“The cards are reshuffled”. The internal opponents of Olivier Faure, first secretary of the PS, have long wanted to believe it. The number 1 of the PSI puts his position for the 80s on the lineAnd party congress, scheduled in Marseille from 27 to 29 January 2023. A candidate for his own succession, the defender and one of the architects of the Nupes agreement sees his line contested.
Between 20,000 and 23,000 activists will elect the first secretary
To grasp the subtleties of the PS, one must see that the periods of the socialist pre-congress always go through the same stages, the same rituals. The first general contributions were filed on Tuesday 8 November, before a “summary national council” on 26 November, where the orientation texts – the famous “motions”, according to the old term used by the socialists – will be presented. The signatories of the general contributions can then converge on the same orientation text, the first signatory of which points to the position of number 1. The activists, who according to management data should number between 20,000 and 23,000, are then called to vote. for the text of their choice on 12 January next, before the election of the first secretary, scheduled for 19 January. The socialist “comrades” will finally be able to meet on January 27, headed by the first elected secretary.
Seven general contributions are on the table this year. But during the national summary council, only three guiding texts should remain. That of the outgoing first secretary, Olivier Faure, that of the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, already a candidate at the last congress, and “Refoundations”, the text carried in particular by Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, mayor of Rouen, who to defend a third way.
“Serene”, Pierre Jouvet points out that “59 federal primes” argue Olivier Faure
At the PS management we make sure to remain “serene” in the face of the competition. “A congress is essentially never played, nor won in advance”, acknowledges Pierre Jouvet, spokesman for the PS, “afterwards, we need to look factual and objective: we have 59 federal departmental leaders out of 100 who support us, our text has been signed by more than 3,000 activists. We have representatives in all departments, we are still quite well organised.”
For Rémi Cardon, a PS senator and the youngest member of the Senate, the Nupes deal has clearly turned things around in the party’s favor. “In recent years, I have rarely seen events where we are so highly regarded. I feel a march of progress on the capital of sympathy, both of the PS brand and at the same time of Olivier Faure”, notes this support from the first secretary, who sees the “PS flags” blossoming again in the demonstrations.
Faure candidate in 2027? “If he is re-elected first secretary, it will not be illegitimate to have this ambition”
To complicate the stakes of the congress, the question would not be limited, for the first secretary, to the party itself, and its line. Armed with this renewed notoriety on the left, we begin to lend ambitions to Olivier Faure for the 2027 presidential election…
The socialist leader could have hoped to find himself at some sort of equilibrium point within the Nupes. “If he is re-elected first secretary of the PS, it will not be illegitimate to have this ambition, this is very clear. He might have it in the back of his head. Or someone will have it for him,” says a PS No. 1 support.
“Olivier Faure is in great difficulty,” says Patrick Mennucci
On the other hand, it is certainly Hélène Geoffroy who has the harshest tones on the legislative agreement with La France Insoumise, an issue at the center of congressional debates. “After a strategy of cancellation, of disappearance, now the PS is diluted in LFI. We saw this during the October march, without the unions, during the vote on the motion of censure, where Jean-Luc Mélenchon theorized the contribution of the RN’s votes to bring down the government. We need a jump from the PS”, continues Hélène Geoffroy.
Among the supporters of the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, we say that we seriously believe in it, despite the 28% of their candidate in the congress of Villeurbanne in 2021. “Olivier Faure is in great difficulty”, argues Patrick Mennucci, former deputy PS Marseille, who denounces the direction of the director. “For us, the PS must be faithful to the ambiguity of Epinay (founding congress of the PS in 1971, ed): both in the claim, defense of the most modest, but also capable of governing, and in making compromises in order to do so”, highlights this support from Hélène Geoffroy.
For him “the PS must make ends meet”, that is to say “be able to achieve the synthesis between what Jaurès called the ideal and the real, i.e. what we can do. This aspect however is completely obscured by Nupes and Olivier Faure”. Should we break with LFI? On this point Patrick Mennucci looks forward to the European elections. “With LFI it will be impossible to agree on the values of the PS in Europe. We will leave Nupes when there is no list joint with LFI ”, predicts the former deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhône.
