A forest of pink and yellow flags waved by the Young Socialists and the supporters of Place publique blocks the entrance to the Lighthouse, the municipal hall of Tournefeuille (Haute-Garonne), near Toulouse. For this official launch of this joint campaign, Sunday March 24, the founder of Place publique, Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the list of the Socialist Party (PS), plays to a sold-out crowd: 2,500 activists made the trip. Two hundred of them even stayed outside.
In the front row, the first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, sits not far from the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, and the regional president, Carole Delga, who had badly mistreated him during the Marseille congress, in January 2023. But while it hopes to restore its image, after the catastrophic presidential election of 2022, the socialist family has chosen to put its disagreements aside. During the almost three hours of meetings, the name of Jean Jaurès, born in Castres (Tarn) just 90 kilometers away and father of socialist unity, was invoked on multiple occasions. More than Jaurès, it is above all a question of putting in the ballot box “the newsletter of hope”the one to oppose Emmanuel Macron and the National Rally (RN), as launched by one of the spokespersons of the PS, Chloé Ridel, present on the list.
It’s a little after 5:30 p.m. when Raphaël Glucksmann takes the stage, to a tune by Eminem. “I feel that something is beginning, something that has the taste of hope, the smell and flavor of beginnings”, chants the socialist with his fist raised, to the cheers of the room. Despite the wars ravaging Ukraine and the Middle East, the MEP wants to believe in the arrival of a ” spring “. Perhaps relying without saying it on the polls which are starting to widen the gap with the other left-wing parties. For three quarters of an hour, the 45-year-old head of the socialist list, white shirt and blue jacket, developed his vision of a “European social democracy”which would be “freed from all forms of effeminacy and compromise”. A way to break with the Hollande years, accused of having betrayed certain socialist ideals, with his labor law and his bill on forfeiture of nationality.
Crack the match between Renaissance and the RN
“We are not like these leaders without spines”he continued, galvanized by the applause of the activists and addressing the government, guilty according to him of “concessions” with regard to the RN, as with the “immigration” law. “ We do not flatter, we do not court the extreme right. We fight it”, he insisted. Before denouncing “the indolence of French and European elites in the face of Putin”. “When these indolent people explain that I am a utopian, I tell them that realism is on my side”he continued, to the attention of those who, like the “rebels” or the communists, treat him as a “go to war”. And to add: “The only path to peace is firmness, each capitulation, each setback brings the war closer to home. » Europe must therefore become a ” military power “so as not to depend “Michigan voters”he continued, referring to the Americans, and to the risk of Donald Trump coming to power in November.
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