The leader of Place publique Raphaël Glucksmann gathered his troops and his allies on Saturday in La Réole, in Gironde, hoping to consolidate his party in view of the next electoral deadlines and offer a “social democratic” alternative to Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left.
For his political return, the head of the PS-Place publique list in the European elections, with his score of 14% which placed him at the head of the left, wants to build on the hope aroused on his pro-European and anti-European line. -LFI. And he warns: “I have no intention of remaining silent for a year.”
Before his speech on Sunday, round tables, workshops and debates animated the day on Saturday, bringing together some 2,000 people: the MEP wants to be able to present “a project” for France by June and a possible new dissolution of the Assembly national.
“We must start working immediately. We no longer have the right to be surprised”, as after the announcement of the dissolution last June, he explained to the press.
After having participated in the Meetings of the Left organized in Bram (Aude) by the socialist president of Occitanie Carole Delga, and at the launch of the movement of the PS mayor of Saint-Ouen, Karim Bouamrane, the MEP therefore also brought together several figures of social democracy, to “think about a project”.
“It’s a bit of competition,” quips a socialist. If we add former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and François Hollande, “who multiplies the interventions will mean a lot of people in the same niche”.
“It’s through the project that we will find ourselves,” retorts Carole Delga.
“Let’s affirm what we are, let’s create a dynamic,” insists the co-founder of Place publique. “And when we know who we are, what we want, well we will have the courage, the strength to refuse the ukases and diktats” of La France insoumise, he explained on TF1.
Around Raphaël Glucksmann were also present the environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot, several figures breaking with the macronie, such as the former minister Aurélien Rousseau, now deputy for Place publique or Clément Beaune. And socialists, more or less hostile to the alliance with LFI desired by the first secretary Olivier Faure, like the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo.
“I wish to participate in the programmatic work initiated by Raphaël with great desire and interest,” assured the latter.
The ex-Renaissance MP Sacha Houlié, who says he is “in a discovery internship” at Place publique, – “We agree on the substance but I don’t have my card yet” -, will for his part work on police issues , gendarmerie, civil security and immigration, he explained.
– “Continue to grow” –
The MP plans the upcoming construction of a social-democratic group in the Assembly, made up in particular of non-registered members like him, members of the centrist Liot group or the MoDem. And ultimately socialists.
The boss of the PS did not come: Olivier Faure and Raphaël Glucksmann, close to the Europeans, have been at odds since the creation of the New Popular Front (NFP).
“Unlike Olivier Faure, I have one conviction: if the left wants to govern, it must free itself from Mélenchon and his cronies,” said Raphaël Glucksmann in Libération, burned by the violent European campaign, with the feeling of having been ousted at the time of the creation of the NFP.
Public Square inherited only a handful of constituencies and won only one. “If you don’t have a strong apparatus, you are the toy of the other parties,” he notes.
He therefore intends to consolidate his party founded in 2018. Place publique has already multiplied its members fivefold (nearly 11,000 members). “We must continue to grow,” says Raphaël Glucksmann, who plans a congress at the end of January, beginning of February.
“We want to grow but not to the detriment of the Socialist Party,” he reassures, wanting to have a “spur role”.
The essayist does not hide his plans for the 2027 presidential election, where “it will be social democracy, and not a substitute for macronism or an avatar of left-wing populism, which will face lepenism”, he predicts.
For the PS mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, “Public square will take PS activists” if at the congress planned for 2025, “the PS maintains the same line” of alliance with LFI.
But for a member of the PS leadership, by becoming the hero of the anti-Faure, Glucksmann could prove to be “radioactive for the rest of the left”.
A socialist community leader agrees: “Social democracy speaks to a small militant elite, not to the mass of left-wing voters.”