“Restore strength to the PS and autonomy” asks Rémi Féraud, close to Anne Hidalgo
Since the beginning of the school year, a “third way” has tried to play its card, under the name of “Rifondazioni”. Behind the mayor of the PS of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the world and above all the elected officials of the federations who weigh. Among the signatories are several elected officials from Paris, including Senators David Assouline, the capital’s first federal, and Rémi Féraud, president of the Paris commune group at the Paris City Hall, two close to Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The defeated presidential candidate did not sign the contribution, but showed her support on Twitter.
« Le sujet, c’est de ne pas rester encalminés dans une gauche dominée par LFI mais de redonner de la force au PS et de l’autonomie », soutient Rémi Féraud, qui pense que « le PS se lie trop lui-même les hands “. For the Parisian senator “it is not a question of redoing 2022, but of preparing for the future. A left dominated by the LFI is a left that cannot win”. Rémi Feraud adds:
The alternative cannot be between the Nupes and a return to social-liberalism or the Dutch five-year period.
“A political rebalancing seems to me necessary”, according to Patrick Kanner
We also find Patrick Kanner at Refondations, president of the PS group in the Senate, and senator from the North, another important “fédé” of the party with the fist and the rose. From the outset, he made no secret of his criticisms of the Nupes deal. LFI has never been his cup of tea. Today it seems to have watered down its socialist wine a bit, given that Refondations does not reject the agreement itself with LFI, but the place of the PS within Nupes. “It’s not a personal problem with Olivier Faure, but the line taken by the leadership doesn’t suit me”, explains Patrick Kanner, who criticizes the move to the first secretary for having multiplied the trips on the subject of super profits to campaign at the expense of the PS. “I don’t believe in the possibility for LFI to bring the left to power. And I don’t want to be at the service of an ambition that will never go through with it”, advances the head of the socialist senators, who adds: “If I were convinced that Lfi was capable of bringing the left to power, we might think twice, even if there are debates about Europe, the police. But I do not believe it”.
Patrick Kanner “believes that the first force on the left is the socialists. It must be stated. Because we have the first parliamentary group, we are 95, with senators from the PS. We are also the leading group for local government management. All of this counts for a political rebalancing, which seems necessary to me”.
“We have already reversed the balance of power in favor of the PS,” says Pierre Jouvet
For Pierre Jouvet, these attacks are synonymous with “profound bad faith. Or they want to unite the left, and they are part of our strategy. Or they don’t want it.” The spokesman of the PS recalls in passing “that their strategy has led to a score of 1.7% in the presidential elections, well behind Mélenchon (22%). If we had respected the balance of power to the letter, we would have given 30 PS candidates for the legislative elections. We had 77, while the ecologists had 96 and the PCF 50. The PS group went from 28 to 31 deputies and the Nupes agreement made it possible to return to the heart of the left. Above all, we have found a more reasonable balance of power. LFI has only twice as many deputies as we do. We have already reversed the balance of power, ”says this advocacy by Olivier Faure.
Finally, he rejects the image of a PS that would be cancelled, “a caricature made by internal opponents, in a simple congressional logic”. Pierre Jouvet adds:
Our line is to continue to affirm the role of the PS and to be once again the leader of the left.
Alliance between Hélène Geoffroy and Refondations to beat Olivier Faure?
In this PS “where the tectonic plates have shifted”, some are already imagining rapprochements between Hélène Geoffroy and Refondations, after the vote of the militants on 12 January. An alliance that could help beat Olivier Faure. This is where the danger for him lies. “We are open to political guidance. It is in the discussion that we can answer. I think so, there are possibilities of agreeing to relaunch, rebuild the party», believes Patrick Mennucci. “It would be the alliance of carp and rabbits”, jokes a support from Olivier Faure, who acknowledges that “it could be a hypothesis. But would the militants follow? “A signatory of Refondation is himself cautious: “If we make 35% and Hélène Geoffroy 20%, this makes 55%. But will everyone vote equally? »
Two months after the vote, the fact remains that “the games are wide open. Today Olivier Faure no longer has any guarantee of having the majority ”, predicts Hélène Geoffroy. Another opponent of the first secretary thinks it will be “a real political congress, so it’s not all written in advance”.
