Why Bernard Cazeneuve’s profile divides the left

The name of the former Prime Minister of François Hollande is notably rejected by La France Insoumise and the Ecologists.

Will he be appointed Prime Minister, nearly eight years after having held the same position at the end of Hollande’s five-year term? Bernard Cazeneuve, whose name has been repeatedly mentioned for several days, will be received on Monday, September 2 at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron. Nearly two months after the second round of the legislative elections, the head of state is still looking for the next occupant of Matignon. The former Minister of the Interior is the favorite, while the Macronist camp has acknowledged the fact that the next head of government cannot come from its ranks. But the profile of the former socialist, who left the PS in 2022, then opposed to the alliance with La France insoumise (LFI) within the Nupes, is coolly received on the left.

For the moment, the Socialist Party, La France Insoumise, the Ecologists and the Communist Party officially support the candidacy of Lucie Castets for Matignon. The 37-year-old senior civil servant was however dismissed by Emmanuel Macron on Monday, in the name of “institutional stability” of the country. “Bernard Cazeneuve is not supported by any of the country’s four left-wing parties”explained LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard on BFMTV on Sunday.We will censor any government other than that of Lucie Castets”he hammered home.

The profile of Bernard Cazeneuve, symbol of the Hollande era, has raised eyebrows among a large part of the left. The 2017 Cazeneuve law on the use of firearms by police officers is thus accused by some of having allowed the death of young Nahel in Nanterre last year.

Among environmentalists, the hostility comes in particular from the memory of the death of activist Rémi Fraisse on the Sivens dam (Tarn), during clashes with the police in 2014. An episode that Ségolène Royal also recalled on RTL on Sunday. “Bernard Cazeneuve was Minister of the Interior and I was Minister of Ecology. Many of us told him that the Sivens dam was not legal, that it was going to end badly.”said the former presidential candidate, denouncing the “rigid thinking” from his former colleague.

On the LFI side, it is Bernard Cazeneuve’s participation in the Hollande government, in which he worked alongside Emmanuel Macron, which is particularly rejected. “UOne of the things that has done the most harm to the left in recent years is François Hollande’s five-year term,” observed the leader of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot on franceinfo Friday, judging that“We tried to make people believe that, whether we were left or right, in any case, the policies were the same.”.

The socialists are less categorical than their colleagues in the New Popular Front (NFP) and have displayed their divisions. from Thursday to Saturday, during the three days of their party’s summer days in Blois (Loir-et-Cher). The PS boss Olivier Faure thus rejected the possibility of an appointment of the one who would be “the obliged” by Emmanuel Macron. “If you go with the right, you will be the right”he said at a meeting on Friday. But some of the internal opponents of the leader of the socialists, who are trying to break away from LFI, are more open.

“If there is a government with a personality, from the left for example, who would implement a policy that we want, (…) we will be there, to vote for it every time it goes in the right direction”assured the AFP the socialist senator Rachid Temal, close to the mayor of Vaux-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, at the head of a minority movement. “Bernard Cazeneuve can even rally environmentalists”enthused a socialist MEP to France Télévisions on Saturday, praising “the experience” of the interested party.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who was not in favour of the NFP, said that aThe arrival of Bernard Cazeneuve at Matignon would be “credible and serious”in an interview with West France SATURDAY. “With him, we would have real cohabitation, and that is what is needed, unless we want to ignore the vote of the French people.”she confided.

If he were appointed, Bernard Cazeneuve would have the complicated task of finding support in a fragmented National Assembly, where the support of a part of the NFP, leading with 193 deputies, but far from the majority of 289, could prove crucial. The rallying of a part of the socialist deputies could help him, but would be harmful for the union of the left. “Lthe appointment of Bernard Cazeneuve would cause damage to the parliamentary ranks of the PS and this would in fact mechanically weaken it” the NFP, judged Jean-Luc Mélenchon in a blog post on Thursday. Fridayit was the former rebel Clémentine Autain who tackled from Blois “those who would have the good idea to accept being Prime Minister without the agreement of the NFP, and would create a crisis [au PS]“.