At the table of an opulent restaurant in eastern Paris, Guillaume Lacroix, the influential boss of the confidential Left Radical Party (PRG), sighs in despair. “Last week, it was Nicolas Sarkozy, and you will see that in a few days it will be the big comeback of Ségolène Royal. I feel like I’m coming back to 2007, it’s terrible!” Bingo! Two days after the radical’s fork, the Nupes parties are organizing their traditional back-to-school meetings with their batches of distinguished guests. To that of La France insoumise, the former socialist candidate for the 2007 presidential election hit the bull’s eye with her proposal to “make a union list” for the Europeans. Exit the Medina controversy: the event is her.
A coup as media as it is political, prepared for a long time by the one who has been slowly disappearing from radar screens since the end of the Holland quinquennium. Blame it on its controversial exit on Ukraine last September, casting doubt on the veracity of the war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin; the fault of her analyzes as a Sunday investigator on Twitter during the disappearance of little Emile; the fault, too, of her future job as a columnist on Cyril Hanouna’s show.
“It no longer surprises me that Ségolène surprises us. She is participating in a debate that she will not finish”, sums up, disillusioned, Boris Vallaud, the boss of the PS deputies. But the lady of 2007 has “seen a lot of people” lately, reports a friend of hers, and “is getting organized”. An appointment with Jérôme Guedj here, with a socialist oil there, another in the café of the opulent Molitor swimming pool where she has her habits, a dinner with the new guard of the PS – the young deputy from Eure Philippe Brun .
Proofs of love
At the beginning of the summer, it was in a restaurant in Saint-Germain-des-Prés that she had lunch with Olivier Faure, after having spent weeks soliciting him. And will the Nupes hold? And can the common list for Europeans exist? And if it does not exist, what application will the PS send? And is Raphaël Glucksmann still the option to lead the PS list? And what about a coalition with EELV? “I could see where she wanted to go, so her offer of service for an application does not surprise me,” breathes the First Secretary. She, on the other hand, did not appreciate her interview with Faure, whose real intentions she does not really manage to decode, not even the beginning of the beginning of a presidential ambition.
From the top of his rebellious Aventine, Jean-Luc Mélenchon savors the media mastery of Ségolène Royal. “She shows audacity, courage”, he launched, welcoming a “contribution to the battle for the union”. A few words that do not commit to anything, and especially not to a dubbing of “Ségo”. But he has not forgotten his support in 2022, “a turning point in the campaign”, assures the entourage of the great chef. The latter is above all a fine “PS-ologist”, since time. He sees Olivier Faure living on the option of a common Nupes list for the Europeans, and is annoyed that socialists and environmentalists do their business together, without LFI, for the senatorials. “They may have speeches defending the union but for the proofs of love, you can go back”, grumbles a rebellious deputy.
The influencer
Mélenchon knows above all that not all socialist and environmental deputies are in the wake of their leaders, like Jérôme Guedj or even Philippe Brun who do not hide to plead the need for a union list from 2024 Who better than another rose, one from the PS before, whose thorns always sting, that the media will inevitably tear off, to shake up the little socialist world? “You have to understand the evolution of Ségolène’s role, comments Brun. She is no longer a simple political personality, she is an influencer. Her media strike power is unparalleled. She says something, she encodes and pushes everyone. to decide.”
To conflict is to clarify. Du Mélenchon in the text. The rebellious leader had only to provoke fate by making Ségolène Royal one of the guests of honor at LFI’s summer universities, her ego would do the rest. He didn’t promise her anything, and she didn’t ask him anything. Both are driven by the same conviction: the far right threatens, Macronie will not survive Emmanuel Macron, so the left has a chance to win. The advantage of the maneuver does not forget the personal equation of Ségolène Royal – the return to politics -, nor that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon – to remain in control of the game on the left so as not to compromise a putative candidacy for the next presidential election. .
Ségolène Royal is moving the lines, and what does it matter if many rebels, even the most loyal to the leader, cringe at the possibility of a unitary candidacy from the one who hoped for a ministerial chair during the first five-year term of Emanuel Macron. Who remembers, above all, that Mélenchon slammed the door of the Socialist Party in 2008, the day before the Reims congress, to oppose Ségolène Royal, tipped as a favorite, by invoking the centrist distortion to come from a PS that she provoke, like the American Democrats? Politics too often zaps memories.