The Socialist Party achieved a catastrophic score on Sunday April 10, 2022, during the 1st round of the presidential election. Anne Hidalgo collects less than 2% of the votes in her favor, the worst score since the beginning of the 5th Republic. A trend that is confirmed in our two departments: 1.96% of the vote in Vienne; 2.09% in the Deux Sèvres. Ten years earlier, the PS was more than 32% in Poitou, with the candidacy of François Hollande, in the first round of the presidential election of 2012.
And with this score, socialist activists and elected officials are worried about the future of this party, which has been in power for 19 years old (14 years with François Mitterrand, 5 years with François Hollande). “The Socialist Party has not spoken to the working classes for several years, and today we see that when France Insoumise addresses these classes, it achieves a score of over 20%”laments Flavien Cartier, socialist activist and municipal councilor in the town of Pleumartin.
The question then arises a rapprochement with La France Insoumise by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, especially a few weeks before the legislative elections. “We must have a united left force in the National Assembly”hopes the young activist of 28 years. “We have disagreements between our two visions of France, but we also have common values, which could lead to a union of the left, and thus respond to this increasingly extreme right in France”, recognizes Laurence Vallois Rouet, the 1st secretary of the Socialist Party in Vienne. In the next few weeks, she “ensure” that discussions will take place with the other left-wing parties to “to prepare” parliamentary elections.
And then, there are other socialists who think that the PS is not dead, like the mayor of Genouillé, Jean-Guy Valette. He is one of only two socialist mayors in Vienne. In his commune, he obtained 4% of the vote, which is twice as much as his national score. “We have the right to be sad with this result, but we must quickly rebuild the party, support elected officials in the field and have a consistency that meets our expectations”explains the mayor of Genouille.