Paris (AFP)
The Socialist Party gathers its delegates Saturday and Sunday in Villeurbanne for its 79th congress, in the absence of the presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo, supported by Olivier Faure, who was reappointed as first secretary of the party.
The deputy for Seine-et-Marne, in office since 2018, easily disposed of his only competitor, the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin (Lyon metropolis) Hélène Geoffroy, by 73.6% of the vote against 26.4% , figures sent to AFP overnight from Thursday to Friday on the basis of 80% of the ballots counted.
This victory, obtained during a vote organized from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. for nearly 22,000 up-to-date members in 2,500 offices, was a formality in view of the large victory, 72%, of the orientation text of the outgoing first secretary last week.
Olivier Faure will not be officially re-elected until the results have been ratified at the congress.
To explain the absence to this one of the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, supported by Olivier Faure, her entourage explains that she has already "come to the summer days of the PS in Blois" and "respects the internal life of the party ", but that she" never interfered with internal currents ".
To obtain the socialist nomination, Anne Hidalgo must however go through an internal vote of the militants, after the congress, to decide between possible competitors, such as the mayor of Le Mans Stéphane Le Foll.
The mayor of Paris and presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo, September 16, 2021 in Paris Ludovic MARIN POOL / AFP
"If the PS supports me, that's good, so much the better, but I'm campaigning for all French people," Anne Hidalgo explained on France 2 on Sunday, after having formalized her candidacy for the 2022 presidential election.
Olivier Faure had written in black and white his desire to designate Anne Hidalgo as a candidate for the PS in his political orientation text, submitted to the vote of the militants on September 10.
Hélène Geoffroy, former Secretary of State for the City (2016-2017), denounces a strategy of "erasing" the First Secretary, because Olivier Faure advocates the union of the left and had mentioned the idea of " rank "behind an environmental candidacy for the presidential election if the latter seemed better placed.
But in view of the results of municipal, departmental and regional elections, he now defends a rally behind the socialist candidacy.
- "Project for 2022" -
"Everything proves on the contrary that there is no erasure strategy", pleaded for his side Olivier Faure, who had taken the reins of the party in the midst of the debacle in 2018. His supporters emphasize on the contrary that he has "straightened out the party".
The Congress should also validate the presidential "project" of the PS for 2022, amended by activists in recent weeks following its presentation at the party's summer days in Blois.
Olivier Faure and Anne Hidalgo at the summer school of the Socialist Party in Blois (Loir-et-Cher), August 28, 2021 JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER AFP
A project, under the leadership of the deputy Boris Vallaud, who makes a hundred proposals, and plans for example to "make possible the referendum of shared initiative", create "a minimum youth", "replace the GDP index by indicators economic taking into account the quality of life or sustainable development ", and" transfer to the Prime Minister the power of dissolution of the Assembly ".
"It's been 10 years that there was no socialist project", recalled Olivier Faure.
Will it be taken over by candidate Anne Hidalgo?
Mystery.
The latter, which has not officially given its opinion, is not bound to follow it.
"She can dig into it", we say to the PS.
The candidate, who for her part is developing her program, has already given some ideas, such as the doubling of teachers' salaries.
But, when asked about the idea of giving the Prime Minister the power to dissolve the Assembly, she has already said that she was "not for a 6th Republic".
Only certainty, its program should be piloted by the mayor of Nancy Mathieu Klein and the national secretary Boris Vallaud.
© 2021 AFP