Legislative 2022: opposed to the agreement with LFI, Bernard Cazeneuve leaves the PS

It is for him the end of a long militant history. A few hours after the conclusion of negotiations between France Insoumise and the Socialist Party on Wednesday, Bernard Cazeneuve announced his departure from the PS in an interview with The Free Channel . The day before, the former Prime Minister had mentioned on his Facebook page a possible departure in the event of effective negotiations. He then mentioned,the most fundamental differencesthe opponent to the formation of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

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The tensions were palpable, they are now materializing. With the departure of Bernard Cazeneuve – after 35 years of membership – the PS recorded its first departure due to the discussions for the legislative elections. For him, the rapprochement with LFI is one step too many, and he cannot put it in line with the genesis of his commitment. A commitment which, according to him, is based ona passion for democracy and justice, an irrepressible attachment to the Republic, a sense of responsibility and universalism“.

The method of PS executives called into question

While the negotiations have finally found an outlet, Bernard Cazeneuve evokes all the themes that separate socialists and rebellious. Ranging from the secular Republic, which “can’t get along with communitarianism», to the republican pact, which «cannot live in the hatred maintained by the State, the police“, passing through the “democracy based on representation” and no “populism and a personification of another time, which borrows all the failings of the old politics“.

On Europe too – one of the main points of contention – Bernard Cazeneuve castigates “the destruction of the European project“. He adds to this list the method used by his party. And criticizes the leaders for having initiated this process “without consultation of the members“, and this, while “Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party relentlessly fought the Socialist Party, when it governed as when it no longer governed“. “Between the two formations neither the values ​​nor the means of action are common, (but) the socialist negotiators would henceforth see between them ‘no insurmountable point’. A few hours would thus have sufficed to forget the most fundamental differences, or rather to silence them.“, he remarks again.

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In this context, Bernard Cazeneuve therefore affirms that he cannot continue. “Because I am faithful to republican socialism and I will remain so, I will not be able, in conscience and in responsibility, to remain in the party whose leaders will have forgotten what founds it and lost their compass.“, he writes. Attached to the roots of his political family, he formulated “the wish“than the latter”pull herself together, and be reborn“. “We must now rebuild and reinvent everything, while the current power, at the dawn of a second five-year period marked on the right, ignores the danger in which its great work of eliminating democratic divisions plunges our country..” The former tenant of Matignon sets a course for this: “That of a political, social, ecological and sincere left.»

Other socialist elephants have made known their rejection of this agreement. “It’s tinkering“, thus declared to AFP the former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. “I am deeply disappointed by the text which has just been made public. I tell you my disagreement with regret“, he continued, referring to the “exorbitant pricepaid by the PS. Before recognizing:At the same time, I am well aware that with 1.7% of the votes in the presidential election, that does not put the Socialist Party in a comfortable position“. For his part, François Hollande has “challenged the agreement on substance and constituencies“. His former minister and now supporter of the president, François Rebsamen, meanwhile spoke of “great sadness” and his “political history that goes away“.

SEE ALSO – Legislative: the PS hopes that the negotiations “will be concluded quickly”, LFI says it is “optimistic”