François Hollande does not want a single candidacy on the left, socialists respond to him

POLITICS – Two and a half years before the next presidential election, the big maneuvers have begun. Re-elected to the Assembly at the beginning of the summer, François Hollande took the opportunity to display his new ambitions and call for the reconstruction of a «great force» social democratic.

On the set of BFMTV Monday November 4, the former President once again put his foot in the dish. “So that the reformist left” becomes a driving force again, the leadership of the PS must change, he pleads, calling on activists not to reappoint Olivier Faure as First Secretary. Therefore, “a great socialist party” will be able to be reborn and present a candidate for the presidential election on its own. “There is no single candidate from the left”sweeps away the former tenant of the Élysée.

Socialists are getting annoyed

Not so surprising words coming from the mouth of someone who has never believed in truly reconciliable lefts (except when it comes to being elected deputy under the common banner of the NFP). In his latest book, released at the start of the school year, François Hollande theorizes the confrontation between “the left of government” and the radical left. Obviously, his exit did not help (at all) the Rebels who rushed to send him the message, and to remind him of his own inability to represent himself in 2027.

But, something a little more new, this also made his socialist comrades jump. “My generation will not let François Hollande or Jean-Luc Mélenchon make us lose again”scolds European MP Emma Rafowicz, close to Olivier Faure. “We lost everything, even our credibility,” she adds, in reference to the painful end of Hollande's five-year term, at the end of which the outgoing President, too weakened, was unable to run again, leaving the field open to his then Minister of the Economy …a certain Emmanuel Macron.

“Francois, the people of the left will not follow you. If he gives us credit again, it is because he has understood that we will not compromise, neither with the identitarians, nor with the liberals. He understood that we will gather widely”argues the president of the Young Socialists. Before concluding: “We will work, bring together, reconcile and we will do everything so that the left and ecology have only one candidate”.

“People of the left”

Lawyer Sarah Kerrich, regional councilor in Hauts-de-France and first secretary of the PS in the North, doesn't beat around the bush either. “I do not agree with François Hollandeshe states bluntly. There must be a common candidacy on the left. I would like this candidate to be a socialist but that cannot be decreed, it is built with partners and the people of the left”. A message retweeted by a certain… Olivier Faure.

The deputy Laurent Baumel, also a supporter of the current First Secretary, explains his refusal to “replaying the two irreconcilable lefts” : “We will offer another way!” » If he intends to influence internally and take control of the Socialist Party, François Hollande will first have to convince his own comrades. The affair seems to be off to a bad start.

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