Paris (AFP)
Former President François Hollande, who will visit François Mitterrand's grave in Jarnac (Charente) on Friday for the 25th anniversary of his death, says that "to call for the rally" of the left, "without a leader to embody the alternative, is a futile step, "in an interview Thursday in South West.
"Calling for the gathering of scattered political families without a central force and without a leader to embody the alternative is a sympathetic but vain step. The union is not a fight, it is a dynamic", declares the ex-president .
Friday, Emmanuel Macron will also go for the first time to Jarnac to pay homage to François Mitterrand, who died on January 8, 1996. The first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure will also be present, as well as Ségolène Royal, former PS candidate for the presidential election, and Johanna Rolland, PS mayor of Nantes.
"Candidates are always found, but without a dynamic and a project to carry them, they are personalities, not possible contenders for victory," insists Mr. Hollande.
According to him, "in times of crisis, where the essential is in question, collective values, solidarity, public services remain the best answers. That should convince the socialists that their time has come back, beyond the opposition necessary to economic decisions ".
"It is not simply in relation to the number of tests, masks or vaccines that we must determine, it is in relation to the society we want for tomorrow," he adds.
The former president also believes that "what François Mitterrand was able to do in two seven-year terms, to gain distance, to let the Prime Minister govern, it is no longer possible over a five-year term", with "the news channels, the social networks, immediacy ".
"The seven-year term was too long. The five-year term is too short. I plead for a six-year term and legislative elections every four years," he repeated.
npk / leb / pb
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