Growing place in the National Assembly which he found as a simple deputy, new book on the left and power, and recently a podcast: François Hollande is everywhere this fall. The former socialist president is determined to put all his weight behind the strategy of his party, and more broadly of the left, in the coming years. The former head of state has one obsession: rehabilitating social democracy, the only solution according to him to ensure a possible victory for the left.
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“ Keep the left united but change its political line »: this is the stated objective of the former President of the Republic. And the opportunity, in passing, to rehabilitate its balance sheet. Because if there is one thing that François Hollande does not support is that his presidential action is called into question, in particular within the Socialist Party (PS).
A crime of lèse-majesté when, he says in his work The challenge of governinghe accomplished, during his mandate “ 75% of his campaign commitments “. In his sights, the current boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, whom he intends to replace at the next socialist congress in 2025. The first stage of a strategy aimed at presidential 2027.
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PS 2012, the return
This strategy can be called the “cuckoo strategy”: hello, here comes social democracy again. It consists of putting a First Secretary of the PS less subject to the rival La France insoumise (LFI), then of expanding the PS to the social-democrat camp, with in particular Raphaël Glucksmann, Bernard Cazeneuve and repentants of macronism. Finally, it will be a question of presenting a presidential candidate under this social democratic banner.
François Hollande insists: we do not need a single candidate from the left, this would prevent electoral enlargement in the second round. The regrouping of social democratic forces would force environmentalists and communists to choose sides and would put an end to the rebellious domination of the left. For François Hollande, a victory over LFI in the first round of the presidential election would definitively reverse the balance of power in progress since 2017 and would sound the death knell of the era Jean-Luc Mélenchoncaught up by “ its biological time “. In short, a return to the 2012 presidential election, where the former head of state gathered nearly 30% of the votes in the first round, leaving the tribune of La France insoumise far behind.
Hollande at the disposal of the left and of France… and “ not indifferent to 2027 »
The question then arises of François Hollande’s ambitions. He blows hot and cold on this subject: on the one hand, he says to himself “ not indifferent to 2027 “, on the other he does not want ” give the impression that without him there would be no salvation “. But if we want to look at the symbols, he devotes the first episode of his new podcast A president should listen to this to the victory of Donald Trump in the United Statesthe first American president of the modern era to achieve a comeback after losing power.
Problem is, enthusiasm is hardly there among the ex-president’s potential allies. A communist deputy already fears the return of the PS “ hegemonic » from the years 1980-2010. “ If it’s to repeat what Hollande did during his mandate, no thanks “, he blurted. Internally at the PS, many are not very warm either, because beyond François Hollande, it is his entourage who is esteemed “ date “. But the ex-president wants to be available to the left and to France, ready to make the quote from the British novelist George Eliot his own: “ It’s never too late to become what we could have been. »
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