Anne Hidalgo’s eyes, dipped in steel: “Oliver, it’s simple. If you don’t want to follow me, get out! » It’s a strategic committee, at the beginning of January. Around the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), we are trying, for the umpteenth time, to revive the campaign. According to the mayor of Paris, ulcerated, Olivier Faure, despite appearances, does not make much effort. The tonic verb used against the party leader dries up the audience.
These meetings, especially when everything is going badly, are a ball of masks. That of Olivier Faure, after a second of amazement, became impassive again. Like always. No one can tell what’s going on in his head. As always, no one can say what Olivier Faure thinks or plans. Whether he is happy, angry, outspoken or mean. The slowness of his movements, his silences, his detachment intrigue. He plays it, no doubt. In May, we submit to the deputy of Seine-et-Marne a word that could suit him: “enigmatic”. “I choke on it”, he replies, starting his second pain au chocolat. But where can they disappear in this slender body? This is not the smallest of its mysteries.
“Olivier is someone who has an intense inner lifeexplains Christophe Clergeau, national secretary at the PS, who has been his friend since the 1990s, when they were, with Benoît Hamon, three roommates landed in Paris. Even in a meeting, he can give the impression of being elsewhere. It’s a way to protect yourself. » But in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), on Saturday May 7, for the inauguration of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), he was there, essential protagonist of a fateful moment in the history of the left.
Born in a Dutch cabbage
The one who can be manhandled without flinching, the one who hasn’t made a sound since he was elected first secretary of the PS in 2018, this “notorious misunderstanding”in his own words, reputed leader without charisma, who swallows his words, has just made a real big political coup. On May 5, before the National Council, which must validate an existential political agreement, he draws the speech of his life. Nupes is 62% approved. He has just fractured the PS, but we heard him. We even listened to it. He goes after an intuition that has obsessed him for four years: the salvation of the PS goes through the rally. “In 2018, the PS was disqualified. No one wanted to argue with us. It was over. »
On the stage of the Nupes, he does not exult, still not his kind, but, behind the scenes, Eric Coquerel, deputy La France insoumise (LFI) of Seine-Saint-Denis, is formal: “He breathes better than before. » Like his party. The call of the Nupes, a ringtone that would have pulled him out of a bad dream. The PS was dying out at full speed. “This agreement has awakened left-wing pride”, for Olivier Faure. An ideological conversion that surprised even the “rebellious”. Who wonder if he does not have, behind his head, a secret plan even more secret than him: bet on legislative elections (June 12 and 19) not too triumphant for LFI, watch for a fatal skid by Jean-Luc Mélenchon , while he will have succeeded in putting the PS back in the light. Swiping the leadership on the left… The “rebellious” Manuel Bompard smiles: “I don’t want to doubt his sincerity. »
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