Socialist activists have largely validated their party’s list for the Europeans, which will be led by the leader of Place Publique Raphaël Glucksmann, even if the two parties have still not reached an agreement, and despite criticism of the lack of diversity of candidates.
According to the provisional results communicated by the party to AFP, the activists adopted the list “with nearly 80% of the votes”.
Even if the results were not final at midnight, the trend cannot be reversed, the party specifies. Raphaël Glucksmann is now officially the PS candidate, as he was in 2019, when he received 6.19% of the vote. A formal ratification of the results is planned for Saturday.
Still no agreement between the two parties
But the Socialist Party and Place publique have still not reached an agreement, particularly on the number of places reserved for the small party on the list. Credited according to polls with between 8% and 10% of the votes, this alliance can aim for the moment to send around ten MEPs to Brussels and Strasbourg. But Place publique is demanding three eligible places while the PS only wants to grant it two: those of Raphaël Glucksmann, and Aurore Lalucq, outgoing MEP.
“We have a very clear request, it will succeed,” assures Raphaël Glucksmann’s entourage. The 44-year-old essayist, resolutely pro-European, can boast of having succeeded in five years in being identified with his struggles in the European Parliament, such as the cause of the Uighurs in China or his unreserved support for Ukraine.
On the PS side, boss Olivier Faure emphasizes that Raphaël Glucksmann is the ideal candidate and “the most followed politician on Instagram”. But internally, we affirm that the current good polls, which position it at the head of the left-wing parties, are mainly linked to the “PS label” of the list, which “carries a radical left line in its proposals, refuses the “excess in its form, and carries a form of credibility”.
A socialist parliamentarian also remarks that “it’s going to be a financial negotiation: who brings the money and the activists?”
Image of “Parisian”
With a presidential majority which has become “right-wing”, and La France insoumise which “sinks into excess”, the PS hopes to recover “the disappointed of Macronie and the disappointed of Mélenchonie”, explains a socialist executive . If “the erosion of the Insoumise and Macronist lists is confirmed, the Socialist-Public Place list, which is currently in third position in voting intentions, could be the focus of a revival of a + social-democratic pole + significant”, notes political scientist Pascal Perrineau in Le Figaro.
In the majority, some are in any case worried about candidate Glucksmann: “Voters in droves are ready to vote for him in the European elections”, thinks one MP. At the RN, Marine Le Pen also believes privately that “Glucksmann will achieve a score”, perhaps higher than that of Renaissance.
Raphaël Glucksmann is also seen as a danger by his competitors on the left, Léon Deffontaines, head of the PCF list, accusing him of “embodying social democracy which has always adapted very well to the liberal model”, and LFI, for example. the voice of his deputy François Ruffin, of being “above ground and disconnected”.
The MEP, son of the philosopher André Glucksmann and companion of the journalist Léa Salamé, suffers from an image of “Parisian” that he tries to correct, promising to go “everywhere” on the ground, including where the left is accused of having “betrayed”. The Socialist Party now wants to be on the offensive. “It is a united party which this evening very largely adopts the list of socialist candidates who will lead the battle for the European elections,” welcomed the PS in a short declaration.
He particularly praised the good scores of federations “where we doubted a favorable result”, because they were dominated by internal currents opposed to Olivier Faure, such as Paris (80%), Hérault (nearly 70%), and the Occitanie region (70%). The casting had indeed caused a stir in the party. Several socialist leaders have particularly criticized a lack of diversity and representatives of the working classes in an eligible position. The president of Occitanie, Carole Delga, who considered her political movement poorly served, had thus criticized “a disconnection” of the list with the reality of the French.