L’Express: On the pension reform, no one understands the project of the PS today. Olivier Faure is vague, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol too. There is only Hélène Geoffroy who says that leaving at 60, which Mitterrand advocated in his time, “is heresy”. What reform do you want?
There is a debate on the left on this subject, but I believe that all the forces agree that the objective of retirement at 60 is an achievable and desirable horizon for the French. It is even a hope that the PS must carry loud and clear. Those who started working early should be able to leave early. Raising the retirement age is most profoundly unfair. The 42 annuities of contributions, such as they exist, with a departure at 60 years, it is an acceptable and serious solution. We have already answered the question of financing: for example, by aligning the salaries of women with those of men, the surplus pension contribution would make it possible to fill the funds, or by introducing an additional contribution on the highest incomes or new scales contributions for businesses rather than abolishing the contribution on value added. The solutions exist!
The PS will beat the pavement against this reform. A few years ago, he was being whistled in demonstrations. Times have changed ?
The Socialist Party is a political outlet of the social movement that it must accompany to engage the balance of power with the government. We want the government to bend and hear the anger of the French. We will join the demonstrators and the strikers and will organize a series of unit meetings of the Nupes everywhere in France to mobilize the French, already mostly convinced of the injustice of this reform.
“Let’s not blackmail the split”
The PS congress, full of resentment between the candidates, recalls the worst socialist congresses of the past, where betrayals, scams and low blows were legion. Is it a remake, low cost version?
I don’t hope so, and I don’t believe so. This congress will be one of clarification between two strategic lines. Those like us who want a strong PS in the rally of the left and those who want to get out. The “ni-nor” or the “and at the same time” are a dead end. What I see is that there are no ideological fractures between Olivier Faure, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol and Hélène Geoffroy as gaping as what we have known in the past, in the most violent congresses . With Olivier Faure, we will always see to the gathering of the socialist family.
And yet, between pro and anti-Nupes, a split seems to threaten…
I do not believe it. It’s a red rag waved by our competitors. When one belongs to a party like the Socialist Party, one respects the majority fact, one has respect for debate and democracy pegged to the body. The activists who remained after 2017 proved their unwavering loyalty to our political family, they took part in its patient but hardworking reconstruction. Let’s not blackmail the split. Their loyalty is no longer to be proven. I trust them.
Certain imposing shadows float over this congress: Jean-Luc Mélenchon above Faure, Anne Hidalgo above Mayer-Rossignol and François Hollande above Geoffroy…
(He cuts) There is such an obsession with Jean-Luc Mélenchon among some at the PS that they see him everywhere and all the time. But this is not the LFI congress! That François Hollande, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and Stéphane Le Foll are behind Hélène Geoffroy is a reality. That Anne Hidalgo and her relatives support Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, it is also one and they do not hide it. We are not under the supervision of anyone!
Nevertheless, the engine of Nupes is him and LFI. Do you understand the concerns and criticisms of your opponents who castigate the rapprochement with the rebellious, incompatible with the European values of the Socialists in particular?
It was you who said it ! The reality is quite different. When you spend most of your time criticizing your partners on the left rather than moving forward and fighting the government, the right and the extreme right… It’s completely beyond me! I refute the idea that LFI is the engine of Nupes. By theorizing the idea that the rebellious would be the only decision makers of the Nupes, some of our opponents have chosen caricature and posture. They weaken the PS, damage the left as a whole and play into Macronie’s hands. Every week, during interparty meetings, I see Marine Tondelier (EELV) or Fabien Roussel (PCF) being just as much a driving force behind proposals as the rebels and the Socialist Party. La Nupes is a political space born to allow leftists who were said to be irreconcilable to discuss in the same room to build a common political project of 650 measures and 33 shades! It has aroused unprecedented hope from those who believe in the left. This does not mean compromising on our values, but it does mean, in a demanding dialogue, making the left strong enough to oppose the devastating policies of Emmanuel Macron. We have more convergences than divergences with LFI.
“When we come out of a presidential election where the candidate is 1.7%, we say to ourselves that it is difficult to do worse.”
Except on Europe, NATO, Ukraine, the Bolivarian alliance, internal democracy… So many subjects that affect the principles and values of the PS.
No one denies the differences, and especially not Olivier Faure. And besides, for six months he has never been silent. Neither on Taiwan, nor on Ukraine, nor on NATO, nor on the Quatennens affair. But these fundamental differences have always existed on the left. It is the very DNA of the left to have debate within it. Many forget the time when the left wing of the PS, embodied by Gérard Filoche and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, faced the right wing of DSK and Jean-Marie Bockel. The differences, on the bottom, were just as strong as today, if not more. We do not put any subject under the carpet with LFI, the PCF or EELV but we must be careful: if we spend our time talking only about divisions, we will despair the people of the left. The reality is that if we hadn’t done the Nupes, the left would have disappeared in favor of the extreme right. We would probably no longer have a socialist group in the Assembly. We have seen it too much in many European countries in recent years.
Six months ago, 79 dissident socialists in the legislative elections were suspended and will not be able to vote in congress, for lack of an internal judgment procedure. Is it a maneuver to separate oneself from detractors?
The procedure is still ongoing. Twenty cases have already been studied and all will be by the end of February. We cannot praise the merits of a democratic PS and not respect the safeguards. When a political agreement is passed, like that of Nupes, voted by the parliament of the party, the rule must be respected. What message do we send if we reintegrate with a snap of the fingers, without adversarial debate, all the dissidents? Dissent when you’re unhappy? Do as you see fit? No ! It’s the door open to anything, with men who could launch dissenting candidacies because a woman has been invested in their place. Wanting to reinstate absolutely these anti-Nupes dissidents is party populism, especially when we discover that dissidents are financially affiliated with a party other than the PS. And especially since contrary to what we hear, they were not all candidates against LFI, some chose to face outgoing communist deputies or environmentalists, as in the Rhône or in Seine-Maritime. They are the same ones who advocate another union of the left and who did not respect it last June. This is not serious.
The Nupes reconciled the PS with the radical left. There would be, to hear you, a resurgence of popularity. Aren’t you confusing audience success with success at the polls?
When we come out of a presidential election where the candidate is 1.7%, we say to ourselves that it is difficult to do worse. This sanctioned a reality: the French no longer identified the socialists. We have to get out of denial. If there is a resurgence in popularity, it is because we have chosen the union of the left. Nobody says today that the PS is not a leftist party. That, I heard it under François Hollande. Not only is the PS not dead, but it has a future. Olivier Faure has put the PS back in people’s hearts. The socialists can once again lead this country, on the condition that the PS leads the major social transformations rather than being in the accompaniment of liberalism. We must once again become the party that changes people’s lives. Why have we maintained ourselves at the local level, and in particular in the regions and cities? It is because the daily lives of the French are changed there and they refuse to put up with liberalism, because there are great elected officials, like Carole Delga in Occitania, who is capable of riding the train at 1 euro, or Benoît Payan in Marseille, who launched the titanic project of school renovation. We have been working for four years to prepare and carry concrete proposals for all French people and we will enter into agreements to initiate the major changes necessary for a fairer future. Social and ecological justice is our only compass.