the party on the verge of breaking up

The Socialist Party is sinking a little deeper into the crisis, a few days before the national congress scheduled for Marseille from January 27 to 29. The party had announced in a press release, Friday, January 20, the victory of the outgoing first secretary Olivier Faure, with 50.83% of the votes of the members. He won according to this count by 12,076 votes against 11,683 for his challenger Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. Or only 393 slips away.

The result was contested by the mayor of Rouen, who invoked numerous incidents capable of distorting its sincerity. A verification commission was therefore convened on Saturday January 21 until late in the evening, without an official conclusion.

Sunday January 22, in a long interview with the Sunday newspaper, Olivier Faure whistled the end of the game. “The result is crisp and clear. The time for votes is over”, proclaims Olivier Faure, who adds: “I am grateful to the Socialists for having confirmed me in the most beautiful of functions, that of leading and animating the party of social and ecological justice. »

His opponent immediately denounced “an irresponsible exit” on the Twitter platform. “Our party offers a distressing spectacle, while the verification commission is hard at work,” reacted the mayor of Rouen.

Turn the page

On the merits, it is always the question of the strategy and the positioning of the party which opposes two lines. Olivier Faure defends the rally of the left with Nupes, organized last May with LFI, EELV and the PCF. “Everyone must admit that a line has emerged and that there is therefore no question of leaving the gathering of the left and environmentalists. A curled up PS, a PS that only speaks to the PS, it’s a dead end, ”he explains to the Sunday newspaper. The outgoing first secretary wants to turn the page and promises that Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol “will be associated with the strategic orientations, in particular for the European ones, since it is on this subject that he has from the start expressed his greatest concerns”.

Less than a week away from the convention, his efforts are still far from being rewarded. Support of the mayor of Rouen, the deputy Jean-René Cazeneuve has thus taken up the diagnosis of the “two irreconcilable lefts” drawn up a few years ago by the former Prime Minister Manuel Valls. “Half of the members of the PS no longer want to be minions of LFI”, insists Jean-René Cazeneuve. The congress of Marseilles threatens to become that of the bursting of the socialist formation.

Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol had received the support of former President François Hollande but also of major local elected officials, such as Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, or Carole Delga, president of the regional council of Occitanie.

The deputy and vice-president of the National Assembly Valérie Rabault estimated Sunday that it was “not acceptable” that Olivier Faure evokes his re-election without waiting for the ongoing verification of the results of the vote of the militants.

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