New episode of tensions in the Socialist Party on the road to the presidential election: first secretary Olivier Faure was disavowed on Monday July 6 by his deputies who did not want to overthrow Sébastien Lecornu, the prime minister easily resisting a motion of censure targeting his “climate inaction”.
Only 132 deputies supported the initiative of the Ecologist group of the National Assembly, mainly from this group and the Insoumis ranks. Twenty socialists out of 68 voted for it, including Olivier Faure, causing internal turmoil. “Respecting the meaning of the group’s vote (…) should also be the responsibility and duty of a first secretary,” criticized the entourage of his opponent Boris Vallaud, leader of the PS deputies.
This score of 132 votes is far from the 289 votes needed to bring down the government. This result was in no doubt, the National Rally having announced that it did not want to “do a favor” to the Ecologists by adding its votes to this part of the left.
Sébastien Lecornu still took the opportunity to defend his action, accusing the signatories of the motion of “instrumentalizing the victims” of these successive episodes of intense heat. Above all, according to him, this motion of censure aimed “to test the balance of power on the left, to exert pressure on its various components and to distribute opposition patents before the presidential election”, he said. “No one is fooled,” he added.
“The French are suffocating”
This debate, which was held in an almost empty hemicycle, in fact exacerbated the divisions in the PS, between Olivier Faure who had promised to “send a clear warning”, and a majority of the PS group which defended an opposite position. The First Secretary, who appeared very lonely in the hemicycle on Monday, wanted to send “an arm of honor to those who want to lead the party in a direction of rupture with the rest of the left”, assured one of his close friends after the vote.
“Our responsibility is not to add instability to inaction. Climate change does not wait for the elections,” explained MP Fabrice Barusseau, Socialist speaker on the podium.
Among the Insoumis, the choice of Olivier Faure did not really warm up relations with the PS: “He refused censorship ten times to save Macron. Now, he puts on a rebellious jersey to vote with us and the ecologists for the censorship of Lecornu. It’s no longer a weather vane, it’s a fan,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon on X.
Sébastien Lecornu responded on Sunday to some of the PS’s demands, notably announcing the inclusion in the Senate of a bill on adaptation to climate change.
“The French are suffocating from the heatwave. And if the government looks elsewhere, censoring it is a duty,” wrote Ecologist boss Marine Tondelier on X.
