PARIS (Reuters) – The National Council of the Socialist Party (PS) validated on Friday the agreement reached with La France insoumise (LFI) for the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, opening an era between hope and uncertainty for a socialist family. torn.
Gathered in the National Council, the Socialists voted for the text by 167 votes for (62.1%) and 101 against, joining the environmentalists and the Communists in the alliance led by the camp of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round. of the presidential election with 22% of the vote, and which aims to impose cohabitation on re-elected President Emmanuel Macron.
“We are very proud to be able to carry the next fights for the next few weeks, and to try to awaken hope with them in our country, to allow an alternative to the majority that is promised to us for Emmanuel Macron”, declared the first secretary, Olivier Faure, after the vote organized after four hours of discussions.
A first convention of the alliance called New popular ecological and social union (Nupes) is announced in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) on Saturday, the day of the investiture of Emmanuel Macron during a ceremony at the Elysee.
The decision to join forces with LFI was “not easy” to take, acknowledged Olivier Faure, and it intends “to respond to the expectation of unity, but first of all of change, of social, ecological, democratic transformation. “.
“We missed each other a lot and now hopefully we will meet again,” he concluded.
Rebellious, environmentalists and communists hailed the socialist vote.
During an interview Friday evening on France 2, Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared that he would “probably” not be a candidate in the legislative elections.
Asked to say if he would be a candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon replied: “It is not necessary”.
“I have sufficient popular legitimacy to be able to represent the country with dignity,” he added.
“With the New Popular Union, we can win the legislative elections and change people’s lives!” Responded Manuel Bompard, legislative campaign director for LFI and MEP, on Twitter.
“JOIN US!” SAYS GUERINI
For the socialist president of Seine-Saint-Denis, Stéphane Troussel, the vote “is a form of clarification”.
“Left-wing voters no longer really knew where the PS stood given what has happened over the past five years. This vote means that the PS is in a camp, that of the left,” he said. said on Public Senate.
Tenors of the PS such as former President François Hollande, former Minister Stéphane Le Foll and former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who left the party, have expressed their opposition to an alliance which they consider unnatural with a Eurosceptic party, hostile to NATO and the World Trade Organization.
The union agreement provides for retirement at 60 (against 62 currently), the rise of the minimum wage to 1,400 euros as well as the renationalization of EDF, ENGIE, highways and airports.
Even before the validation in the National Council, dissenting voices were raised in the territories, while the compromise reserves 70 constituencies for the PS (excluding overseas), against a hundred for EELV and fifty for the Communists.
Hostile to the agreement, the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, supports PS candidates determined to run despite everything.
In Paris, Anne Hidalgo, former presidential candidate where she won only 1.7% of the vote, wrote in a message “not wishing to prevent” the agreement while criticizing “a text which does not respect not people”. An allusion to Lamia El Aaraje, who must give up running in the 15th district of the capital to make way for the rebellious Danielle Simonnet.
The presidential camp, which got ready for the legislative elections by announcing Thursday the creation of a confederation, “Together”, launched an appeal to disoriented socialists by the voice of Stanislas Guerini, leader of La République running, renamed “Renaissance”.
“When I see that the PS has abandoned the ambition of being a government party, has denied its convictions for a few constituencies, I say to the Social Democrats, join us!”, He launched on RTL.
(Report Elizabeth Pineau, Camille Raynaud, and Matthieu Protard, edited by Tangi Salaün and Camille Raynaud)