https://youtu.be/DOIRYIWV_B8
In what way will France’s Presidential election of 2022 enable us to eliminate the two major dangers threatening humanity: climate change and nuclear weapons?
We cannot just resign ourselves to choosing in the first round of voting between party leaders and candidates dominated by those individuals, almost all keen for power - nor choosing in the second round between the plague and the cholera. That is the impasse which the Popular Primary wishes to avoid. Nor is it acceptable for the phasing-out of nuclear weapons and nuclear power-plants to be once again excluded from the presidential campaign. Yet that objective is not one of the ten key measures mentioned for the Popular Primary. So some candidate needs to put it on the agenda. That is the first aim of my candidacy.
Besides, the world situation is far too serious to face unless we join together to tackle it collectively, on a very different basis from that of neo-liberalism - or rather fierce, frantic capitalism.
According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists the consequences of global warming, adding to international tensions which are themselves exacerbated by the nuclear arms race, we are only 100 seconds away from Armageddon.We have never been that close!
In this damaged world on the edge of the abyss, there are nevertheless some real reasons for hope. I emphasised that ten years ago in opening the States-General for a Livable World. See Charte pour un monde vivable,
Since then the situation has only got worse. But hope, though tenuous, is still possible.
I am committed to that Charter, which contains over 100 articles. Already it spoke of energy, climat, biodiversity, human rights, fiscal justice, blank voting and citizens’ referenda. It was drawn up in Saintes in 2011 by 150 citizens answering the call of 6 organisations, and it was adopted unanimously on completion of the drafting. Later it was adapted in 2018 by a group of Yellow-Vests with the title "Charter for a human France and a human world." So we didn’t wait for Macron’s rise to power to invent the first "citizens’ convention".
I am not a candidate just for the sake of it. This is a candidacy of struggle - the same peaceable nonviolent struggle that I have pursued for over 35 years with absolute determination. I will carry it on to the end, i.e. until our compatriots decide to make it win. For me the sovereign authority in France (following Rousseau) is certainly not the President, or Parliament alone, or the lobbies, or the political class - it is the French people in their entirety. I believe deeply in the difficult virtue of democracy. Many of us have had enough of dictatorship by a Leader, overtly of covertly, and his yesmen. "The world, as will and representaton, is US." (Charter preamble)
So sign up to the Popular Primary right away, and if you want attention given to our society’s problems - social, health, economic, and political - not forgetting any of the major dangers threatening our planet - climatic, ecological, nuclear and military - then join in, let’s make a team to defend life.
Jean-Marie Matagne, Saintes, 29 August 2020
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WHO CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE PRIMARY? Any French person over 16. Enrolment is free, Anonymity is guaranteed.
HOW? Go to https://www.parrainages-primairepopulaire.fr, click on "Propose someone else" (if your candidate is not one of those who have received 500 endorsements or more), then on "Sign me up as endorsing" and put in my name.
