At the end of the time allotted for negotiations, rebellious France and the Socialist Party signed an agreement for the June legislative elections on Wednesday. As with EELV and the PCF, it is an agreement both in substance, with a fairly detailed government program, and in form, with a distribution of constituencies. In this case, 70 are reserved for the PS (against 100 for EELV and 50 for the PCF). It now remains for the National Council (CN) of the Socialist Party, its internal parliament, to ratify this agreement. If the authority had rather largely voted the opening of the negotiations, Olivier Faure and the direction of the PS this time have their work cut out for them. This is also why the meeting will only take place this Thursday evening: a little over twenty-four hours, it will not be too much to convince a majority of the 300 members of CN.
Long before the start of negotiations, the internal opposition to the PS was headwind against a possible alliance with the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The former Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, signified his departure on Wednesday evening, and François Hollande himself “challenges” this agreement. “It would be a questioning of the very history of socialism, of François Mitterrand and his European commitments, of Lionel Jospin and his economic credibility and his social progress,” he declared last week. “It’s just an alignment with the positions of rebellious France, slice the senator of Val-d’Oise Rachid Temal. In 2012, when we made the agreement with EELV, we didn’t ask them to align themselves with our program! The balance of power was then perhaps different.
Exaggerated disagreements
Looking closely at the joint press release from the PS and LFI, the PS of course makes compromises, particularly on European construction. “But we must recognize that LFI has taken a real step towards us”, notes a local socialist executive “really not leftist”. “On the EU, basically, we come back to the program which was that of the Socialist Party for the last European elections”, remarks a collaborator. Even on the repeal of the Labor law, known as El Khomri, voted under Holland? “The PS has been criticizing this law, apart from the hardship account, for years. That’s not a scoop ! “I see nothing shocking in this agreement,” even goes so far as to say Somme senator Rémi Cardon.
“When Olivier Faure explained to us this weekend that in fact, on 80% of the subjects, the adjustments to be made were minor, there were still a few of us laughing”, adds the executive quoted above. Far from reversing the history of the PS, this agreement is much more like the formalization of the closing of a parenthesis: that of the five-year term of Holland. At least from the end of the mandate, marked by the Labor law, the Macron law, the project of forfeiture of nationality… “The truth is that the PS has made part of the inventory of the Holland years in recent years . But LFI has so demonized the PS that today they are forced to overplay the surprise on a so-called reversal of the socialists, ”judges a collaborator.
The constituency agreement does not satisfy anyone
Contrary to the story of the last few weeks, it is therefore not so much on the merits that the debates should primarily turn during the CN of the PS Thursday evening. But on the form: 70 constituencies, it is of course less than requested (a hundred), but much more than the result of the presidential one could not let it augur. “But the world did not stop spinning on April 10, we still have to listen to the 3.5 million left-wing voters who did not vote Mélenchon! “contests Rachid Temal, who recalls the territorial establishment of the PS. In 2017, despite Benoit Hamon’s 6%, the party had a dozen more deputies elected than LFI (including six without LREM candidate facing them).
“70 is too few constituencies, and of poor quality,” says the senator. And even on the side of those who support an agreement, the proposed distribution has few fans: “Everyone has lost their arbitrations, that gives credit to the opponents”, loose a local executive. What especially sets fire to the powder is the fact that in four constituencies where the PS is outgoing, the candidate would not be socialist. And in particular two outgoing who represent themselves: David Habib, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and Lamia Ej Aaraje, in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. “It’s still a question of principle: when you join forces, you don’t let go of your outgoing people,” said a source very favorable to the agreement.
Will this be enough to bring down the alliance? “Reason will come back in this difficult moment. Everyone must take the height and not look at his personal case, believes Rémi Cardon. There is no plan B, it is the only way to prevent Emmanuel Macron from carrying out his liberal and tough policy for the most fragile for the next five years. Reason or not, no one ventures to predict the outcome of the vote on Thursday evening. “It will be sporty,” summarizes Rachid Temal. He is outright calling for a vote from activists. But the latter are not necessarily more advanced. Even in Paris, where the agreement turns to humiliation, an insert summarizes: “Either we are for, and we betray ourselves, or we are against, and we betray our voters. All that remains is for us to drink. »