Nice Premium: Two days before the European elections, what does your list propose for these elections?
Jacques Gautron: For Europe, we particularly propose the establishment of a Constituent Assembly to end the Treaties of Nice and Lisbon, not to mention the one we refused. We need a new constitution guaranteeing freedom and instituting a system based on subsidiarity. What an individual, a family, a municipality, a department, a region, or a state can very well decide does not need Brussels bureaucrats to be implemented.
Jรฉrรดme Mรฉdeville: We propose that the economy no longer serves profit but serves humanity.
Citizens need to reappropriate politics and integrate the “higher spheres”. They must be relays and witnesses to what happens in parliaments and be able to report in real time what happens there thanks to the internet.
We also propose to change the ethics in politics. For example, we will give the
allowances of our elected officials to associations and citizen projects in our regions. (the fixed
expenses and reimbursements are so huge that we will be able to live and work).
And finally, we want to establish Etienne Chouard’s Plan C and his team’s, which would allow the establishment of a constituent assembly with randomly selected citizens. This assembly will
work to write the future European Constitution, and it will be validated by all European citizens (or not) by referendum, on the same day.
N-P: What kind of Europe do you aspire to?
J-M: A Europe that respects the cultural characteristics of each nation, which learns to speak with one voice internationally. It should try to harmonize wages, labor codes, and taxation. But also achieve economies of scale by pooling what is possible (a single army, for example).
A Europe that learns to take its time in opening its borders to neighboring
nations. It should no longer be a “hunting ground” for ultra-liberalism.
I would like a Europe that learns to welcome the less fortunate, which understands the cultural wealth and work force of foreigners.
And especially a Europe that places the economy at the service of humanity and the planet, not finance.
J-G: A Europe that essentially aims to guarantee our freedoms: freedom to travel, to undertake, to trade. An example among others: all parties are against the marketing of rosรฉ wine from blending; how can we refuse other countries to sell a wine because it is not the same as ours. How can we sell abroad our wine, which might very well be called “Provence rosรฉ wine” for example, and refuse that other wines enter France.
N-P: European elections often suffer from a high abstention rate, how do you explain this?
J-G: The major parties did not campaign, and the political class often blames Europe for everything that does not work well. Yet the few freedoms we enjoy we owe them to Europe, like the various deregulations in terms of energy and telecommunications. How much would we be paying for our telephone communications today if Europe had not demanded competition?
J-M: To get around, people need to want to go. So, you have to make them want to go.
The same old soup served by the major parties is too bland not to go rest after
a hard week.
That’s why the smaller lists are fighting to break through the media barrier, in order
to present their new ideas. In all these small movements, there are strong ideas
that will shape the politics of tomorrow, and common points that will allow us one
day to work together. The European elections have given us this platform to
begin exposing our ideas to the collective unconscious. It’s a start. They also allowed us the formation of a network and to gain legitimacy. By voting for small lists, people will allow new ideas to emerge.
N-P: What do you plan to do to ensure that citizens have a better vision of Europe?
J-M: Total transparency, reduction of all abuses: allowances, excessive operating expenses, outrageous travel, etc.
Involvement will be key, that is the ability for citizens to question the legitimacy
of the actions of elected officials, and the regular opportunity for these same citizens to provide their
opinion.
You will then see that citizens will take a closer interest in Europe and will be happy to contribute to it.
J-G: If we have elected officials, they will sit among the European liberals to make this group the first in Strasbourg, and to implement liberal solutions.
N-P: Finally, what do you think of the Lisbon Treaty?
J-G: It lacks the “Services” component, hence our idea to revisit everything through a constituent assembly composed of elected officials, not bureaucrats.
J-M: We are a movement of common sense, people have said “no” repeatedly and in several countries. Why insist? Why force it through? And yet the nations that
took the trouble to consult their citizens are unfortunately few. Where is the democracy?
Even the Maastricht Treaty is a horror allowing banks to monopolize
most of the creation of money…
Citizens did not say “no” for no reason. Some for extreme ideas, but the
major majority, because they understand that this treaty is not a constitution but
an economic treaty institutionalizing ultra-liberalism even more than it is
already. People are waiting for a new constitution, i.e., a readable text, valid for several decades, and that protects humans and the planet from all kinds of abuses. It must be written by the citizens and validated by them to be truly valid.
