This is the story of an occult survey. So secret that no one saw it except Olivier Faure, his lieutenant Pierre Jouvet and a few very close to the First Secretary of the Socialist Party. A poll – please believe that it exists – carried out on November 27 and which tests another candidate for the European elections than Raphaël Glucksmann: a certain Najat Vallaud-Belkacem. Olivier Faure and Pierre Jouvet are categorical, the former Minister of National Education would even have a better score than the outgoing MEP, but the two admirals of the PS forgot to tune their violins… In L’Express, the first said that she would be “0.5 points better” and the second raises the stakes: “She is four points above.” Inflation, that evil of the times. According to another source who heard of this mysterious study, Raphaël Glucksmann actually received 9.7% of voting intentions compared to 8.2% for Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.
Olivier Faure even said it to the main person concerned during a tête-à-tête at the start of the year, without Glucksmann being able to take a look at the famous survey. “A disciplinary poll,” says a close friend of the leader of the rose party, to put pressure on the head of the socialist list in the next European elections. Between the two men, relations have continued to become strained in recent times… “There is no Glucksmania, concedes Olivier Faure. But I believe in him and in what he carries as a message.” Perfidious compliment. And as is often the case in preparing for an election, everything is a question of places, of men and women whose chances of being elected are too slim for some, too strong for others. Glucksmann claims three eligible names, in the first ten of the list. “Too greedy”, we consider in the entourage of the First Secretary. The discord is such that the auctions almost fizzled, Raphaël Glucksmann and Olivier Faure each threatened to do without the other. Everyone has their own list and may the best win. It was necessary to calm the testosterone ardor, especially since Olivier Faure must also deal with his internal opposition: the clan of Anne Hidalgo and Carole Delga, and that of Hélène Geoffroy. The first two are more greedy than the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, and claim eligible places for Jean-Marc Germain and Claire Fita – the latter, although pushed by Delga, would hardly be excited by the Brussels adventure.
A pact of non-agression
So what happened to Olivier Faure, who had put Raphaël Glucksmann into orbit during the last European elections in 2019 against the advice of a number of socialists? The same people who then accused him of “wiping out” the PS by giving the keys to the list to the leader of Place publique support the latter today. Olivier Faure prefers to smile but has little taste for the words of love launched by François Hollande, Anne Hidalgo, Carole Delga and Bernard Cazeneuve to Raphaël Glucksmann. “He doesn’t want Raphaël to be an old-fashioned socialist, to return to what we were yesterday, to what no longer exists,” murmurs a Faure faithful. “He doesn’t want him to is running a campaign of self-centered socialists who bash others on the left. We know what that looks like: it’s Anne Hidalgo and 1.7%.”
Far from the microphones, the First Secretary had harsh words against his candidate, who was asked to ease up on his criticism of the Insoumis. There is no question of creating the conditions for a new rupture between Insoumis, ecologists and socialists. “The non-aggression pact is illusory but we must stick to it. There is a complete gap between the media moment around Raphaël Glucksmann and the political moment. After the European elections, the movement to designate a candidate common to the entire left”, insists the leader of the roses.
Jealousy
Some admit to detecting a hint of worry, if not jealousy, in Olivier Faure. Faure has never had overflowing ambition but the prospect of being the candidate of the united left in 2027, with or without Mélenchon, suits him well. Those close to him believe he has a future as a candidate with such vigor that he himself has taken to the game. The fifty-year-old, “ultra-rational”, according to his friends, “will only go if he is in a position, and he does everything to be.” Faure was nursed by François Hollande from whom he learned more than one political lesson: the important thing is to be the last one alive in the middle of the room; the choice of reason, as Hollande was during the socialist primary in 2011.
Competition is healthy, it seems. Except in PS, where there cannot be more than one sun in the same sky. Raphaël Glucksmann shines without the help of the Socialist Party, with interviews he no longer knows what to do with in the press and invitations galore in the most popular shows on the small screen, while Olivier Faure, for his part, is struggling to build a media aura. And if by chance the outgoing MEP were to achieve a surprisingly high score in the European elections, the future as a presidential candidate hoped for by the Prime Secretary would become even darker. In short, Glucksmann walks on a crest line: being high without being too high, not losing but above all not winning too much. Impossible is not socialist.
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