François Hollande and the strategy of small steps to impose himself in 2027

A detour through history often allows us to better understand current events. The past is full of lessons. In addition, relying on it confers a certain form of authority: “He who controls the past controls the future”wrote George Orwell. This probably explains why many politicians regularly try their hand at being historians. This is the case this fall of François Hollande, the former socialist president (2012-2017), who publishes with Éditions Perrin The Challenge of Governing. The Left and Power from the Dreyfus Affair to the Present DayIn this erudite sum, the man who is celebrating 45 years of membership in the Socialist Party this year defends the thesis that the left, if it wants to access responsibilities, must rely on its least radical component.

An idea regularly defended by the supporters of the reformist left, but which is here supported by great reinforcements of historical developments. This distancing allows the author to recall that the left has already been dominated by its most protesting fringes in the past, notably the Communist Party, without this magisterium ever being an inevitability. Each time, François Hollande writes in substance, the reformers have regained the upper hand with the promise of truly “life changing” : in 1924, in 1936, in 1981, in 1997, in 2012 too. A story that contradicts that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who theorized that his political party would definitively supplant social democracy.

Renovate the old house

Ce Challenge of governing signed François Hollande therefore traces the outline of a duel between two visions of the left, and perhaps…