"Excluded" of the PS, the mayor of Strasbourg denounces the "corporalism" of the party leadership

Strasbourg (AFP)

The mayor of Strasbourg Roland Ries strongly denounced Wednesday his "informal exclusion" of the Socialist Party, blaming the "corporalism" of the leadership of the PS and its First Secretary Olivier Faure, in an interview with AFP.

"I do not believe that we solve political problems by acts of authority, by the corporalism, proclaimed orthodoxy and exclusions but by the discussion and the acceptance of the difference," he said. to be worth.

"I did not imagine that the PS could still be at this level," said the Mayor of Strasbourg, recalling that he had "45 years of life" political party.

"The closure, the authoritarianism, the corporalism, all this does not attack the root of things and the fact that the PS has fallen very low in the space of a very short time," he insisted .

Roland Ries is among the 75 signatories - elected and former elected PS and ecologists - of a "manifesto" published last weekend by The Sunday newspaper. This platform calls for the creation of a "left pole in the majority" government to carry "a social and republican voice".

By signing, the mayor of Strasbourg "is in the majority (...)." I draw the conclusion that he is no longer a member of the PS, "reacted the first secretary of the PS, quoted by the daily newspaper Regional News of Alsace.

"Olivier Faure did not call me, I learned (my exclusion) by the press," lamented Roland Ries who announced a few months ago that he would leave his chair in 2020 and will provide support to one or the other of the candidates to his succession that in January.

In March, his current first deputy (LREM), Alain Fontanel, will be opposed including Socialist Mathieu Cahn, ecologist Jeanne Barseghian and candidate (LR) Jean-Philippe Vetter.

Noting the "dizzying fall" of the PS's militant forces, his "loss of influence" and his words "more and more inaudible", Roland Ries adds that there is "better to do than to exclude ones other".

"The PS can be today at best only an extra force, including for the municipal future," says the mayor of 74, regretting that "the fact of signing a forum that obviously not suitable for Mr Faure leads to an informal exclusion ".

© 2019 AFP