How the name of the future Prime Minister revives tensions within the Socialist Party

The minority currents of the PS want the party to continue discussions at the Elysée and to be “constructive” towards Emmanuel Macron. A strategy rejected by Olivier Faure, the leader of the socialists.

It is not yet the War of the Roses, but we may be seeing the beginnings of it. The socialists displayed their divisions, from Thursday 29 to Saturday 31 August, during the three days of their party’s summer days in Blois (Loir-et-Cher). The subject of discord has been the same for weeks: the socialists’ support for the future Prime Minister, whose name Emmanuel Macron has still not revealed, almost two months after the legislative elections.

The party with the rose still seems to be going through strategic divergences. On the one hand, First Secretary Olivier Faure does not deviate from his line and still refuses to return to discuss at the Elysée, after the Head of State dismissed Lucie Castets, the candidate of the New Popular Front for Matignon. On the other hand, the two minority motions want to show themselves “constructive”while the hypothesis of an appointment of the former socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is coming back insistently.

Very present in the press in recent days, the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, estimated Friday to the AFP that the opponents of Olivier Faure’s line are “majority among activists”but not in the party’s bodies. The elected official defended a strategy “neither Mélenchon nor Macron” to franceinfo on Tuesday, pointing out the fault line between a section of the socialists and La France insoumise. He said he was ready to resume discussions with the Elysée, “because there is a possibility between the two extremes.”

A line shared by others within the PS, notably Hélène Geoffroy, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, at the head of a second opposition motion. All smiles, the two elected officials organized a press conference on Friday, accompanied by all the party’s rivals to the current first secretary: Parisian deputy mayor Lamia El Aaraje, MEP François Kalfon, the head of the senators Patrick Kanner, Montpellier mayor Michael Delafosse, the president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga and Saint-Ouen mayor Karim Bouamrane, who said he was “available” for Matignon.

Everyone came to shout loudly that it was necessary “change strategy” and leave “the sound and the fury”. But how can we do this in practice? There is no clear answer to this question.. “We must create a non-censorship majority”pleaded Carole Delga. “The vocation of the socialists is to govern, so we are candidates to do so, based on the choice of the voters.”a European MP confided to France Télévisions, refusing however to participate in “a Macronist or right-wing government”.

Olivier Faure, for his part, dismisses any support for someone who would be “the obliged” of the President of the Republic. The deputy of Seine-et-Marne still defends the candidacy of Lucie Castets. The PS leadership took care to show its unity by organising a meeting at the end of the day in the presence of the candidate chosen by the New Popular Front to lead the government, but also of Marine Tondelier, the national secretary of the Ecologists-EELV.

If the 66 socialist deputies chose to support a government other than that of the NFP, they would be “minorities in a right-wing government”the leader of the socialists told the public, judging that “If you go with the right, you will be the right.” Lucie Castets, who arrived to the cheers of socialist activists, assured that Emmanuel Macron “is willing to accept that the left can access responsibilities, but on one condition: that it ceases to be the left”.

Officially, the senior civil servant is still the candidate of the socialists and the New Popular Front for Matignon. “Is it legitimate to determine the future of the left? There is debate”asks a socialist senator, believing that we should rather question the future of “the alliance” left-wing parties.

Beyond the name of the next Prime Minister, everyone seems to be moving their pawns for the next elections, and especially the presidential election of 2027. Some of the socialists hope to be able to do without an alliance with La France Insoumise. A risky bet. Three years ago, the candidacy of Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, had only collected 1.75% of the votes in the first round.

The divisions among the socialists could be of use to the President of the Republic. “Emmanuel Macron wants to break the PS as he did with Les Républicains, that’s his priority at the moment”confided the entourage of a minister to France Télévisions at the beginning of the week.