Well, well, well… But what on earth are Hélène Geoffroy, Nicolas Mayer Rossignol, Carole Delga and Karim Bouamrane going to be able to tell each other on this second day of the Socialist Party’s summer universities? The four anti-Mélenchonists have planned to meet up to discuss privately this Friday in order to find a way out of the current political impasse – before speaking collectively the next day. The initiative planned in Blois is still “in gestation”, they say in the various stables of the main opponents of Olivier Faure, the First Secretary of the Roses. But the various media releases of each leave little doubt as to the meaning of this approach.
“The empty chair policy carried out by Faure always ends up harming the person who carries it,” said the mayor of Rouen to Figarowhen the president of the Occitanie region, invited yesterday to the Elysée, assures the Parisian that the first of the socialists “should have continued to maintain dialogue while remaining very demanding”. Last Tuesday, Hélène Geoffroy, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, wanted to be more solemn. “The party is on the verge of breaking up”, she warned in a speech given at the national office.
“The First Secretary acts very alone”
In short, it’s the start of the Socialist Party’s return, and the opposition is at loggerheads with the party leadership. “Everyone is getting ready to show off their muscle before Blois, nothing new under the sun,” jokes a pink MP, well-versed in the power relations of the house. But here the house is in a delicate situation: last Monday, Emmanuel Macron swept aside Lucie Castets’ New Popular Front candidacy for Matignon, urging the left-wing parties – apart from LFI – to cooperate with the other parties in the chamber.
The question has therefore arisen: will the PS be unionist to the core, or should it embrace the “duty of responsibility” specific to “government parties” – and therefore beyond the NFP? “We are not here to wait for the next move,” whispers Patrick Mennucci, a leader belonging to Hélène Geoffroy’s current, who advocates for the socialists to continue negotiations with the head of state by shedding their left-wing partners. Olivier Faure opposes this possibility: “I am always ready to negotiate, but today the head of state is not negotiating,” he justified himself on RTL.
We call it a small shake-up: the socialist leadership, in concert with its deputies, has finally decided to censor any government that would follow in the footsteps of Macronism. “Basically, we are prepared not to censor a Prime Minister from the left with a program that corresponds to the essentials,” explains a socialist bigwig. Enough to give breath to other names, which continue to circulate? At least a change in the initial position of the NFP, contested among the socialists, decided the day after the Elysée press release, where the four parties explained that they would boycott discussions with the president if the latter did not appoint Lucie Castets.
But allow Olivier Faure to clarify things, in the columns of Release : “The socialists will not be Macronism’s auxiliaries.” A message intended as much for the head of state as for his internal opponents. The rest of the left is also getting involved: “I think they would betray themselves in the long term. History will judge them,” asserts the leader of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, on the subject of the roses tempted to reach out to the President of the Republic. The internal opposition currents defend themselves against such accusations. And refuse, for their part, to be Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s auxiliaries. Nothing new under the sun, definitely.
For several weeks now, the divisions between pro- and anti-Mélenchonists, which were swept under the carpet during the legislative elections, have been resurfacing with renewed vigor. In addition to the controversial statements, there was also this threat of dismissal of Emmanuel Macron, pulled out of the hat without consultation with the rest of the NFP, and brandished for two weeks by the Insoumis. “We are crossing the red line with the Insoumis,” Patrick Kanner whispered in our columns ten days ago. The leader of the socialist senators, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol tendency, accused the LFI leader of giving arguments to Emmanuel Macron, who is counting on the fracture of the union.
In the opposition, some are asking their First Secretary to publicly break with the Insoumis. “Mélenchon killed the coalition on Sunday, August 18, without telling anyone,” Hélène Geoffroy considered last week. “Faure is tired of falling into the trap of the debate that revolves around Jean-Luc Mélenchon and their nonsense. To ignore is not to minimize, it is to prevent the calendar from being set,” said a close friend of the first of the socialists.
The eternal spirit of congress
Unsurprisingly, the internal protests are still targeting the First Secretary. He is also accused of having silenced the party’s democratic bodies. “It had been over a month, despite our requests, that we had not had a national office. The NFP program was approved by Faure without anyone voting for it. Lucie Castets was appointed by Faure without anyone voting. The meeting at the Elysée as a delegation was approved by Faure without anyone voting,” sighs Patrick Mennucci.
And within his own movement, some voices are raised, under cover of anonymity. “The socialists are really attached to the debate, and here we pay for a moment when the First Secretary acted very alone, regrets a parliamentarian. In the end, it is still difficult to be his friend.” “There has been a change of view in the press, on the left, in public opinion… We never recognize his successes, especially among the socialists,” defends a close friend.
Definitely nothing new under the sun. Because the internal dispute recalls above all the powerful disagreements, difficult to resolve during the explosive congress in Marseille, in 2023. Olivier Faure won by a very narrow head; the Socialist Party, for its part, was torn apart over the Nupes, supported by the current First Secretary. So under the sky of Blois these days floats this eternal spirit of congress. “We will talk about it this weekend, warns Patrick Mennucci. But if we look at the statutes, the congress must take place before January 8,” he specifies, while the socialist boss wants to postpone it.
All things in their own time. For the time being, the leaders of Hélène Geoffroy’s minority current are mainly arguing for the organization of a “strategic convention”, a clarification of the party line, without consequences for the governing bodies. “We cannot obtain the return of certain socialist voters thanks to the European elections and Glucksmann, and then be in a kind of submission to Mélenchon”, continues the former deputy. The head of the list, who came third last June, and who promises to reopen a “social-democratic space” will also be present in Blois. Olivier Faure and he no longer speak to each other.
.