Special envoy to Blois,
The gamble, attempted by Ségolène Royal on Friday at the LFI summer universities in Valence, did not convince many people at those of the PS, organized in Blois all weekend. The socialist finalist in the 2007 presidential election says she is ready to lead a list for the European elections in 2024 to allow the union of the left. In his speech Saturday noon, the first secretary Olivier Faure did not even raise the proposal. Simply, he indicated, that “the gathering cannot be the work of anyone because it can only be the fruit of everyone’s effort”. Close the ban.
In principle, the leader of the socialists was not, however, hostile to a common list. In front of an audience of activists, he however recalled that “the decision of the communists and environmentalists to leave under their own colors did not allow the necessary conditions to be studied”. “I don’t blame them. This is not our role. We respect the strategic autonomy of each,” continued Olivier Faure, as if to respond to the rebels who insist with their partners to achieve union.
“I repeat that we have always considered that the project dictated the alliances, and not the other way around. Logically, if our partners were to evolve, we would take part in the discussions, ”promised the first secretary of the PS. Internally, his opponents would have preferred their leader to say no to the common list in the name of ideological differences with LFI. By highlighting above all the refusal of EELV and the PCF, Olivier Faure would seek above all, according to them, not to fall out further with the Insoumis. Jean-Luc Mélenchon regularly accuses him of doing everything to divide the Nupes, after the refusal of the union for the senatorials and now for the Europeans.
“I understand that ordinary mortals end up getting lost in it. For some, I would be subject to the Insoumis. For the others, I would have become a gravedigger of this gathering. To understand nothing more, ”replied Olivier Faure. “The gathering does not make identities and differences, of substance or style, disappear. Gathering is not and never will be an alignment. No one is subject to anyone. No one will ever be,” he said.
On the Europeans, he also assured that separate lists would not prevent a common candidacy for the 2027 presidential election. “The specificity of this European election is to add forces rather than subtract them, whatever the political configurations since the ballot is proportional”, he underlined. Before illustrating with the Spanish example: “The PSOE and SUMAR will not start on a common list for the Europeans, how will that hinder their desire to govern together and thus block the way to the right allied to the ‘far right?”
Olivier Faure therefore concluded, aiming without naming him Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “I hope that the left does not artificially maintain divisions, that we do not engage in a ridiculous Cluedo to accuse each other of being the murderer of the Nupes”. PS activists will however be consulted at the end of September as to the strategy to be adopted by the party for the European elections.
