Like the ecologists, the socialists want to go solo to the Europeans. The Socialist Party (PS) adopted, Tuesday evening September 5, unanimously from its national office, the principle of an autonomous list for the June 2024 elections. This strategic orientation text will be submitted on October 5 to the activists’ vote, the party announced.
The national office also voted unanimously on the programmatic content of the European project, which will also be submitted to the vote of the activists on the same date. It may also be subject to amendments by the federations, until a national closing convention is held on October 14.
Even if the Socialists remain internally divided on the agreement of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) concluded with La France insoumise, Europe Ecology-The Greens and the French Communist Party in March 2022, the three currents of the PS ( that of the national secretary, Olivier Faure, majority and pro-Nupes, and those of his opponents, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol and Hélène Geoffroy, hostile to the left alliance) managed to agree on the strategy, with the drafting of ‘a compromise.
While the “rebellious” are demanding a common list from the Nupes to the Europeans, the strategic text, not amendable, enacts the principle of an autonomous list, and specifies that the PS has “always considered” that his project would dictate his alliances, ” and not the reverse “.
“Create the conditions for a common program” for the presidential election
“Our desire for dialogue remains. But we note that the decision of the ecologists and the communists to leave under their own colors in the European elections did not make it possible to study the conditions necessary for a common list, and in particular to rediscuss the points of disagreement ” observed on “European and international issues during the constitution of the Nupes in 2022”is it written.
But the Socialist Party remains “fully committed to the strategy of bringing together the left and ecology”Who “found its political expression during the legislative elections of 2022 with the Nupes and its intergroup in the National Assembly”, continues the text. He adds that “the union of the left and environmentalists is the necessary strategy to lead the fight against the policies of the President of the Republic and to obstruct the arrival of the RN [Rassemblement national] in power “.
Without mentioning the term single candidacy of the left for the presidential election of 2027, which Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol and Hélène Geoffroy refused, arguing that it preempted the next congress of the PS, the text explains that it will be necessary “to create the conditions for a common program and rallying candidacies for municipal, presidential and legislative elections by putting the Socialist Party back at the heart of the left”.
Olivier Faure absolutely wanted to integrate this objective into the text, to “do not despair left voters who want the union”. The programmatic text, which has 83 pages, is entitled “Tilting Europe, From neoliberalism to ecological socialism”.
The head of the list and the composition of the list for the Europeans should not be decided before the end of the year. The text also provides for the construction “around the PS an open list” to all those “recognizing himself in the principles of his project”. But while opponents of the first secretary want the list to be extended to La Convention, the movement of former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, hostile to Nupes, Olivier Faure does not hide his reluctance vis-à-vis the latter, who “spends his time wiping his feet on the rest of the left”according to him.