Smiles, from “dear Olivier”, “dear Carole” all the way, and above all no public mention of Nupes. In Blois, the Socialist Party made its political comeback on Friday under the sign of reconciliation, highlighting those refractory to the alliance for the legislative elections like Carole Delga, president of the Occitanie region. Hostile to the agreement reached in May with the rebels, the ecologists and the communists, she does not however intend to leave the PS or to oppose Oliver Faure, its first secretary.
The one that some already saw as the rising personality capable of taking the helm of the party, defended “the collective, more than ever the collective”. Without ever quoting “the Nupes”, preferring to speak of “the left”, she thus affirmed: “The PS, for it to be strong, it must be united”, during a speech just before the opening on summer days. “We are united, you have seen it. If I was next to Olivier Faure today, it was because I wanted to, ”she told the press.
Rebuild a “new PS” anchored on the left
“I’m not asking anyone here to deny themselves, on the contrary to affirm what we are,” replied Olivier Faure. For him, if the Nupes coalition “has assumed significant sacrifices”, and if the debate within the party “has been lively”, “now we must go beyond that moment”. For Olivier Faure, the challenge is to rebuild a “new PS”, according to the theme of the summer campus, and to carry out an explanatory work “with the activists who may have been disoriented by this unprecedented alliance where we are in the minority “Explains a party official.
After the presidential fiasco, the Nupes agreement for the legislative elections enabled the PS to save the day and keep a group of 31 deputies, far behind the 77 deputies of LFI. A success, however, for Olivier Faure, who has been defending the gathering of the left for a long time and says he is proud to have “re-anchored the PS on the left”.
Major absentees and opponents
But a certain number of “elephants” of the party remain hostile to the Nupes and accuse Olivier Faure of being “subject to the Insoumis”. Several of the main opponents of the alliance were thus absent in Blois, like the ex-president François Hollande, who is preparing a new book, the ex-minister Stéphane le Foll, who brought together anti-Nupes in July in Sarthe, or former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve who left the PS after the alliance with LFI.
Hélène Geoffroy, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, who dreams of delighting the head of the party from Olivier Faure, is present, but she reserves herself above all for the future Congress, which should take place in January. “I will put a text in the perspective of being a candidate”, she confirmed to the press, believing that the Congress should be “a moment of clarification of the left, and not a referendum for or against the Nupes”. For the former first secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, who supports her, “the Nupes is stillborn”, and will “slowly decompose on the hard points of the start of the school year” (retirement, budget, etc.), and with the deadlines of the Europeans, where LFI offers a common list, which for the moment is not unanimous in the PS.