The Socialist Party must ratify on Saturday, September 18 the re-election of its first secretary Olivier Faure and his project for 2022, which supports the presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo who will nevertheless have to submit to an internal vote in the party.
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Read alsoOlivier Faure reelected at the head of the Socialist Party
The modalities of this vote of designation of the one who will represent the Socialists in the presidential election must be decided during this 79th congress, scheduled over two days in Villeurbanne. And the clear victory of Olivier Faure on Thursday evening, to keep the post of first secretary he has held since 2018, suggests that the appointment of the mayor of Paris, on a date still unknown, should not encounter too many difficulties.
Olivier Faure easily disposed of his only competitor for the post of First Secretary, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin (Lyon metropolis) Hélène Geoffroy, with more than 70% of the votes, according to a partial count communicated on Thursday night in Friday. The official results will be given on Saturday. A week earlier, its orientation text, which sets out the political direction of the party for the presidential and legislative elections, had already been comfortably adopted by the militants.
Hélène Geoffroy, who criticized the first secretary a lot, denouncing a
"strategy of erasure"
of the party since he took the reins, congratulated her opponent on Twitter on Friday.
Anne Hidalgo, on a campaign trip Friday to Le Creusot, also said she was
"very happy"
with the victory of Olivier Faure, for whom she had voted.
She justified her absence from Congress by explaining that she was
"where I am useful"
.
"I am loyal to my party, but I am free,"
she insisted.
Her entourage also stresses that she never got involved in the internal discussions of the party and that the congress will be
"the moment of Olivier Faure"
.
Read alsoThe PS is preparing for an internal primary
The deputy for Seine-et-Marne, who will deliver a speech on Sunday, is however criticized in his management by some elephants of the party, such as the mayor of Le Mans Stéphane le Foll and the mayor of Dijon François Rebsamen.
The latter notably denounced the shrinking of the PS, of which only 22,000 activists up to date with their membership fees participated in the vote of the First Secretary.
He castigated a
"sectarian party"
, where
"we can no longer debate"
.
Same criticism from Stéphane Le Foll, who is also seeking the Socialist presidential nomination, and has been calling for a substantive debate for several weeks.
He has already announced that he will not be attending Congress.
"There is material for more than a five-year term"
"Everything proves on the contrary that there is no erasure strategy"
, pleads for his part Olivier Faure, highlighting the positive results of the PS in the last municipal, regional and national elections, which make it according to him
" the driving force on the left ”
. His supporters also stress that he
"straightened out"
a party in the midst of debacle in 2018.
"Let us now turn to the French to blow with them the wind of a republican, social, ecological, democratic and feminist alternative"
, a he tweeted on Friday.
This will first go through the validation on Saturday of the
"party project for 2022"
, which he presented during the summer days in Blois, and which has since been amended by the activists.
This project, under the leadership of the deputy Boris Vallaud, makes a hundred proposals, for example providing for
"making possible the shared initiative referendum"
, creating
"a minimum youth"
,
"replacing the GDP index by economic indicators taking take into account the quality of life or sustainable development ”
and
“ transfer to the Prime Minister the power to dissolve the Assembly ”
.
To read also Anne Hidalgo: "A presidential, it really starts in February"
If Anne Hidalgo is invested by the party, she will however be able to free herself from it in part or
"dig into it"
, because
"there is material for more than a five-year term"
, one explains to the PS.
Asked about the idea of giving the Prime Minister the power to dissolve the Assembly, she has already said that she was
"not for a 6th Republic"
.
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), another left-wing presidential candidate, Anne Hidalgo
"despises the PS congress which invests her"
,
"unheard of in the history of this party"
.