“It’s all ugly… Fortunately we don’t run the country…” Already weakened, the Socialist Party entered a violent internal crisis overnight from Thursday to Friday. Olivier Faure, the outgoing first secretary, and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, his opponent, mayor of Rouen, successively declared themselves the winner of the vote of activists to appoint the new party leader before the Marseille congress next weekend. . A week after a first round where everyone had thrown accusations of voting irregularity in their face, we were promised a more serene second round. So nothing happened.
It all started very badly. From 5 p.m., at the opening of the polling stations, the Nupes-skeptical current “Refoundations” of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, tries to prove via his Twitter account the existence of irregularities by posting photos and videos… on which you really don’t see much. The party leadership, pro-Faure and pro-Nupes, was quick to react, organizing a press briefing at 6 p.m. Corinne Narassiguin, number 2 of the PS, denounced the aggression of young socialist activists who came to observe the vote in a section of Seine-Maritime… the department of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, therefore. Without really knowing if the aggression is linked to the ballot.
Two proclamations
Late Thursday evening, after the polls closed, the PS management announced a first projection, based on 50% of the ballots, giving Olivier Faure a victory of around 52%. “We are justified in thinking that the trend will not be reversed”, assured even Corinne Narassiguin. At the same time, at Refondations, it was announced that Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol had a ten-point lead. But the worst happened later: at 1:30 a.m., Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol announced his victory. A few minutes later, Olivier Faure in turn publishes a video also claiming to have won. In the early morning, the management published the list of “raw” results for each department, which gave Olivier Faure a narrow victory with 50.8% of the vote.
One would have thought the case folded… not at all. This result has not been validated by the Mayer-Rossignol camp during the meeting of consolidation during which one and the other can request the cancellation of such or such result in the event of irregularities. The management says that the opposition refused to participate in this meeting, at 4:30 am, after the arrival of the results of the Antilles. However, irregularities do seem to have taken place: in Charente, for example, because of the rain, activists were advised to vote by email, thus disregarding the rules of confidentiality. On the “NMR” side, during a press conference alongside the mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, and especially of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, we threatened to go to court to assert our rights.
De-escalation
“The question that is asked has nothing to do with justice, it must be settled on the political ground”, judge, annoyed, a pro-Faure, not unhappy to be far from the headquarters of the party in recent hours. On the other side, too, they say they feel uncomfortable with the turn of events. Some in the entourage of the two heads of list recognize in private that no one has white feet in the case. The pro-Faure describes in an almost clinical manner the “pathetic media spiral” into which the two camps fell last night: “You have one who declares himself the winner, if the other camp does not react, it is the story of the first to win. From there, there is a break and a gear. Nobody has been able so far to initiate the de-escalation and the positions seem fixed.
Can Olivier Faure and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol renew the dialogue? They don’t really have a common past. The second supported the first during the two previous congresses, a little by default, and a distance gradually settled during the regional ones until the Nupes agreement. “We would need someone, not even necessarily neutral, who whistles the end of recess”, imagines the pro-Mayer-Rossignol questioned by 20 minutes. He sees a Carole Delga, the president of the Occitanie region, very anti-Nupes, to whom we attribute ambitions for 2027. can’t do without the others.”” Without that, “it’s going to be very hot in Marseille. If it stays like that, I will go to the Mucem”, ironically this executive before the congress next week.
The tottering “old house”
The Socialist Party is not the only party where the notion of internal democracy is sometimes relative. The Republican presidential election was marred by revelations of fraud in the press. At LFI, Manuel Bompard, designated coordinator of the movement without an election, declared that “voting is not necessarily the alpha and omega of democracy”. The PS itself is almost famous for its congress-settlement of accounts (Rennes, in 1990) and particularly questionable polls (Reims, in 2008). The party has come out of it each time, and has even regained power after these heartbreaks spread in the media.
It may well be the “luck” of the PS: it no longer interests many people at the moment. In any case, he is no longer at the center of attention how in 1990 or 2008. On the other hand, the previous clashes revolved around clashes of personalities: between Lionel Jospin and Laurent Fabius in 1990, and between Ségolène Royal and Martine Aubry in 2008 This time, the PS is torn over a major strategic choice: whether or not to continue Nupes, with or without insubordinate France? The kind of alternative that can make it difficult for everyone to return to the “old house”.