The French Socialist Party and the left in general are in turmoil. Since the municipal elections, supporters of Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the PS, and his internal detractors have been tearing each other apart. His legitimacy has been increasingly challenged since the agreements made between the two rounds with La France Insoumise. This strategy, which allowed some cities to remain under the control of the PS but not all, has exacerbated underlying and longstanding strategic disagreements.
The main focus, of course, is on the 2027 presidential election and all the questions it raises: which candidate, which project, and what political perimeter? With the big question on everyone’s minds: for or against Jean-Luc Mélenchon and LFI in the equation.
For or against a primary?
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the ball and chain of the left,” says Olivier Faure in all seriousness, even though he validated the agreements for the second round with LFI. This is where the problem lies. Boris Vallaud, leader of the socialist deputies, who until now was rather sympathetic to Faure, is distancing himself. Since the municipal elections, he has publicly questioned Olivier Faure’s choice of organizing a primary of the left decided with the ecologists led by Marine Tondelier and the parties of Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin. A primary that a good half of the PS does not want and which close allies of François Hollande condescendingly call “the little primary.”
“Boris Vallaud recognizes that this initiative does not bring everyone together,” decrypts one of his close associates, noting that Raphaël Glucksmann, leader of the Place Publique party, refuses to participate, as does the Communist Party. However, Glucksmann is leading in the polls, one year before the presidential election.
Boris Vallaud therefore asks the PS to get ready for battle and for socialist activists to decide before the summer, on the program, the strategy (primary or not), and the candidate. Faure, however, is dragging his feet on organizing a vote regarding the candidate. It’s not a rebellion, but the tension is real.
Who is the strategic vote for?
By chance and irony of the calendar, they were all gathered this Saturday in Montreuil, near Paris, for a debate on social-ecology. A start of joint work on substance, was exhibited. On the same stage: Olivier Faure and Boris Vallaud for the PS, Raphaël Glucksmann and Yannick Jadot, ecologist senator, internally opposed to the leader of his party, Marine Tondelier.
“We need a left-wing candidate, it is imperative, otherwise we will all be co-responsible for the arrival of the far-right in power,” confides Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes and number 2 in the PS. Present in Montreuil, she defends the primary, as a last resort. “I am not a fetishist of the primary,” asserts this ally of Olivier Faure. “Those who tell us that it doesn’t work should offer us something else,” she adds.
One year before the presidential election, the left is in a crucial period. Faced with a Jean-Luc Mélenchon who will be a candidate anyway and who already has a well-defined project, its different components must agree on a program and who will embody the strategic vote against the far right. Something that Mélenchon has already managed to do on two occasions.
