Paris (AFP)

The Socialist Party has decided to postpone indefinitely its congress scheduled for December 12 and 13 in Villeurbanne (Rhône) due to the health situation, while preparing "a project" in view of the presidential election of 2022, according to its first secretary Olivier Faure.

The National Council (CN) of the PS, meeting at the party's headquarters in Ivry-sur-Seine, voted "unanimously to initiate the procedure for suspending the congress".

"In the absence of congress, I will come back to you in a few weeks to submit to you the roadmap for our coming months", affirmed Mr. Faure, in his closing speech of CN, open to the press on Facebook and Youtube .

"These months will have to be those of the affirmation of a project for the French and the basis from which we can discuss a coalition contract with our partners," he added.

The adjournment of the congress should not "put our work in brackets" but allow "we to accelerate the pace" in order to "meet expectations, to be ready for the decisive deadline of 2022", estimated the number one socialist .

During this congress, Mr. Faure intended to be a candidate for his own succession at the head of the party.

According to its statutes, the PS must organize a congress every two years.

Mr. Faure was elected first secretary in April 2018, in Aubervilliers, a year after the heavy defeats of 2017.

The mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy, had decided to challenge him by presenting a motion concurrent with his, in which she accuses the outgoing management of "managing the decline" of the PS "by begging for his jump seat in a unit" with other leftist or environmentalist formations of which we know "neither the proposals nor the incarnation".

She ruled, in a statement, the decision to postpone the congress "appropriate".

Due to the postponement of the congress, the leadership of the PS decided not to publish the orientation texts.

While the government is considering a possible postponement of regional, due to the Covid, Mr. Faure estimated that if it was necessary to do it "to avoid the winter period which is also that of all epidemics, we agree. ".

"But everything must be on the table. That a deadline be set. The Covid must not become the screen of the personal and electoral conveniences of the Head of State", he warned, recommending "solutions", including "remote voting".

© 2020 AFP