May 5, 2022. The National Council of the Socialist Party validates the legislative agreement proposed by the rebels. After the crushing defeat of Anne Hidalgo in the first round of the presidential election. The atmosphere is tense between the pros and cons. The First Secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, defends this agreement “historical“, according to him. “It’s historic simply because we have both decided to go beyond resentment, a united front, a united left with respect for each and everyone. We have not become rebellious“, he explains then.
But this is what the opponents of this agreement criticize: for them, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union will not hold. Where his supporters repeat that Olivier Faure saved the PS, at least in the Assembly, his detractors believe that he buried the party. Two months later, the socialist leader still smiles: “It made me smile because those who almost killed the PS, they were there before me. And when I became First Secretary, I did not inherit a 30% party, but a party which had won 6% in the presidential election, which had very few deputies and which had successively lost these mayors, these departments, these regions… In short, it was PS year zero for me“, he says to franceinfo.
Before sweeping: “These are formulas. Those who actually use them from day one want my skin and won’t get it. As long as I’m followed, I’ll do what I believe. We sought to show that this new generation was a generation that took its responsibilities and was keen to return, precisely, to the center of the left and to be in the proposal again.
“The reality is that the left has always been plural since its origin and that today there is a need to work together”.
Olivier Faureat franceinfo
Olivier Faure, at the head of the PS since 2018, has freed himself from the shadow of François Hollande: “There is something that happened in that order, with the ‘elephants’ who, by dint of hitting me, ended up not hurting me anymore. They have spent so much of their life for four years trying to soap the board. After having tried for a long time to spare them and tried to come to terms with them, I said to myself: in any case, as nothing will ever have their approval, it is no longer worth it. And so, effectively, I freed myself quite largely from their tutelage. And it’s true that I’ll never let myself be walked all over again.“
Many speak of a “friendly love at first sight” between him and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the reference makes him smile. “On the contrary, I believe that it was rationality that brought us together and the fact of discovering that we finally had, on very many subjects, similar approaches.” The deputy for Seine-et-Marne admits that the two men went from mutual mistrust to trust and even to “a confident dialogue”.
His taste for politics, Olivier Faure explains by his family history: “I come from a rather special family since in fact my mother is of Vietnamese origin, my father is French, but in a family which is a Maurrassian family, therefore from the far right. And it was a rather special union. So you can imagine the family debates! It gave me both a taste for exchange and also the belief, perhaps a little naive and crazy, that we can reconcile this country. And my grandfather was a man of the extreme right. He was very surprised by the arrival of my mother in his family and in the end, what I know is that they loved each other. And that idea doesn’t bother me. ‘never give up.
“I think that even people who don’t understand each other, who are very far from each other, can end up liking each other. I don’t despair of allowing French women and men to find each other.”
Olivier Faureat franceinfo
In the meantime, the PS is clearing its ranks. 79 dissidents, candidates elected or not to the legislative elections and their substitutes, have been suspended. At the end of June, the National Conflict Council will examine possible exclusions. The party hopes to win back activists and has launched a major membership campaign.