Paris (AFP)

The left must "imperatively seize" the subject of security not to "abandon it to the extreme right", urged Sunday the boss of the PS Olivier Faure, criticized for his remarks on a "right of scrutiny" of the police on the sentences handed down, for which he later apologized.

The first secretary of the PS also announced that a party congress would be held in September, while the congress scheduled for mid-December 2020, where Mr. Faure was to apply for his own succession, had been canceled due to the crisis. sanitary.

"I want to have a clear mandate from activists to be able to move forward in this decisive year," he said on Europe 1 / Cnews / Les Echos.

Returning to his remarks, criticized on the left, on a "right of scrutiny" of the police on the sentences pronounced during the demonstration of the police officers Wednesday, he again regretted "an unfortunate sentence".

"Because it is precisely the one who will protect the most vulnerable (...), the left cannot lose interest in the security issue, it must even be in the fight on this issue so as not to abandon it to the extreme right ", as it was able to do" in the past ", considered Mr. Faure.

"French flag, Marseillaise, secularism, and now security": "None of this belongs to the extreme right. The republicans are us, those who have always fought the republic, it is them. C 'this is the reason why we must imperatively seize these subjects and consider that on these subjects there is no illegitimate left ", he urged.

As for the regional elections in June, he advocated for Ile-de-France "an agreement of all" left-wing forces for the second round, believing that "a victory is possible".

He underlined his "total confidence in what Audrey Pulvar does", while the socialist candidate is credited with 10% on the evening of the first round according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll for Le Journal du Dimanche, behind the outgoing president (Libres !, ex-LR) Valérie Pécresse, 33%, EELV ecologist Julien Bayou (11%).

Clémentine Autain (LFI / PCF) is also credited with 10%.

The PS can "at no time in (its) history" be "at fault in the fight against the far right", he also argued, when asked about the possibility of a republican front at the regional level. Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur to counter the RN.

Paris PS mayor Anne Hidalgo, a possible leftist candidate for the 2022 presidential election, also spoke out on Radio J on Sunday for a "republican front" from the June regional meetings against the RN, and if Marine Le Pen accedes in the second round of the presidential election.

© 2021 AFP