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‘Like an animal’: replica of Navalny’s cell set up in Paris

A small concrete box marked with the word SHIZO (punishment cell in Russian) in giant red letters sits incongruously next to a 13th-century church just behind the Louvre museum in Paris.

Published: 15 March 2023 09:14 CET
'Like an animal': replica of Navalny's cell set up in Paris
The installation mock-up of the punishment cell of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in Paris. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

The grey box is a mock-up of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s punishment prison cell that his team unveiled in the French capital on Tuesday.

The leading opposition voice to Russian President Vladimir Putin is being guarded so closely that his team said they still did not know if the 46-year-old was aware a film about him got an Oscar.

Martine Fuguet, one of the visitors, said Navalny was being kept “in a cage like an animal”.

Vsevolod Tlelov, an opposition activist who fled Russia last year, said the installation represented “a different universe”.

“This is the life we don’t deserve.”

Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence on embezzlement and other charges that his supporters see as a punishment for him challenging the Kremlin.

His team set up the replica of his cell – “a prison inside a prison” – in Paris to raise awareness of the dire conditions he’s held in.

The installation mirrors a punishment cell where Navalny has spent more than a hundred days over the past six months.

Inside the dimly lit box is a little sink, a toilet on the ground and a simple bed, which is folded away during the day.

Supporters scribbled messages of support on the outer side of the box including “Navalny out, Putin in!”

‘I think he knows’
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said it was not clear if Russia’s top opposition figure knew that a film examining his poisoning had won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday.

“I think he knows,” Yarmysh told AFP on the sidelines of the ceremony. One of his lawyers was able to tell him the news during a recent court hearing, she added. “We know that he had heard something,” she said.

Navalny told the lawyer “he was grateful,” Yarmysh added.

She said maintaining contact with Navalny was hard, adding he was being denied medical treatment.

Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-made nerve agent, in 2020. He barely survived, and accused Putin of being behind the attack.

Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, said it was important to raise awareness of the “monstrous” conditions Navalny was being held in.

“If Alexei becomes free, Putin will not be in power,” he added.

The installation arrived from Germany and will remain in Paris for two weeks. It is open to the public day and night.

AFP

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ELECTIONS

Explained: The French leftist alliance’s programme for government

In an unexpected result, the leftist alliance the Nouveau Front Populaire topped the polls in France's snap elections on Sunday. The situation is complicated and lengthy negotiations are expected in order to form the next government - but what kind of policies can we expect from a government with an NFP heart?

Published: 8 July 2024 14:27 CEST
Explained: The French leftist alliance's programme for government

The final results, released on Monday morning by the Interior Ministry show the Nouveau Front Populaire in the lead with 182 seats, followed by Macron’s centrists on 168, the far-right Rassemblement National in third on 143 and the centre-right Les Républicains in fourth with 45 seats.

However no party won the 289 seats required for a majority in parliament – the likely result will be a lengthy period of political wrangling while the parties try to form coalitions or alliances that will get them the required majority.

READ ALSO What happens now in France after bombshell election results?

While we don’t know exactly what the new French government will look like – or when to expect it – the left will certainly play a role.

So what kind of policies can we expect from them?

Alliance

The complicating factor in this is that Nouveau Front Populaire is not a single party – it’s an alliance of four parties and it covers quite a political range, from the centre-left Parti Socialiste (party of former presidents François Hollande and François Mitterand) through the Green party to the hard-left La France Insoumise and the Communists.

Within that alliance, La France Insoumise got 77 seats, Parti Socialiste 54, Greens 28 and Communists 9.

La France Insoumise tends to get the most press coverage, partly because it’s the biggest but also because of its charismatic firebrand leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But it should be remembered that this is a coalition, not a single party. 

It includes Mélenchon but also ex president François Hollande (elected as an MP in Corrèze), Marine Tondelier of the Greens and the popular Euro-election leader Raphaël Glucksmann.

Much depends on whether the group manages to keep its fragile alliance together and agree on a candidate to nominate as prime minister, as well as whether Emmanuel Macron’s group succeeds in splitting the leftist group and making an alliance with the more centre-left elements.

But with all those caveats in mind, here’s a look at their policies;

Programme 

As you would expect from such a broad group, there are significant points of difference between the parties.

The group did, however, manage to agree on a joint manifesto for these elections – albeit leaving conspicuously vague the areas that the parties disagree on most, especially when they relate to foreign policy.

Here’s the main priorities for a Nouveau Front Populaire government;

Cancellations – much of the programme is concerned with cancelling recent Macronist laws. Among the laws it says it wants cancel is the new immigration bill – the one that introduces French language tests for certain types of residency card and raises the language level required for French citizenship.

Also set for the chop are Macron’s changes to unemployment benefits (albeit that the Macronists themselves paused this reform in the run-up to the election) plus a cancellation of the price rises in electricity and gas and the reintroduction of the ‘wealth tax’ scrapped by Macron in 2018.

The big cause on the left in recent years has been Macron’s pension reforms raising the pension age from 62 to 64. These were finally rammed through parliament using special powers in 2023, following months of protests.

The Nouveau Front Populaire wants to not only cancel the reform, but the drop the standard pension age further, down to 60.

Immigration – the group’s policies are good ones for immigrants in France or those hoping to move here some day.

In addition to – as mentioned – scrapping the new immigration law, the manifesto also proposes introducing a 10-year carte de séjour residency card ‘as the standard card’ – at present the standard model is for one-year cards initially and then move on to five-year and then 10-year cards, although there are significant variations based on your personal status (eg working, student, retired or family member).

The left’s key policy during the immigration debates in January was the regularisation of thousands of ‘sans papiers’ or undocumented workers, by introducing an amnesty for people who are already in France and working in key sectors such as construction or healthcare.

Economy – The group would raise the Smic (minimum wage) to €1,600 a month. There would also be a range of measures aimed at tackling the rising cost of living with an increase in various forms state aid to low-income households.

Economists say that the group’s programme is uncosted and could result in a worsening of France’s deficit or even a financial crash similar to the one seen in the UK in response to ex prime minister Liz Truss’ disastrous budget.

Environment – Green policies form a key part of the Nouveau Front Populaire manifesto with a range of green incentives plus tax and financing rules that would clamp down on fossil fuels.

Foreign policy – On foreign policy there are some delicately worded compromises since views on Ukraine and Gaza had previously split the leftist alliance. The group promises to “unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people” including by delivering weapons and writing off debt. On Gaza, the party would recognise the Palestinian state and embargo arms supplies to Israel.

Policy towards the EU – a topic that divides the groups within the alliance – is not mentioned in the manifesto.

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