide blast in Balochistan. The blast that took place on Friday claimed the lives of nearly 60 people, leaving 60 others injured. The Indian government, on the other hand, is yet to make an official statement on Sarfaraz Bugti’s allegations.
The suicide bomb attack targeted a procession which gathered to celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birthday near the Madina Masjid at a place called Mastung. The blast tore through the mosque in the southern province of Balochistan after the bomber denoted his explosive near a police vehicle where the people gathered for the procession.
Sarfaraz Bugti told media at Quetta that civil, military and all other institution will jointly strike against the elements involved in the Mastung suicide bombing. Without providing much details or evidence, the Pakistan minister claimed that RAW is involved in the suicide attack.
Wasim Baig, the spokesman for Balochistan’s health department, asserted that seven more people had died in hospital since Friday, which had caused the rise in the death toll. He added that more patients remained in critical condition.
In addition, a second attack on Friday at a mosque in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had killed nearly five people. Police on Saturday lodged a report to initiate an investigation, mentioning that they had sent DNA from the suicide bomb attacker to be analysed.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for either attack. A surge in terror attacks in Pakistan’s western provinces has cast a shadow on preparations and public campaigning in the run-up to January’s general elections, but until now the attacks had mostly targeted security forces.
The Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which is responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in Pakistan since the group’s formation in 2007, denied responsibility for Friday’s blasts. On Saturday, a statement from the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) said that an FIR with murder charges and terrorism offences has been registered against an unidentified attacker.
The caretaker government of Balochistan announced three days of mourning in the wake of the attack.
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Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Mahmood Qureshi held guilty in cipher case
The PTI leaders’ trial has been requested by the FIA, and it is expected that they would be sentenced in accordance with the law.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were found guilty on Saturday by Pakistan’s top investigating agency in the cypher case, a case involving the alleged exposure of state secrets.
The charge sheet against Khan, the Tehreek-e-Insaf party chairman, and Qureshi, who are both presently being held in custody on judicial remand, was submitted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to a special court set up under the Official Secrets Act, according to the Pakistan Observer website.
Imran Khan, 70, was detained last month following the filing of a complaint against him for allegedly breaking the Official Secrets Act by revealing a covert diplomatic cable (cypher) issued by the nation’s embassy in Washington last year in March.
The PTI leaders’ trial has been requested by the FIA, and it is expected that they would be sentenced in accordance with the law.
The vice chairman of PTI is 75-year-old Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Asad Umar, the former general secretary of the PTI, is not on the FIA’s list of suspects, but former principal secretary Azam Khan has been portrayed as a key witness in the FIA’s case against Imran Khan, according to GeoTV, a well-known news outlet. The challan also contains Azam Khan’s statement recorded under sections 161 and 164.
The speeches by Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Imran Khan from March 27 are also included in the FIA’s attachment.
The Pakistan Observer further noted that the FIA had provided the court with a list of 28 witnesses in addition to the charge sheet. According to the report, the list of witnesses includes names such as current foreign secretary Asad Majid, previous foreign secretary Sohail Mahmood, and additional foreign secretary Faisal Niaz Tirmizi.
Imran Khan had been imprisoned on remand three times earlier on September 26. Along with Qureshi, his judicial remand was initially extended until September 13 and then again until September 26.
The former PM was transferred from Attock prison to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on the same day, one day after the Islamabad High Court instructed authorities to do so.
