Is the congress of the Socialist Party interesting because the atmosphere is tense, or is the atmosphere of the congress tense because it is interesting? Party activists are to appoint their new first secretary on Thursday. Olivier Faure, the outgoing, faces Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen. On paper, this duel does not have enough to raise the crowds. But behind these two names, the Socialists are invited to make a strategic choice. Olivier Faure defends his strategy of alliance with the Nupes while Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, more skeptical, does not hide his discomfort with rebellious France and above all now has the support of the anti-Nupes of the party.
Because the Socialists have already voted last Thursday. They had to decide between three motions. Olivier Faure, favorite, nevertheless did not manage to completely kill the match by obtaining “only” 49% of the votes. Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol gathered 30% on his text (“Refoundations”) and Hélène Geoffroy (“Stand up the socialists”, against the Nupes) 20%. In and of themselves, there are no surprises in these scores. But, despite his large lead, the outgoing is therefore under the threat of the rallying of the third candidate to his challenger in the second round. The opposition intends to play their luck thoroughly and the atmosphere is suddenly tense. “You learn quickly when you return to the party what is behind the polite formula ‘socialist friendships'”, quips a close friend of the first secretary.
“They chewed like pigs”
Since Thursday, in the greatest tradition of socialist congresses, the two camps have accused each other of tampering. Monday, during his vows, Olivier Faure spoke of a ballot under “correct” conditions. But his relatives did not hesitate to detail to journalists what they consider to be voting irregularities in the federations “held” by their opponents. “They chewed like pigs”, describes without tweezers one of them, who explains that a bailiff was even commissioned to go and check what was happening in a section of Seine-Maritime, the department of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol. “In some departments, we had the arguments to cancel the vote. But it was a request from Olivier to calm things down and not go into a clash, ”she says, particularly magnanimous.
According to information from 20 minutes, during a meeting of Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol’s representatives from each department, David Assouline, his delegate to the commission for collating the results, would have called his people to order: “He told us that we could not be credible by saying that there were shenanigans at Faure if we did anything, ”describes a participant in this meeting. “I did what is to our credit, corrects David Assouline. I asked that we be clean everywhere, at all levels, I did not validate their disputes. »
kiss of death
“They hold the national apparatus and 70 federations which organize the vote. It is incredible that they dare to accuse us of what only they can do massively, ”chops the senator from Paris. David Assouline thus invites be interested to the results of Guadeloupe, Seine-Saint-Denis, for example, which overwhelmingly voted for Faure last Thursday and kept a low profile: “We come from nowhere, we had no acquired current position in the federations . We start with new people. »
Everyone assures that things should go better on Thursday, thanks to observers from each camp in the hottest corners. But if it had to be decided by a few votes, as last Thursday’s vote seems to indicate? To this, the Faure camp, extremely confident, has a very simple answer: the outgoing will be clearly re-elected. Optimism based on the 57% approval of the outgoing management’s balance sheet during Thursday’s vote. Paradoxically, their reserve of votes would be found more with the challenger than with the eliminated one. They are convinced that the support of the anti-Nupes and of François Hollande will work like a kiss of death. “Tell me who supports you, I’ll tell you who you are,” pinged the outgoing first secretary Monday at party headquarters.
Losses
“We are not changing anything in our line,” replies Lamia El Aaraje, from Refondations. She assures that Hélène Geoffroy supports them “without political counterpart”. To prove it, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol created the surprise by announcing his participation in the unitary meeting against the pension reform, Tuesday evening, organized by… the Nupes, and therefore in particular with rebellious speakers. On the rest, she judges that at least her candidate brings together the Socialists, not only the old ones… like the LFI deputy Alexis Corbière, who said this week his preference for a victory for Olivier Faure.
As early as October, a local PS executive, supporting Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, explained that in the event of an alliance with the troops of Hélène Geoffroy, he could go back to Olivier Faure. Recontacted Monday, he will confirm his vote for the mayor of Rouen, but considers the election already played. He even confides that he has already been approached by the Faure camp since the first round as being able to integrate his probably majority in the national council, the party parliament. A sign that losses are possible, Tuesday, the outgoing management communicated a lot about the rallying of Michel Liebgott, socialist deputy for twenty years until 2017, still mayor of a town of 13,000 inhabitants and inhabitants in Moselle.
He supported Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol last Thursday: “The two texts are extremely close in terms of the union of the left, in any case more than that of Hélène Geoffroy. “Not at all the profile of a rebellious (he supported Manuel Valls in the 2017 primary), the elected representative considers that it is necessary to “turn the page” of the Holland years and fears above all “conflicts of people “. But the Socialist Party was divided this winter on a major strategic question. This is the first time in fifty years that such a question has been asked. That is why this congress is interesting and why it is so tense. This is also why the specter of a split in the party hangs over the socialists. This will be the first job of the first elected secretary: to pick up the pieces, starting next week, in Marseille.