Back from the Socialist Party (PS) congress in Marseille at the end of January, we said that we would see with use if the agreement to end the crisis between Olivier Faure and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol would hold. Well we quickly saw. Barely out of the violent challenge to Faure’s re-election as party leader, the Socialists seem ready to plunge again. Maybe as early as March 11, in a week. On that day, the new national council of the PS (the party’s parliament) must meet for the first time and decide on a seemingly innocuous point but which could set fire to the powder: knowing who to support during the partial legislative which is to take place on March 26 in Ariège?
This partial is caused by the cancellation of the election of LFI MP Bénédicte Taurine. Elected in 2017, she was logically one of the outgoing supported by the entire New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) last June. Olivier Faure and the management of the PS wish to support her again. But this is not the idea of opponents of the pro-Nupes line, including Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, who wish to support a socialist dissident, who was already a candidate in June. Because Ariège is Occitanie. And Occitania is the region of Carole Delga. The President of the Regional Council had already pushed many dissents during the general elections.
Faure is strong
Side direction of the PS, one thus considers as logical to renew the agreement of Nupes within the framework of this partial, but side Refondations (the current of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol), not. “There can be no nominations ad vitam aeternam, believes Lamia El Aaraje, patroness of the Parisian socialists. Which authority decided who should be supported? “. “It’s a bit easy, the National Council did not have the material time to meet, replies Arthur Delaporte, deputy close to Olivier Faure. Saturday (next), Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol will have the opportunity to clarify his position. »
If we are so serene within the Faure camp, it is because we are strong. First because no one disputes his victory. The first secretary alone claims 162 seats in the National Council, ie 11 more than the absolute majority. A majority expected on the evening of the vote on January 12, and confirmed by the election throughout the month of February of the departmental heads of the socialist federations. “We are even doing a little better than expected”, underlines one of the organizers of the Faure current. Lamia El Aaraje recognizes this but judges that “it is not so clear. To say that we have a majority when there is such a small gap is absurd”.
Omelette
“Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, it’s the two ends of the omelette, analyzes a framework of the current Faure. The Hidalgo end and the Delga end. If he does not support the dissident in Ariège, he loses Delga and it’s over, he disappears. The guy himself weighs nothing. As for the collegial nature of the management, so demanded by Refondations in Marseille, this same executive believes that it is the mayor of Rouen who does not respect it. In addition to the Ariège case, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol does not deprive himself of having a very dissonant speech vis-à-vis Olivier Faure in the media. Until recently publishing a column in the form of a counter-project on pensions, Real Leftist Reform Is Possible. Deputy Delaporte regrets not having been warned.
“We are not going to stop working, protests Lamia El Aaraje. If Olivier Faure wants to take the initiative of a pension reform with PS sauce, we take it. It bothers me that we are reproached for working! “The accusations of cacophony, or of organizing a PS door via forums, the media, webinars…? The first federal secretary of the Parisian socialists rejects them. At Refondations, we actually assume to rebuild an “old-fashioned” current in the PS. For a long time, there have been very structured currents with their permanent staff, their publications, their appointments. The progressive de-ideologization of the PS and, it must be said, the greater control of party financing, has considerably weakened them.
Countdown
“It’s true, it’s a current that they are building, and that’s why it doesn’t worry me or annoy me more than that, sweeps away the faurist framework quoted above. Except that the currents of the time were very structured ideologically. There, it is an aggregation of personalities, it will not hold. »
Everyone also seems to agree that the Faure – Mayer-Rossignol combination will not last very long either. “That’s what they’re looking for. In any case, they do nothing to prevent it. But it’s not too late,” believes Arthur Delaporte. “Of course it can burst, more than ever, notes for his part Lamia El Aaraje. One cannot be first secretary just for the title, it requires responsibility and work. Does Olivier Faure want to govern only with people who agree with him? “Oh, we do not say no on the Faure side. “Every day, activists ask me ‘when are we getting them out?’ “says the faurist executive.
From this famous March 11, then? Not sure, but in any case, everything is ready. In the agenda of the National Council, the Socialists will first have to define their position on the partial Ariège before electing the national secretariat (the government of the party, to put it quickly) in which must theoretically sit and Camp Faure and Camp Mayer-Rossignol. History to leave all options open.