French President Emmanuel Macron has decided to dissolve the National Assembly and to call for new elections, which comes as his reaction to the massive loss suffered by his party in the European elections, and in a last ditch effort to save his presidency. Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité & Progrès Party, has chosen to run in the 11th district of the French Citizens Abroad, an electoral district which includes China and Russia, and 47 other countries of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Today Cheminade released his campaign announcement statement:
Declaration of Candidacy, Paris, June 15, 2024
‘Détente, Understanding and Cooperation’—From the Atlantic to the Sea of China
by Jacques Cheminade
Let me go straight to the point. If I’m running for your constituency, it’s because it represents a decisive stake for world peace and for our country. It stretches from the far north to Australia, via China, which is a good thing, because it’s on this scale that we have to rise to the challenge.
We live under the immediate threat of war. By striking the Russian early warning missile defense systems at Armavir and Orsk, NATO crossed a red line. By organizing D-Day in Normandy on June 6, Emmanuel Macron welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskyy and excluded Russian representatives, which is not in the interests of the Russian or Ukrainian people, but in the interests of all those who fish in troubled waters who are playing poker with our lives. This is a senseless provocation at a time when France should be mediating and inspiring a policy of peace to regain its lost grandeur and influence.
In his time, Charles de Gaulle fought for a policy of “détente, understanding and cooperation.” It is more necessary than ever to prevent “humanity from annihilating itself in monstrous destruction.” Unfortunately, I can see no other candidate who is equal to the task. Voting for my idea of France means sending a decisive “political” missile to help our country pull itself together. What we’re talking about is a new Liberation of our country, for it is occupied by a financial and cultural oligarchy that is destroying it.
Today, I am fighting first and foremost for a foreign policy that no longer depends on those who have seized power in Washington, but, in the name of our national sovereignty, works in harmony with the countries of the Global South and the BRICS-Plus, that intend to ensure that their own sovereignty is respected. I support their initiatives, particularly China’s, for a win-win international system. It’s not a question of rallying to anyone, but of getting along with the forces rising up in the world. I’ll be fighting for a liberated France to be present in Kazan on October 22-24, without Emmanuel Macron, of course.
It’s a question of participating in a new architecture of mutual security and development in the world, to the advantage of each country and in the image of the principles of the Treaty of Westphalia. Leaving no one by the wayside, neither large nor “small” countries, as I said back in 1995, from the Atlantic to the China Sea. President Xi Jinping’s three Initiatives are a good place to start. India, a member of the BRICS with almost 20% of the world’s population, is an essential complement to this Global South. Vietnam is dear to our hearts. Australia must become an essential pivot.
In Ukraine, as in the Middle East, I call for an end to the fighting through negotiation and reconstruction. France must no longer supply arms to Ukraine, nor interfere in its territory. I find it criminal of NATO to hand Ukrainians over to death in a proxy war that will inevitably be lost. I condemn its continued extension towards Russia’s borders, which led to President Putin’s intervention. Our task is not to justify it, but to understand it. Our President has become a warmonger, Raphaël Glucksmann has always been a warmonger and Jordan Bardella has joined NATO. I’m in favor of the peace plan that Presidents Lula and Xi Jinping have just presented. So I’m in favor of dissolving NATO, which has become the armed wing of the City of London, Wall Street and the Anglo-American services. I have nothing against the United States as a nation, but everything against the military-financial forces that occupy it. I’m in favor of an alliance between the workers and citizens of the North and the peoples of the Global South. With the Schiller Institute, an international organization of which I am an active member, I am making every effort to achieve this.
To carry out this policy, I will re-establish a Ministry of Foreign Affairs worthy of the name, and support our network of Institutes and Alliances françaises, as well as our corporate expatriates—in other words, all those involved in the new international development architecture. It’s time to put in place the human and financial resources that our policy must have.
Liberated from the forces that oppress us, we will then be able to re-establish a just social order in our country, and a policy of rebirth of public services: hospitals, schools, nurseries, laboratories, and an industrial policy that respects the production and value chains that carry our economy within our borders and beyond.
As a patriot and citizen of the world, I will be the sword—or laser, as we would say today—putting pressure on those who no longer believe in our sovereignty. The French are a strong people, but they don’t know it. I intend to play a part in our awakening, thanks to you who, aware of our potential influence in the world, intend to contribute to it. Help me to help a France where we will no longer have reason to be pessimistic, because we will be thinking with the eyes of the future.
