Paris (AFP)

The first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, announced on Sunday that he would be a candidate for his own succession at a congress which should take place in mid-December, believing that the "work of refounding" of the party was not " not completed ".

"Yes, the refoundation work is not completed," replied Mr. Faure, questioned about his candidacy for re-election in an interview with the Journal du dimanche.

"I will propose (...) that the congress take place in mid-December," he added.

At the head of the PS for two years, after the failure of his candidate Benoît Hamon in the presidential election of 2017, he expressed his willingness to play the card of the rally of the left in the perspective of that of 2022.

"Now, the time has come for the reaffirmation of our identity, articulated with the necessary gathering of the forces of the left and the ecology", explained the first secretary, assuring that it is about "the only winning equation" .

"We want to move towards a project coalition today to make possible a single candidacy in 2022", he said.

According to him, the rally "is not the surrender or the dilution", but "the ingestion and then the digestion of one party by another. It is the capacity to negotiate a contract where each one is respected for what. it brings and where clear common goals are set, ”he explained.

Asked about the possibility for the PS to support an environmental candidate in 2022, Mr. Faure insisted on the need to first define "a common project" and then "choose the one who is the best for embody it ".

"It is up to each and everyone to show themselves capable of embodying this social, ecological, democratic, feminist and European block", he said.

He hopes to reiterate at the departmental and regional levels in 2021, then in the presidential election, an alliance strategy that has proved successful in the municipal elections.

© 2020 AFP