In congress in Marseille, the Socialist Party is approaching a way out of the crisis

“At some point, it has to stop…” Dark circled eyes, a Socialist Party executive explains the agreement that has just been reached on the sidelines of the PS congress, Saturday January 28 in Marseille. Olivier Faure, re-elected first secretary on January 19, will be flanked by two “delegated” secretaries: his ally Johanna Rolland, the mayor of Nantes, and his opponent Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen, who contested the result of the internal ballot at the PS. All of them thus hope to put an end to the conflict which has been simmering for several weeks and to avoid the break-up of the party.

Elected Norman, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol was beaten by a short head (51.09% against 48.91%) during the internal ballot of January 19 and has since denounced fraud. Arriving in the Bouches-du-Rhône, he still waved the threat of a “split”. He finally gave up trying to blow up the old party of Jean Jaurès. “Our responsibility is to make the left win against the right and the far right, we have no opponent on the left, we are competitors,” he said, to the applause of his supporters. Before adding, in front of a forest of cameras: “Perhaps you were expecting a fighting congress of leaders. We prefer leaders together in battle”.

The agreement must be validated in the afternoon

But nothing was easy. The discussions lasted until 4 a.m. behind the scenes of the Palais du Pharo, this vast building built by Napoleon III for Princess Eugenie, with a view of the Old Port. And an additional morning was necessary for the negotiators on both sides to reach this compromise, which was still to be validated in the afternoon by a vote of the 180 delegates present at the congress. “We had to come together,” commented one of them, Elisabeth Ramel. This activist from Bas-Rhin supported Hélène Geoffroy, the other rival of Olivier Faure, who inherited the post of president of the national council of the PS.

These negotiations changed the program of the 80th Congress. But they should put an end to the tensions that marred the first day, Friday, January 27. More than once, whistles and boos fell from the bleachers of the auditorium as speakers spoke from the podium. “I was still surprised by the atmosphere, it was quite deleterious, testifies Christophe Cusset, “faurist” delegate from Maine-et-Loire. We can have lively debates, but here, it reaches a level that is not acceptable”.

This militant, carded for twenty years, wants despite everything “optimistic” for the future, just like Emmanuelle Campagne, delegate of Bas-Rhin: “It is in the interest of the party to find a way out. Whatever the result, we have to arrive at a synthesis”. Eliott Roig, 18, responsible for the young socialists of the Loire, also believes it. “It was tense, but we expected it, it’s normal. We are all socialists. It’s like in a family. We argue at the table. But when the meal is over, it gets better”.

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