The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, re-elected in pain after several days of crisis, was delighted this Sunday to have been able, with his rival Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, “to exceed (…) the hurtful words and overplayed disagreements”.
In his closing speech at the 80th Congress of the PS in Marseille, Olivier Faure acknowledged, thanking his opponent, that “getting together was not necessarily obvious”, after several days of tension linked to the contested results of the ballot to designate the party leader.
“You and me, we will do better”
“There were hurtful words, overplayed disagreements, and a final week where many activists felt insulted, disrespected,” he said, “but you and I made a choice. That of overcoming these moments” and “doing together rather than against each other”.
He praised the “spirit of responsibility” of the Norman elected official, who agreed to become the party’s first delegate secretary, alongside the mayor of Nantes, Johanna Rolland, a close friend of Olivier Faure. “You and I are going to do better. From tomorrow, let’s bring the clear demonstration, “he said.
“With us, everything is discussed”
Olivier Faure was ironic about this Congress: “With us everything is discussed. This is what makes us unique, perhaps even our charm. We can spend days debating direction. And then spend nights gluing the broken crockery back together.”
Returning to Nupes, the main stumbling block with his rival, more skeptical about this alliance forged with LFI, the PCF and EELV, he underlined that “for the first time in five years, the French have been able to situate us with certainty “. “We have affirmed our unwavering belonging to the left,” insisted the first secretary.
The assertion of the PS “in the heart of the left”
He has regretted since 2017, “the loss of a bond of trust difficult to rebuild” with the French, with “the election of Emmanuel Macron and the appearance alongside him of former socialists”. The message was therefore “blurred”, according to him: “Who is a socialist? “An aspiring minister in the waiting room, a traitor in the making.” That’s what many of our fellow citizens thought. »
Believing that “we do not build anything to proclaim the irreconcilable left”, Olivier Faure said he wanted to carry with the socialist militants “the affirmation of what we are at the heart of the left”.
In a tackle to those who find him “submitted” to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and LFI, he snapped: “In this congress I have often heard of submission. Do not be afraid to submit to the powerful! It is by winning the PS that we can win the left. »