PS Congress: "We are the surprise" of the presidential election, assures Olivier Faure - France 24

Villeurbanne (AFP)

The first secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, widely re-elected on Saturday, said Sunday that his party was "the surprise" of the presidential election, calling once again for "the gathering of the left and the ecology" behind the PS.

In his closing speech at the 79th PS Congress in Villeurbanne, he promised activists a presidential campaign "like we haven't been doing for a long time".

Without ever mentioning the name of the probable PS candidate at the Elysee Palace Anne Hidalgo, who should be invested on October 14 by the activists at the end of an internal vote, Olivier Faure did not hide that he was defending his proposals , like that of a doubling of salaries for teachers.

After the vote of October 14, "we will then enter the campaign. I will come to do it with you, and we will go where no one is going", Olivier Faure launched to the activists.

"We will occupy the courtyards and village squares. We will bring life to the Republic and we will once again make the democratic soul vibrate", he declaimed, stressing that the PS was "the surprise of this deadline".

"I claim that we have learned from our mistakes, reflected on our project and that we already have a team from France, mayors, presidents of regions and departments, but also officials of the Socialist Party and parliamentarians", already team widely involved behind Anne Hidalgo, he continued.

PS Congress in Villeurbanne, September 19, 2021 OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE AFP

Regretting that the left is presented as "fragmented", Olivier Faure assured that "none of us will be able to govern alone".

"To win and transform this country, the left and the ecology must come together," he said, as the first round of the ecological primary ends on Sunday.

He repeated that he hoped "that the respective electoral results of our formations serve as a criterion to determine who will lead our united forces to victory", considering that "the responsibility rests with the Socialist Party to propose a candidacy" for the presidential election.

"We are proposing a coalition (...) between political families with specific identities, which despite their differences agree on a candidacy for the presidential election, candidates for the legislative elections to bring together a legislative agreement", a- he continued.

© 2021 AFP