The PS will lay off eleven employees, as announced by its first secretary Olivier Faure at the end of January. At the same time, the party yesterday launched a major voter consultation with a view to 2022.
The Socialist Party launched yesterday its projects for the presidential election of 2022. A platform will allow voters to develop a presidential project. In addition, the party held, Thursday, its first live debate devoted to the theme: “A job for all, a decent job for everyone” for 2022. However, all is not rosy for the movement. Last week, the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, officially announced to the employees and the national office the abolition of eleven permanent posts for budgetary reasons. A new cut after the elimination of 55 positions during a social plan signed at the end of 2017, following the double debacle of the presidential and legislative elections. The Socialists had also been forced to sell their prestigious headquarters on rue de Solférino in Paris to settle in Ivry-sur-Seine in more modest premises. But the disappointing results of the PS during the European elections in 2019 and the senatorial elections in 2020 brought down the “public endowment”, amount paid annually to the party by the state.
A chasm of more than 6 M €
Then, the Covid crisis and its periods of confinement and curfew, led to the postponement sine die of the congress scheduled for December in Villeurbanne, limiting the renewal of membership fees. Result, at the end of 2020: a chasm of more than 6 million euros between forecasts and reality. “It is a painful choice, because they are not only employees but people with a militant commitment”, recognizes the first secretary in the columns of the World. “To preserve our ability to conduct a presidential campaign, we must further reduce our current spending,” also argues the socialist leadership. The world recalls that the PS must already prepare its cash for the presidential campaign, and that, according to Olivier Faure, the budget must be in balance in order to borrow an amount that would allow hoping for a result during the ballot. Bloodless, the party therefore did not give up anything.
Nearly 500 local meetings will be organized in the coming months and spread throughout the country. “They will be organized by activists and open to all,” said the deputy national secretary for federations, Fatima Yadani.
Rebuild a great party
The first secretary of the Socialist Party has set himself the ambition, by the fall, of re-founding “a large party on the left, capable of creating the conditions for alternation” for the 2022 presidential election. from the left is without appeal: “If she was not the stupidest in the world and knew how to present a joint offer, she would be in front of Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.” To do this, Olivier Faure wants to rely on the new generation.
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