Olivier Faure distances himself from the Insoumis to give assurances to the reformist wing of his party, by agreeing to make compromises with the Macronist camp in the name of the spirit of “responsibility” of the left.
“How does a government party like the PS end up being stuck with LFI?” stormed last month Renaud Muselier, the Renaissance president of the Paca region. “Faure is the Ciotti of the left, the Stockholm syndrome”.
There is no doubt that Renaud Muselier would be satisfied with the evolution of the boss of the PS, now accused by the Insoumis of having had “shameful censorship”.
“We are the Socialist Party, we want to win back and govern, we are not here to make up the numbers,” says the mayor of Nantes Johanna Rolland, close to the boss of the PS.
Olivier Faure, who proposed his candidacy for Matignon last summer, is today pleading for discussions with the central bloc and the right on the basis of “reciprocal concessions” with a view to the formation of a new government.
“The goal of the game is not to jump like goats on Matignon: I want us to win victories now for the French, primarily on purchasing power and salaries,” he explains. -he on BFMTV.
He is not the first within his party to have wanted to reach out.
“I am very proud of the evolution of the group on non-censorship” of the future government, modestly welcomes the deputy for Eure Philippe Brun, who has been pleading for an agreement of this type in the Assembly since the summer .
More than two weeks ago, it was the leader of the socialist deputies Boris Vallaud, who is rumored to be tempted to take over the party, who proposed this non-aggression pact between the different forces of the Assembly.
“A personal initiative on his part. A bad answer to a poorly anticipated question,” said someone close to Olivier Faure.
– “He made boxes of them” –
Nevertheless, slowly but surely, the idea gained ground.
“The commitment we made (Tuesday at the Elysée, editor’s note) is that we will not use 49.3 if we are called upon to govern, in exchange for which the oppositions would undertake not to censor,” explains the first secretary.
“Olivier Faure did not want non-censorship at the beginning. He said that we had to remain allied with the Insoumis, that it was a leap into the void,” explains a socialist deputy. “But he understood that the moral authority of this initiative would fall to Boris Vallaud and Philippe Brun.”
Even to the point of doing too much, according to him.
As when last Friday, before being received at the Elysée with other socialist leaders, he proposed opening the negotiating table to the leader of the right Laurent Wauquiez.
“He made a lot of money and went further to the right than what Vallaud and Brun proposed by opening in Wauquiez,” notes the MP.
That day, Olivier Faure was “unclear and not sufficiently explicit”, recognizes a PS executive.
In any case, what he lost in credit on his left by multiplying calls for compromise and by repositioning the PS as a government party, Olivier Faure has regained on his right.
Long vilified by the reformist wing of his party because it was considered too conciliatory with the Insoumis, the deputy for Seine-et-Marne managed to silence criticism emanating in particular from the president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga and the mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol.
“Even Hollande we don't hear him anymore, that's a good sign, because he agrees. Everyone laid down their arms at the PS during the period,” notes the person close to Olivier Faure .
Useful in view of the next PS congress, which is planned for 2025.
Many on the left indeed read the latest positions of Olivier Faure, who narrowly won his last congress, as attempts to pull the rug from under his reformist wing.
“He’s doing this for his congress, that’s the only thing that interests him,” assures a PS deputy.
“He is under pressure and wants to win his congress but he will lose everything. His congress and his credibility,” predicts a rebellious executive.
Attacks that slip on the person concerned. “Whatever happens, people always say it’s my fault,” the phlegmatic leader sighed recently in a small group.
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