One hundred and fifty PS executives signed in the Sunday newspaper (JDD) dated October 2 a platform called “Refoundations”prelude to a “third way”, between the pro-Nupes line advocated by the first secretary, Olivier Faure, and that of his opponent Hélène Geoffroy, for the next PS congress. The date of the congress will be known after a national party council on Tuesday evening.
The spokespersons for this platform are the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the councilor of Paris Lamia El Aaraje, close to Anne Hidalgo, and the vice-president of the Occitanie region, Claire Fita, close to Carole Delga.
Neither the mayor of Paris nor the president of the Occitanie region, both refractory to Nupes, have signed this platform, but many relatives of the two women are there, like senators David Assouline or Patrick Kanner , maneuvering for this “third way”.
“The stakes of the Socialist Party congress cannot again be reduced to a clash of stables for power, nor to a choice of electoral tactics with eyes fixed on the next presidential election”write the signatories, who “wish to bring the socialists together on the essentials in order to be able to hope to bring the left together again in the long term”.
« Impasse »
They point out that “the Nupes electoral agreement was the product of the “comatic” state of the social and ecological left, a unitary electoral response expected by the people of the left in the face of its dispersion, a conjunctural response aimed at preserving its presence in the National Assembly and act there together”.
Most “to regain and create a positive dynamic, of hope and conquests (…) we must refound [la gauche] with boldness and sincerity, and change its current center of gravity which leads it to an impasse”they add, proposing “to all the political and committed forces of civil society and social movements, the organization of General States of social and ecological transformation”.
“The French tell us, we are orphans of a credible party on the left, we do not hear you today”explained to Agence France-Presse, Nicolas-Mayer Rossignol, defending a “pro-European, secular and universalist left”and relying on “rurality and local experiences” territories ruled by the left.
It ensures that the signatories are not “not in bitterness, nor in pugilism” against the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, supporter of the Nupes.
Saturday morning, Hélène Geoffroy, the socialist mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin and president of the minority current within the PS, also launched in a text called “Refound, gather, govern”the bases of his project to take the lead of the party at the future Party Congress.