Questioned by rebellious elected officials who accuse him of conveying racism in a comic strip, the deputy and presidential candidate responded to these accusations with Libération.
François Ruffin speaks of a “humanist work”. The candidate for the next presidential election defends this Monday, May 18, the content of his comic strip, “Picardie Splendor”, which has earned him accusations of racism, notably from La France insoumise, since its publication on May 7.
“My anti-racism is a bit stamped from the 90s, ‘Blacks, whites, Arabs’, and that undoubtedly comes through in the comics. I am aware of it, I talk to researchers, activists, we talk about it. Does that make me a racist? No. On the contrary, it is the message of the comics: among the fractures to be resolved in our country, there are “insecurity, anxiety about the future, and of course racism”, he explains to the newspaper Libération.
In his comic strip, the deputy-reporter puts images of life stories illustrating his daily encounters. The objective: to tell the story of a “France (which is) fractured, but which can be repaired”, he explained to BFM at the end of April.
Problem: several boards convey racist stereotypes in the eyes of some, in particular by representing racialized people who cannot keep their nerve. Several criticisms are made by elected officials from La France insoumise – a movement with which François Ruffin broke in the last legislative elections.
“I hear that these images can hurt”
One passage is extensively commented on. The Picardy deputy is on a train. While he is busy on the phone, the tone rises between a black passenger and a controller, accompanied by two police officers, who wishes to fine her.
“What!?! In your dreams! I’ve already paid”, the person gets carried away. A passenger, from the Maghreb, defends herself, accusing the police of being familiar with her. “Do you want to go out too?” one of them replies. François Ruffin intervenes and settles the difference that the passenger already mentioned had to pay.
But the matter does not stop there. The conductor drops the receipt on the black passenger. “Why are you behaving like that?” asks the other passenger already mentioned. New tensions. “Keep your nerves, sir…”, “Yeah, otherwise we’ll take you both out”, the police continue.
François Ruffin takes the lead again, asking at the same time the passenger to “respect the police” and the members of the police to “respect the uniform”.
To Libération, the latter however says “not recognizing himself in a plank” of this passage. “The one on the train where a racialized man lowers his head while[il] puff out your chest.” “That’s not me, I never behave like that. I hear that these images can hurt,” he explains.
“White savior”
The rebellious MEP Emma Fourreau denounced a comic strip “full of racism, paternalism, with the figure of the savior white man”. His colleague Aly Diouara, elected mayor of La Courneuve in March 2026, accused François Ruffin of being a “complex racist”. Which “gives itself the air of a voice of the people, but transforms the women of La Courneuve into extras in its paternalistic story”, he wrote on X, in reference to another passage from his comic strip than the one already mentioned.
Between the one who is running for the Élysée and LFI, the debate on racism is old. In 2019, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s troops criticized him for his absence from the march against Islamophobia, while the latter had claimed “having football” as justification.
More recently, the rebels, but also other left-wing elected officials, rose to the occasion after François Ruffin declared himself “hostile to labor immigration” at the end of April on France 2. “Ruffin swaps red for brown by dividing the workers”, scathed the rebellious MP Andy Kerbrat, when Marine Tondelier, patron of the ecologists, said she was “angry” with the ex-rebellious, accusing him of summoning “the subjects of the extreme right”.
Guest of BFMTV on May 1, François Ruffin justified himself by his “refusal of the plan for the massive importation of foreign labor that Medef is planning”, according to him, while recalling comments made by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2018:
“We say: shame on those who organize immigration through free trade treaties and who use it to put pressure on wages and social gains.”
