Hollande criticizes PS leadership

The pill is still hard to swallow. A week after Michel Barnier’s appointment as Prime Minister, the left, which, with the largest contingent of deputies (193) in the National Assembly, was eyeing Matignon, will find itself facing a centre-right or even right-wing executive. After having painfully agreed this summer on the name of Lucie Castets, the New Popular Front (NFP) has been subjected to a barrage of fire from its opponents. Threatening to overthrow Anne Hidalgo’s close friend as soon as she arrived on Rue de Varenne. Carried from the central bloc to the National Rally (RN) via Les Républicains, this blockage forced Emmanuel Macron, who was looking for a profile guaranteeing a “institutional stability”, to dismiss the senior civil servant of the City of Paris.

Although the head of state initially hesitated to choose Bernard Cazeneuve, he ended up rejecting this hypothesis, the leadership of the Socialist Party, despite an internal revolt, refusing to pronounce on unconditional support for a government led by the former prime minister. A way for the party with the rose to avoid formalizing the break with the new cartel of the left. A guiding principle that found itself in François Hollande’s sights this Thursday.

“A political figure”

Invited to France 5, the former President of the Republic considers that the “The first duty of the left is not to beat its breast, it is not to divide itself, it is to say what we have done and what we must do for the future.” And to recall a “lesson” to his camp, sometimes too intransigent on the programmatic aspect: “We often say ‘we need to be more to the left’, but when we are more to the left, we have what happened, with a more right-wing government.”.

While some socialists have criticized François Hollande for not having publicly supported his «ami»at the time when his successor was conducting his consultations for Matignon, the former president claims to have told Emmanuel Macron that he “a political personality was needed in this exceptional context”and that “Bernard Cazeneuve could have been this personality”. With the guarantee of not knocking it over right away? The “vast majority” socialist deputies, whatever the position of the first secretary Olivier Faure, “would never have censored” the former Minister of the Interior, is said to have confided the elected representative of Corrèze to his former advisor.

But the PS’s position ultimately got the better of the president. “He is a man who has governed, respected, boasts François Hollande. The anomaly is to speak as if Bernard Cazeneuve were not a man of the left.” “It’s a shame.”