The big maneuvers began with the French Communist Party (PCF). In their 39e congress, which will be held from April 7 to 9 in Marseilles, in the wake of that of the Socialist Party at the end of January, the Communists are stirring up their history. Fabien Roussel, showcase of a communism combining nostalgia for Georges Marchais, historic secretary general of the PCF (1972-1994), concern for France in the prefectures and shocking little phrases, triggered the beginnings of opposition against him, diverse but united in a single text, entitled “Urgence de communisme” and tabled before Christmas.
After the 2.3% obtained by the candidate Roussel in the presidential election, all the elements come together to reactivate the major debates, from the unitary strategy to questions about the distancing of the Soviet model. It all started with the last National Council, at the beginning of December 2022. The outgoing leadership’s orientation text obtained 58% of the votes cast there (84 for, 55 against, and 5 abstentions). A score similar to that obtained, in June 2018, by the text of the previous management led by Pierre Laurent. In October 2018, the members had preferred an alternative text, carried by André Chassaigne, which had paved the way for the election of Fabien Roussel. An unprecedented event in the history of the party but which could, who knows, happen again.
For PCF historian Roger Martelli, a time among dissidents “refounders” of the party, now an observer, “the cultural explosion of the party creates an open situation as it has never been”. In the entourage of Fabien Roussel, we assure not to be worried: “It’s been a while since the common bases have been overwhelmingly voted on”, estimates Guillaume Roubaud-Quashie, the former spokesperson for Fabien Roussel. For Christian Picquet, co-responsible for drafting the text presented by management, the balance of power is “extremely scalable” between the device and the base. “Fabien Roussel’s candidacy for the presidential election was accepted by half of the national council, but 82% of the members”, he recalls. In the direction, we want to believe that the members will be grateful to Fabien Roussel for his media presidential campaign, seen as a condition of existence within the institutions of the Ve Republic.
“A fairly broad forehead”
But the strategy of visibility and differentiation of the national secretary, sometimes divisive – from his exit on “a good wine, a good meat, a good cheese”in January 2022, to that on the “left of the allocs”, against which he registered, in September – brought out of the woods executives who were not used to derogating from the uses of discretion of the party. They are a little more than 600 to have signed the alternative text. For the outgoing direction, it is a composite hitch made of former relatives of Pierre Laurent and the usual ” right wing “, favorable to a unitary strategy. The deputy of Hauts-de-Seine Elsa Faucillon, figurehead of the internal opposition, sees it rather “a fairly broad front of communists who perceive that the orientations engaged are moving away from our DNA, both in the relationship to the rally, but also on fundamental orientations, such as the question of work and the articulation between the different dominations”.
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