A rumor. What if Jean-Luc Mélenchon announced himself as a candidate on the evening of June 9? She runs, she runs, and cools the rest of the left. The ecologists are depressed, the socialists are lamenting. Ah! If he steals their moment, go ahead, while Raphaël Glucksmann takes the lead, throwing the very small score of the presidential election into oblivion. And he, Glucksmann, what will he do? New rumor. He is tempted to speak and run past Olivier Faure and the political apparatus to “push the rally”. Candidate too? Mélenchon versus Glucksmann. Political fiction. The second does not look towards the Elysée.
A new stage opens on the left. “It’s going to be war between them and us,” summarizes a socialist executive. Or Patrick Kanner, the socialist senator, convinced: “Glucksmann is the first blow to Mélenchon.” The leader of LFI is said to have been weakened by his rebels, Clémentine Autain, Raquel Garrido, Alexis Corbière, Danielle Simonnet – or Eric Coquerel, in a smaller voice – and in competition with François Ruffin. The Insoumis of the Somme intends to speak just after the European election, a new brick in its candidate building for 2027. A close whisper: “The only certainty: he will not go against Mélenchon. He does not want to be Brutus. ” Autain, more daring, will move forward a little further with Emancipation, her new movement. Two candidates for LFI, three if we count Mélenchon’s overflowing desire, a luxury for the party as much as a trap for the Insoumis patriarch.
Around the founder, we close ranks, we harden the line. At the National Assembly, new internal regulations were ratified, placed on the table as if nothing had happened on a Tuesday morning during the group meeting. The text hardens the tone, strengthens the powers of the “office”, a body composed almost entirely of followers of the leader and from which the grumblers have been excluded. This office also examines sanctions. Among LFI deputies, we fear that the fate of Raquel Garrido, one of Mélenchon’s most critical, has already been resolved: exclusion from the future group, otherwise worse.
Knives are sharpening among the Greens
And the others ? The communists are looking for the light, the candidacy of Fabien Roussel, says one of his lieutenants, “would be triggered the minute Jean-Luc Mélenchon announces himself”. It’s about not chasing the Mélenchon turtle, but preparing for the future, all the same. So we consult on the left, and we meet new people. With Guillaume Lacroix, the president of the PRG, on February 29 within the walls of the National Assembly, to whom Roussel offers to “work on the substance of the program”. Because, at the conclusion of the meeting, reports a witness, “there could well be two candidates on the left”.
Environmentalists are already healing the wounds of an impossible campaign. However, we agree that Marie Toussaint, their candidate, did the best; the knives are sharpening especially in the direction of Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the party, and some are already brandishing the threat of an extraordinary congress convened at the end of 2024. “If we make 6%, we will bring down Tondelier , tackles an executive but I am unable to give a name to replace her. Internally, Senator Mélanie Vogel, leader of the constitutionalization of abortion in the Senate in February, is favored by some of the activists and leaders. One problem: the statutes of the Green Party do not allow a national elected official to also lead the movement. Impossible is not green…
Primary, confederation, common movement… There is no shortage of ideas, but the conditions are, in the opinion of a PS deputy, far from being met. How to bring about the union? Dozens of notes are circulating in the hands of leaders of all sides, one of which, entitled “Aim for the moon” and written by the former mastermind of Yannick Jadot, Alexis Braud, was lost on the desk of the Express. Amel Bent’s hit that Cécile Duflot sang at the top of her lungs in her car in 2012. Another era, other lefts. Since Nupes is no more, we must imagine another coalition format. The author calls on the leaders to take inspiration from the late UDF. A story shared by Patrick Kanner. “We need to think about a confederal dynamic. This is the first stage which can lead towards something else, towards a large social, democratic and ecological party, a large movement with free structures which agree to look together towards a new horizon. “It is more than the Nupes, and less than the single party. It requires compromise and a political project which cannot be obtained with a knife to the throat in two weeks.”
Strategic closed doors on the future
Still others concoct a scenario with “the left outside the walls”, bringing together NGOs, authors, trade unionists, etc. Several signatures could appear, and not the least, as revealed Release : Erik Orsenna, Benoît Hamon, Camille Etienne, Pierre Rosanvallon, Marylise Léon, Sophie Binet and Annie Ernaux, yesterday supporting Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Laurent Berger and Philippe Martinez, the two faces of the last union against pension reform, could initial. The text will call for a rally, demand a designation process, and say without saying it that the man for the job cannot be Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In the process, socialists, communists, ecologists and “unitary” rebels would respond with the same voice. At the beginning of July, in the cloister of the Festival of Ideas at Charité-sur-Loire, this summer rally where the entire left rushes to discuss the substance, some strategic closed doors will also be held on the future.
A fragile canvas as the municipal elections will be the breeding ground for new divisions between the parties. Environmentalists are eyeing two socialist bastions, Lille and Paris, and are hesitant to team up with the Insoumis in the first to recover the throne of Martine Aubry. Everyone agrees that the political apparatuses, as weak as they may be, hamper the conditions for gathering. “Look what the last PS congress caused in the Nupes, while their candidate was only at 1.7%…” sighs a Rebel. The next one, which promises to be just as tense, must be held at the end of 2024, but Olivier Faure prefers the month of March 2025. Weakened internally, including in his majority, the first secretary could well spend the hand. The name of Boris Vallaud seems to be unanimous among Faure’s supporters as well as his opponents. “Boris has the qualities of a leader. There will be no clash between him and Olivier Faure,” says support from the Landes deputy.
Without forgetting François Hollande, always in ambush. He recently had breakfast with MP Arthur Delaporte, one of the figures of today’s PS. The new generation at the table of yesterday’s. On the menu of the conversation, New Caledonia above all, but we also talked about “the rest”, a sweet euphemism for politics. The former president considers that it is necessary to reaffirm the strength of socialism within the framework of municipal elections, a prerequisite for any gathering of the left. But don’t worry about his possible return: he is only there to help.
.