What does a successful political interview mean? The number of listeners? The amount of social media chatter that ensues? The echo of the message sent by the guest? That of a little sentence buried among others? Guest of France Info this Friday, December 6, the First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure sowed trouble within the New Popular Front, including within his own political family. The day after Emmanuel Macron’s speech, he opened the way for further discussions with the central bloc: “I am ready to start discussing, obtain concessions.” He also said he was ready to “compromise on all subjects”. A hand all the more extended to the Macronist camp as Olivier Faure suggests that the repeal of the pension reform is no longer an inextricable prerequisite. He considered that it was necessary to “freeze” the reform which sets the starting age at 64 years to launch “a financing conference” which would then make it possible to repeal the text criticized on the left and in public opinion.
A speech a few hours before his interview at the Elysée with Emmanuel Macron, which caused a stir within the PS where even its top supporters consider the exit “incomprehensible”. “Either he was clumsy, didn’t prepare anything and that led to this confusion, or he is trying to make himself prime minister, or he is playing the congress and taking advantage of the sequence to distance himself completely from La France insoumise, analyzes a socialist. My opinion is that there is a mixture of all this.”
In a tweet, the socialist senator close to Boris Vallaud Alexandre Ouizille moderated: “[Emmanuel Macron] will not repeat Macronism on the backs of the socialists. We are ready for a non-censorship pact on the budget. We demand that the left be appointed and we will make the necessary compromises with the forces of the Republican front in the National Assembly.” A mantra already posed by Vallaud last July, after the legislative elections born from the dissolution, in an interview at L’Express – “The New Popular Front in government […] and the republican front in the National Assembly” – and recently repeated by Olivier Faure in The World.
Before arriving at the Château, the leader of the PS senators Patrick Kanner and that of the PS deputies Boris Vallaud did not hide their disagreement in front of Olivier Faure. In the latter’s entourage, we contest any clumsiness or change of line: “we must discuss with everyone, but we remain inflexible on the orientation: a left-wing Prime Minister, with a method of non-censorship, of dialogue and compromise, but a real change of direction.”
Agree over disagreements
Real clumsiness or hidden strategy? For several days, the socialists, with the help of environmentalists, have been preparing for the post-Michel Barnier era. A series of discussions, all informal, with leaders of the central block, and particularly the Modem, was launched in complete discretion. “Corridor conversations, behind a door”, euphemizes a socialist who does not want to suggest that secret agreements are being prepared. The subjects discussed are far from trivial: repeal or freezing of the pension reform, new taxes for the wealthiest, abandonment of the immigration law and, it goes without saying, identity of the Prime Minister. Last week, a few days before the censorship of Michel Barnier’s government, François Hollande quibbled with the centrist Marc Fesneau in the office of the ecologist Jérémie Iordanoff over proportional representation. Since Wednesday evening, the day of censorship, these exchanges have even multiplied. Modem leaders thus met with the leaders of the NFP parliamentary groups, the socialist Boris Vallaud, the ecologist Cyrielle Châtelain and the communist André Chassaigne.
The next day, it was Marine Tondelier that Marc Fesneau had on the line, even though she had just contacted former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. If the socialists seem open to a freeze on the reform for the duration of a financing conference – which they hope will lead to the repeal – the ecologists of Marine Tondelier are making the repeal of the text a categorical prerequisite. . The head of the Green House also had little taste for Olivier Faure’s morning outing. “The rejection of this reform is the majority in the country, in public opinion and in the National Assembly, explains those around him. Starting negotiations by saying that we can move on this is a no.” Gabriel Attal, who had expressed a desire to contact them, did not respond to Marine Tondelier’s call. Agreeing on their disagreements, they all agree on the need to find the conditions for non-censorship of the next government.
Crisis with LFI
Corridor maneuvers to try to find a way out of the crisis which annoy La France insoumise (LFI), isolated within the New Popular Front as to the course of action to follow: if ecologists and socialists say they are ready to renounce censorship in exchange for social victories (pension reform, tax justice, wage increases), the rebels are hammering home their wish to see Emmanuel Macron resign so that a new presidential election can be organized.
Olivier Faure to Emmanuel Macron
“I take Olivier Faure seriously: he is ready to shelve the NFP program, he renounces making it a priority. He, Vallaud, Delga, Bouamrane, Hollande, once so divided, find themselves working towards a de facto alliance which would go as far as Retailleau and Wauquiez. This is a non-censorship agreement”, judges Paul Vannier, deputy for Val-d’Oise and member of the LFI management, who says “to take note of this. fact that the PS left the NFP”.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon also joined in the dance: “LFI did not give any mandate to Olivier Faure, neither to go alone to this meeting, nor to negotiate an agreement and make ‘reciprocal concessions’ to Macron and LR . Nothing he says or does is on our behalf or that of the NFP.” Enough to provoke a new round of clashes between socialists and rebels. “We are not Professor Mélenchon’s students. The future of the left, useful to the future of France and the French, cannot be summed up in the electoral future of Mr Mélenchon”, retorts Patrick Kanner to L ‘Express.
“I’m the one who names.”
On Friday, Olivier Faure, Boris Vallaud and Patrick Kanner sat on the sofas in Emmanuel Macron’s office. A serious atmosphere, but a free-for-all discussion with the President of the Republic, during which the three socialists wanted to demonstrate once and for all that he refused neither dialogue nor the path to compromise. “He was less peremptory and martial than yesterday on television,” notes one of the socialist guests.
The head of state, who received alone, without his faithful secretary general Alexis Kohler, pledged, from the outset, to call on the other parties of the New Popular Front in the coming days, including La France insoumise, to invite them too to the Elysée. He also apologized for having amalgamated the Socialist Party with the “anti-Republican front” responsible for the fall of the Barnier government, which he mentioned in his televised speech the day before. These pleasantries past, Emmanuel Macron asked if they had any “leads or names” to occupy Matignon, without ever mentioning that of François Bayrou or Bernard Cazeneuve, often cited in recent days. “We won’t get into the dance of names. The last time we proposed one [NDLR : Lucie Castets]you didn’t pay attention to it,” Faure replied.
For almost an hour, it was mainly a question of method. In short, how can we create the conditions for non-censorship, whether the Prime Minister is from the left or the right? “There is a budget to prepare, and the best solution would be someone from the left,” explained Patrick Kanner. “From the left”, a major clarification: a future tenant of Matignon who is not necessarily from the NFP could do the trick, and he would even undertake not to use 49.3 to force a compromise with the bloc’s deputies central. “What if he’s not left-wing?” asked the head of state. “We came to talk about a left-wing government,” replied Boris Vallaud. “The same evils produce the same effects.” A barely veiled reference to the method of the Barnier government.
“It’s me who names”, recalled the President of the Republic to his three guests who left the premises no more convinced than they were when pushing the door, and especially not of the will of the host of appoint a Prime Minister from their camp. But everyone agrees on the fragility of Emmanuel Macron, in search of a last breath to finish his second and last mandate, summarizes one of the socialist triumvirate: “He seeks stability and appeasement to succeed in holding on so well What a problem with the thirty months he has left. It obviously obsesses him.”
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