The Socialist Party made its political reappearance on Friday in Blois with the desire to build a “new PS”, starting by reconciling with some rebels to the left-wing Nupes alliance, such as the president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga.
Hostile to the agreement reached in May with the rebels, environmentalists and communists, Carole Delga, who had supported the PS dissidents opposed to the nupes in the general elections, does not intend to leave the PS or lead the revolt against the first secretary Olivier Faure. . Instead, the two appeared together all smiles, giving each other “dear Olivier”, “dear Carole”.
The one that some already saw as the personality on the rise capable of taking the helm of the party, defended “the collective, more than ever the collective.” Without ever citing “La Nupes”, preferring to speak of “the left”, he stated thus: “The PS, to be strong, must be united”, during a speech shortly before the inauguration in the summer days. “We are united, you have seen it. If I was next to Olivier Faure today it is because I wanted to”, he told the press.
“I’m not asking anyone here to deny himself, on the contrary, to affirm what we are,” replied Olivier Faure.
Elephants refusing to queue
For him, if the Nupes coalition “represented important sacrifices”, and if the debate within the party “was lively”, “now we have to go beyond that moment”. “The central issue” is no longer in this confrontation, because “everyone registers the strategic choice that has been made”, but now “is to consolidate our political formation”, says Maxime Des Gayets, national secretary of the PS.
But a certain number of “elephants” of the party remain hostile to the Nupes and accuse Olivier Faure of being “subjected to the Insoumis”. Several of the main opponents of the alliance were thus absent in Blois, such as the former president François Hollande, who is preparing a new book, the former minister Stéphane le Foll, who brought together the anti-Nupes in July in Sarthe, or the former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who left the PS after the alliance with LFI.
Hélène Geoffroy, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, who dreams of delighting the leader of Olivier Faure’s party, is present, but she reserves herself above all for the future Congress, which should take place in January. “I am going to put a text in the perspective of being a candidate,” she confirmed to the press, considering that the Congress should be “a moment of clarification for the left, and not a referendum for or against the Nupes.”
For the former First Secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, who supports her, “the Nupes was born dead” and “will slowly break down in the difficult points at the beginning of the school year” (retirement, budget, etc.), and with the deadlines of the Europeans, where LFI offers a common list, which at the moment is not unanimous in the PS. For Olivier Faure, the challenge is to rebuild a “new PS”, according to the theme of the summer campus.
“disoriented” activists
After the presidential fiasco, the Nupes agreement for the legislative elections allowed the PS to save the day and maintain a group of 31 deputies, far behind the 77 LFI deputies. A success, however, for Olivier Faure, who has long defended the meeting of the left and says he is proud to have “reanchored the PS on the left”.
It is also about clarifying “with the militants who could have been disoriented by this unprecedented alliance where we are a minority,” explains a party executive who aspires to “change the current balance” of forces within Nupes.
In a speech on Saturday night, Olivier Faure should return to defend his strategy, after a debate in the afternoon in plenary with several Nupes partners, such as the LFI deputy Clémentine Autain, or the EELV European deputy Yannick Jadot , on the theme “With whom do we fight? “.
Source: BFM TV
