[3] Upon his election, he joined the La France Insoumise group; becoming de facto associated with that political party, although often dissenting from its mainstream.
[6] During the campaign, he broke ties with La France Insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon amidst a "purge" of key party members,[7][8] and, after being narrowly re-elected, joined the Ecologist Group in the National Assembly.
[10][11] In 1999, Ruffin founded an ultra-leftist newspaper called Fakir,[12] and the following year entered journalism school at the Centre de formation des journalistes in Paris.
[13] He has published his work in Le Monde diplomatique as well as in the pages of Fakir; he has also reported for the France Inter radio programme Là-bas si j'y suis.
[9] The documentary film Merci patron!, released nationally in France in February 2016, which he directed, is a product of his earlier journalism work.
In the film, Ruffin takes on the case of Jocelyn and Serge Klur, both textile workers who have been made redundant, the factory where they worked having been relocated to Poland.
In a piece written for Le Monde diplomatique, Frédéric Lordon described the film as a clarion call for a potential mass uprising.
[23] Employees of the Whirlpool plant in Amiens are present, to bring attention to the situation of their factory, whose management has announced the closure and relocation in Poland.
For the first electoral round, his campaign receives the support of La France Insoumise, the French Communist Party and Europe Ecology—The Greens.
[31] Ruffin supports the need for economic protectionism and details this point of view in his 2011 book Their Big Scare: Diary of my Protectionist Impulses.
[32] Ruffin regularly insists on the need to establish the junction between the two electorate hearts of the left, namely the working class, associated with the workers and trade unions on one side, and the intellectuals and professionals of the education on the other, because according to him, only the "convergence of struggles" can lead to a social movement of sufficient magnitude to achieve change.
During the 2017 French presidential election, he supported the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon without wishing to sign the charter of La France Insoumise, although he later joined their parliamentary group in the National Assembly.
[39] The payment of a major part of the parliamentary allowance was an old tradition within the PCF (French communist party), which had supported Ruffin from the first round.
[40] Based on an investigation initiated by Florence Aubenas, published on 18 July 2017, in headline of Le Monde on a "100 day strike" by nursing assistants at the retirement home Les Opalines located in Foucherans,[41] Ruffin challenged the Minister of Health on working conditions within the EHPAD, pointing out the silence of the government.