Paris (AFP)
The number one of the PS, Olivier Faure, considered Thursday that the dispute between him and the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner was "not a personal affair", but "a matter of principle", during an interview on France 2.
Wednesday morning, Mr. Castaner had unleashed a storm on France Inter saying he was "amazed at the moral lessons" of Olivier Faure about the setbacks of Benjamin Griveaux, the Minister of the Interior adding that he "knew well" the patron of the PS for having "accompanied him in his divorces and his separations".
Faced with outcry, Christophe Castaner had told AFP at the start of the evening: "If my words hurt him, I regret them. There was no threat".
"This is not a personal matter, it is a matter of principle: I am not injured, as he sought to evoke, this is not the question", thundered Olivier Faure Thursday morning.
"The question is not to apologize to me. If you apologize to someone, there are a number of victims they can do it, people who have lost an eye, people who have lost a hand in the past year, "he added, referring to those injured during the" yellow vests "protests.
The boss of the PS however indicated that he did not intend to file a complaint, nor that he demanded the resignation of the boss of the Place Beauvau. He further indicated that Mr. Castaner had not called him.
The two fifties have rubbed shoulders for decades with the Socialist Party, from the Rocardian youths to the mysteries of the National Assembly, where both were first elected in 2012.
Asked about his own outing, in March 2019, when he had ironicized the announcements "between two glasses" of his ex-ally, in allusion to an evening in a well-drunk box of it revealed by the press people a few days more early on, Mr. Faure challenged any parallelism.
"It was not me who revealed anything of his private life, it was simply that it was in the public square and therefore I commented on it," he defended himself.
"When one is Minister of the Interior, one cannot, in a democracy, to attack a leader of the opposition and sought to intimidate him by insinuations on his private life", was still indignant Olivier Faure.
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