Olivier Marleix can savour it. On 10 July, the former president of the LR group in the Assembly suggested the appointment of a right-wing Prime Minister and provoked mockery and bursts of laughter from the New Popular Front in full euphoria. “You had to dare!” then pointed out an elephant to the JDD. Two months later, the new head of government is called Michel Barnier, and ironically, it is to the PS that he owes his nomination!
Just a few days ago, however, the Bernard Cazeneuve track was favored by the Élysée. If Faure had the principle of “non-censorship” adopted, he would be appointed, assures today a close friend of the head of state. But the First Secretary “deployed a lot of energy to take him down”regrets a close friend of the former socialist Prime Minister. On the grounds that he had slammed the door on the PS at the time of the alliance with LFI within the Nupes in 2022, he is today relegated to the rank of “social traitor” after 35 years of socialist activism.
When his name began to circulate in recent weeks for Matignon, the Faurist leadership immediately became angry: “Such an appointment would have no other purpose than to fracture our unity”underlines the deputy and spokesperson of the PS Dieynaba Diop during the party universities, at the end of August, in Blois. And to take up the language elements of the First Secretary: “We do not intend to be the auxiliaries of a dying Macronie, but to govern with Lucie Castets.”
“A line which led to the appointment of a minister of the right with the benevolence of the RN, bravo”
What matters is that the chances of survival of a government led by the senior civil servant were zero and that, conversely, a Bernard Cazeneuve supported by the PS avoided censure. Ideology has its reasons that reason ignores. No later than Tuesday, the national office of the PS rejected an amendment brought by internal opponents of Olivier Faure providing “the automatic non-censorship of a Cazeneuve government”. Proposal rejected by 38 votes to 33.
Internally, anger is simmering
“Our line is in the majority, end of debate”cuts a close friend of the First Secretary of the PS. “A line which therefore led to the appointment of a minister of the right with the benevolence of the RN, bravo”squeaks MP Patrick Mennucci. “A fable” rejected Friday morning by Olivier Faure on France Inter: “We must stop with this idea, which is being spread by the head of state himself, who is trying to exonerate himself, to place the responsibility for this incongruous nomination, a true denial of democracy, on the left.” His opponents, however, deplore a rewriting of history.
More after this ad
During a new national council convened on Thursday evening after the appointment of Michel Barnier, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, questioned Olivier Faure on his responsibility in the face of this “huge failure”. “On the contrary, we have foiled the trap of division. Macron never intended to appoint Cazeneuve”justified the number 1 of the PS. The argument does not convince the entourage of the former Prime Minister: “If he was so sure, why not commit to not censoring it a priori?” No doubt because the pink house is more concerned about the support of the Insoumis to preserve its electoral positions than about the situation in the country.
