As they say about children, François Hollande sometimes says of Emmanuel Macron that he “makes it interesting”. Did the president play this role by pronouncing the dissolution of the National Assembly on Sunday? François Hollande, who followed the election night at his home in Corrèze, was torn between astonishment and concern. The coincidence of the calendar forced the two men to meet the next morning in Tulle, the president coming to pay tribute to victims of the Second World War. The socialist was surprised to see the head of state walking around in such a serene, almost casual manner, as if nothing had happened, slipping ” we will get there “ to those who shook his hand.
François Hollande, the return of the ex
Since the start of this crazy week, François Hollande has been mulling over his decision to be a candidate in the legislative elections himself. Thursday morning, Raphaël Glucksmann calls him. The two men are on the same wavelength. They maintain total distrust of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Insoumis and set the same red lines in the agreement: support for European construction, for Ukraine, acts of October 7 committed by Hamas qualified as “terrorists”, fight against anti-Semitism… The essayist and the former president embody this same social-democratic left. The MEP’s good score – 13.8% – proved to them that it still existed.
Five to be aware of
All week, from his offices on rue de Rivoli, François Hollande consults and probes each other: his former communicator at the Élysée Gaspard Gantzer, the former first secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, the mayor of Vaulx- en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, the PS deputy Guillaume Garot and the former socialist parliamentarians Vincent Feltesse and David Habib. Everyone is pushing him to go. But he says nothing about his intentions. Thursday evening, the former president takes part in the 20 Hours of TF1 to approve the principle of the New Popular Front. It was Friday morning that he took his closest collaborators into the confidence, including his communications advisor Sybil Gerbaud as well as the mayor of Tulle, Bernard Combes, his friend. There are barely five of them who know about it and the secret must be well kept so that he can announce his candidacy himself from his Corrèze stronghold.
Previously, François Hollande made sure that the ground was clear. During negotiations with the other components of the New Popular Front, the PS targeted the constituency of Tulle for the current of Hélène Geoffroy, internal opponent of the first secretary, Olivier Faure, and close to François Hollande. The path is therefore traced to retake this territory held until Sunday by an LR. The Socialist Party chooses the mayor of Tulle. Except that the latter actively pushes the former president to lead the fight.
Yesterday, in front of the microphones reaching out to him, François Hollande launched out: “The far right has never been so close to power since the Liberation. How to remain indifferent? » When announcing its candidacy, the PS initially assured that it had not invested in it, before finally “take note”. A knee-jerk reaction like the rejection that the former president arouses among some of the socialists, starting with the first secretary of the party, who dreams of sending this generation flying.
In the same coalition as his enemy
In the coming days, François Hollande will campaign in his Corrèze stronghold, which he knows by heart: he was elected there for twenty years. His chances of winning are serious. Returning to the National Assembly after having been at the Élysée is what Valéry Giscard d’Estaing did in 1984. Faced with an RN group which promises to be plethoric, will the socialist become the first opponent of Marine Le Pen? “He immediately understood that everything would happen in Parliament from now on,” supports one of his interlocutors. “François Hollande perfectly prioritized the problems, the biggest of them being the arrival of the RN in power, estimates communicator Robert Zarader, a regular visitor to the former head of state. Faced with this, he could not remain in the role of observer of political life. »
So here is the former president in the same coalition as his lifelong enemy, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “By his simple presence, François Hollande rebalances the New Popular Front, which everyone said was dominated by LFI,” applauded one of his friends. It is not excluded that the Insoumis leader will also launch into the legislative battle, but in a territory other than Marseille, where he was elected under Macron’s first five-year term. “It’s an electoral agreement and everyone will return to their group after July 7,” act already close to François Hollande. Even in the case of Adrien Quatennens, convicted of domestic violence, François Hollande never understood that the Insoumis leader protects his heir apparent to this extent to the point of making him a candidate again. “Mélenchon made the mistake of confusing public and private,” he recently confided to a relative.
The 69-year-old man is taking a major political action with a view to 2027. “He is a leader of the moderate wing of the New Popular Front. His speech on TF1’s 20 Heures sounded like a declaration of candidacy for the presidential election, even thinks he sees a socialist there. Along the way, he overtook all the contenders, Stéphane Le Foll, Carole Delga and Bernard Cazeneuve. »
Emmanuel Macron will also have to deal with the return of his predecessor. The two men no longer have any relations, apart from cordial exchanges during official ceremonies. François Hollande has never forgotten this text message that he received from his former Minister of the Economy on November 15, 2016: “Tomorrow I announce my candidacy. » He never answered it.
