Lhe survival of the Socialist Party is at stake, and the tension is mounting crescendo. More than two weeks after the historic defeat of its candidate, eliminated in the first round with 1.7% of the vote, the old socialist house is playing its survival by trying to renew ties with La France insoumise, in view of the legislative elections. A line assumed by Olivier Faure, first secretary of the party, but which is not without raising criticism within a minority current in the PS.
The tone is therefore raised, Tuesday, April 26, during a national office organized around the question. “If you think that the PS is dead, that there is nothing more to do, that you no longer belong to the left, then leave! ” got carried away Olivier Faure, proposing to those who would oppose the alliance with LFI to “join LREM”. “Otherwise, stay and fight with us, it will change us,” said the socialist leader.
Olivier Faure was criticized by members of the minority current, opposed to the adoption, last week by the national council (sort of the party parliament), of a resolution proposing to discuss with the forces of the left, including La France insoumise , for an agreement in the legislative elections. Considering an agreement with the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came out on top on the left in the first round of the presidential election (22% of the vote), is a major turning point for the PS, which has often opposed LFI. But with 1.7% of the presidential vote, the PS is in great difficulty for the legislative elections.
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surrender
“Faced with criticism with no alternative offered and while the minority tried to replay the match of the previous national council”, Olivier Faure declared: “Do not propose, always criticize. It is not a policy”, indicated the entourage of the First Secretary. He also denounced the “ease” of his opponents “to criticize the prospect of agreement with the left”, and pointed to “the absence of total condemnation of the departure of François Rebsamen”, mayor of Dijon, recently passed in the camp of ‘Emmanuel Macron, nor “the remarks of Stéphane le Foll”, mayor of Le Mans, who recently declared that the PS was “dead”.
According to a member of the minority current, Olivier Faure “got angry at the questions of the minority on a possible agreement” with LFI, “like a kid not happy that his position is disputed”. “He was asked for his negotiation strategy, his red lines, his electoral objectives. Basic questions of a political direction”, according to this source. A member of the majority current told AFP that “the minority spent the national office criticizing the erasure of the PS, the submission to LFI” while discussions with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party did not begin until Wednesday. In a letter published on Tuesday, the leader of the minority current, Hélène Geoffroy, considered that “it is not a negotiation or an agreement which is proposed” by LFI, “it is a surrender”. She asked that Olivier Faure’s strategy be submitted “to the vote of the members”.
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Cambadélis calls for resistance
The term surrender was also used by Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, former first secretary of the PS, in an interview with France Info on Wednesday April 27. “We are not being offered a coalition, we are being offered a surrender,” he says, adding that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is “making fun” of the Socialists by having already had posters printed calling for him to be elected Prime Minister. “The lefts are not irreconcilable but are not fungible”, insists Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, recalling that he does not share “the orientation of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s program, whether on European or economic issues”.
A confrontation with Olivier Faure therefore seems inevitable, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis castigating the injunctions at the start issued by the first secretary on Tuesday evening. “Me, I call on all those who disagree with this orientation to regroup, meet and resist”, launches the one who proposes a self-dissolution of the PS in order to allow the emergence of a new structure: “I think that the Socialist Party must open a new cycle, do something else, build a new family, more social democratic, in my opinion, than old-fashioned socialist. »
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