For Véronique Chesnard (LO): “Capitalism is not inevitable, we must act collectively”

Véronique Chesnard estime que “le capitalisme n’est pas une fatalité” et est la cause de tous les problèmes.

A retired social worker, this Marxist party activist is running in the 5th constituency of Hérault with a slogan: "The working class must organize and take awareness of his strength.

How did you become an activist for the Lutte Ouvrière party ?

I come from a working-class background and, as a child, I saw my mother work hard to support her family. As she did housework in a private high school, I was confronted at a very young age with the fact that there were two different worlds and that it was not the same for everyone. It nourished my childhood and adolescence and I always wanted to repair this injustice.

My job as a social worker has reassured me in this direction: the measures taken by different governments for decades are nothing more than DIY. They organize, in a way, charity and then people are criticized for being welfare recipients.

You are fighting the current organization of society?

It is workers and not companies who create wealth and make society run, contrary to what people try to make us believe. For the system to work, big business pretends to redistribute a few crumbs. That's how we teach people to make themselves small. The trickle-down theory is just a myth: capitalist society pockets everything, based on the exploitation of the weakest.

Why did you not want to unite with the left-wing forces to counter the National Rally ?

We are showing up to tell people that we should not believe in party promises. Let it be those of the left which, when it was in power, betrayed the workers and allowed the rise of the National Rally. Or those of the RN which are only based on division and ostracization. In any case, those who have the power are not the politicians but the economic world, the big business which dictates its law. And what he is proposing to us is to plunge us into poverty and war.

What do you propose to voters ?

The working class must organize itself and become aware of its strength. She can change the course of things. Collective power can sweep away the system, history has proven it to us. We are communists, that is to say for sharing wealth, and revolutionaries, to bring down capitalism.

Even assuming that you achieve your goals in France, what about the rest of the world ?

We are of course convinced that we must act at the international level, with collective struggles almost everywhere. Many already exist, even in the poorest countries. Because, in the end, the aspiration to eat, house, care for and educate one's children in a decent and satisfactory way is shared by everyone.

Véronique Chesnard is a retired social worker and lives in Sommières. Her deputy is Paul Doutre.   I subscribe to read more