Mélenchon-Faure: do they love each other a little, a lot and soon not at all?

There was a time when, on the left, hatred prevailed. It was before the presidential election of 2022. The socialists among themselves, the ecologists with the socialists, the rebels with everyone; and vice versa too. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has always shone in the matter, he, this old socialist who slammed the door of the pink house in 2008 and has never ceased, since, to scold his comrades of yesterday. “Liars”, “hypocrites” at the head of “a dead star”, he said. He did not know the new generation, not even Olivier Faure, first secretary of the PS since 2018, long-time apparatchik, collaborator of his social-democratic nemesis François Hollande. Today’s elephants were no better than their fathers. Of this, Mélenchon was convinced… Water has flowed under the bridge. A river, even. Exit the gall of yesterday, the time, on the left, is for compliments, for happy cohabitation under the roof of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union. In seven months of existence, the Nupes has awakened the left and a duo leads the dance: that of yesterday’s enemies. “The strong couple of Nupes is the LFI-PS couple”, does not hesitate to affirm the rebellious deputy Alexis Corbière. No offense to environmentalists who saw themselves taking leadership on the PS before the presidential election. No offense to the Communists who thought they were freed from Mélenchon.

A friendship, in itself, illustrates this tandem of ex-belligerents: that between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Olivier Faure. She was born in a “boui-boui” of boulevard Magenta, near the Gare de l’Est in Paris, on April 26. The two men had never spoken to each other in the corridors of the National Assembly since 2017. It took the intervention of Guillaume Lacroix, the boss of the Radical Left Party, for them to sit at the same table. For nearly four hours, they test each other, accuse each other of past betrayals, rewrite the history of the PS and agree on what to do in view of the legislative elections. In the thirteen days and thirteen nights of negotiations that followed, the socialist bombarded Mélenchon with calls and messages on the Telegram application. He wants the number of constituencies allocated to the PS to be increased and that the differences on Europe and NATO be recorded, he believes that an agreement of 600 measures, “it’s too much”, and that it would suffice to agree on around twenty strong and broad enough measures so as not to commit everyone too much. He will almost win his case on the constituencies and Europe, not on the 600 measures of the agreement.

“Why Faure?” Asks Jean-Luc Mélenchon today to explain his relationship with Olivier Faure. “He is there, quite simply. He lived, he has scars. I saw him taken by the throat. There is something strong in him. He did the only intelligent thing there was to do: survive. The socialist leader, he rubs his hands. He saved the furniture. The “Nupes” operation is more than lucrative for his party, which has just crashed into the presidential wall with 1.7% for its candidate Anne Hidalgo. “Without the Nupes, we would have had no group and probably no socialist deputy”, insists a faithful of the boss of the PS. Politics is never a matter of resurrection, always of reinventions, adaptations. It’s time for cleavage, populist and protest. Olivier Faure embraces this strategy by putting the PS on a drip from La France insoumise.

Maybe better days will come. Until then, Olivier Faure and the management of the PS firmly believe in it: the PS is already better since the legislative elections. It would suffice to look at the number of “retweets” enjoyed by Faure, who was unknown yesterday, and the 1000 (and a little more) new members. There would even be a comeback of the Socialists in left-wing public opinion. “A return to favor is not a return to electoral desire”, moderates a framework of Europe ecology-The Greens, close to Yannick Jadot. Faure believes in his lucky star. He even allows himself some liberties, criticizing Jean-Luc Mélenchon in his management of the Quatennens affair, denounces his “excesses” and a “provocation” when the Insoumis draws an analogy in October between his march against the high cost of living and the Revolution . When the rebellious François Ruffin claims to be a “social democrat” and denounces the strategy of noise and fury of Chief Mélenchon, an old rebellious antiphon, Faure applauds. “Mélenchon plays politics in the morning while shaving and in the evening while brushing his teeth. He will try to be a candidate until the end of his life, we know that and no one is fooled. That does not prevent to observe that the “Mélenchon Prime Minister” effect was effective but also limiting”, we analyze in the entourage of the socialist leader.

The latter wants to be careful: “We have disagreements with Jean-Luc. Take European defense, it’s a real difference. He’s more than skeptical, not me. That doesn’t mean that I have to force the trait by turning my partner into a devil, saying he’s pro-Russian, pro-Chinese or whatever, because it’s not true.” Pushed by those close to him, Olivier Faure’s appetite is sharpening. He does not forbid himself anything, not even to be a candidate in 2027. But before, it will be necessary to decide between the ambitions, his own, that of Mélenchon, those of François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain too. Will we need a Nupes primary? And why not ? Faure does not oppose it but will prefer to settle this affair differently, like an American jury of assizes where one would recuse oneself one after the other until there remains only only one candidate.

“Withdrawn but not retired”, as he likes to repeat, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not unaware of the new aspirations of Olivier Faure. They make him smile, not that he doesn’t care but they would almost suit him so much they push him to dub an heir: yesterday Quatennens, today Ruffin or Autain. And tomorrow ? Manuel Bompard? Mathilde Panot? Alexis Corbiere? He won’t. He never saw Mitterrand do it. His successor, if he exists, will have to be born of himself. If it’s Olivier Faure rather than a rebel, so be it. If it’s himself, it’s better. But he warns the socialist that the PS is not in a condition to take over the leadership of the left: “It takes ten years to recover from destruction. I know what I’m talking about. And even then, it took longer for the Old [NDLR : Mitterrand]between 1965 and 1981.”

The rebel in chief will take again an old practice, of which it was freed in 2008 not without a certain relief: to follow a socialist congress. In January, the 80th congress in the history of the rose party will be held, and it has much more importance in the eyes of the Insoumis than that of the ecologists which has just ended or that of the Communist Party which will be held in the spring. . “From the point of view of Nupes, the PS congress is decisive,” said Manuel Bompard, his lieutenant. Which of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol (behind which hides Anne Hidalgo), Hélène Geoffroy (behind which hides François Hollande) or Olivier Faure (behind which hides Jean-Luc Mélenchon) will win? The Unsub have their preference, obviously. “Three petty bourgeois socialists who clash, that’s not what counts in this congress. The important thing is that Faure survives it. He must hold on”, explains Mélenchon who is not worried beyond extent of his new friend’s victory. And if Faure fails to keep the PS? “It’s the end of the Nupes”, torpedoes a relative of the first secretary without hesitation. And the same to assure: “Me, I leave the PS and I join La France insoumise. I have nothing to do with the friendly anti-agreements [NDLR : les opposants de Faure]. Our adversaries want something that no longer exists: a gathering of the left without the rest of the left. It has already existed, it was called the 30% PS and that time is over.” Mélenchon is Olivier Faure’s life insurance.