Whatever the beginnings, the corridor discussions, the handshakes, the round table themes, the tone of a political event is never really set without the speech of the number 1. Much awaited at the podium on Saturday in Blois , Olivier Faure advocated unity and forgiveness, calling for “overcoming the conflicts” that persist within the PS around the Nupes agreement.
“The debate between us should not be whether we are for or against the rallying of the left. But to know what the Socialist Party can bring to the rest of the left”, he declared in a speech to the militants the first secretary, who carried the will of an alliance with LFI, EELV and the PCF for the legislative elections, despite the opposition of certain “elephants” of the party. “It is by making the left stronger that we will be stronger again”, he hammered, to be “the alternative” to a possible victory for the far right in 2027.
Carole Delga, repentant dissident
He invited activists and elected officials to act to strengthen the PS. “We need a strong party. Because without a strong Socialist Party, the left will always miss the final step”. “The debate in this party (around the Nupes) has been lively”, he admitted a little earlier to the press, regretting that “some seek to maintain the conflict and to organize a rearguard debate in the congress », Expected at the beginning of next year.
Its opponents, hostile to the Nupes, are beginning to come together and the leader of the minority current, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin Hélène Geoffroy, has confirmed that she will carry a project to “refound” the party and take its head by “unifying those who have the same vision of a central PS”. “Could it be summed up as anything but Faure? It could, ”said former first secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadélis.
“Activists do not want to know how we get out of the agreement, but how we strengthen it (…) by expanding it”, for his part assured Olivier Faure. “Who is seriously proposing to go back? To do what ? If not with the rest of the left with whom then? “, he questioned in his speech, inviting the party to” unity “. A message heard by the president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga, who had supported the dissidents to the Nupes agreement during the legislative elections, but appeared on Friday alongside the first secretary.
A PS force of proposal
PS spokesman Pierre Jouvet, close to the first secretary, says he is “reasonably optimistic” for the congress because “Olivier Faure has gained credibility with the general public”. “If we want to reaffirm the PS on the left, now is not the time to give another face to the head of the party”, sums up the mayor of Cintegabelle Sébastien Vincini.
For Senator Patrick Kanner, “everything depends on how Olivier will position himself vis-à-vis LFI”. But he notes, for the moment, “a speech of affirmation of the socialist identity”, in particular with the proposal of Olivier Faure of a referendum of shared initiative on the super-profits of the companies. “He did not ask the opinion of LFI, to show that the Nupes is not the caporalization of the different parties”, argues Patrick Kanner. Jean-Luc Mélenchon also said he was in favor, this Sunday, of Olivier Faure’s proposal.