Europe 1 with AFP 4:12 p.m., March 24, 2022, modified at 4:12 p.m., March 24, 2022

While the Socialist Party is heading, according to the polls, towards its worst score in a presidential election, Olivier Faure is already working on the sequel.

The first secretary explained that he was not against François Hollande's candidacy for the legislative elections, but did not wish, however, to "start the PS again with yesterday's elephants".

The PS is preparing its reconstruction after the presidential election.

The First Secretary of the party, Olivier Faure estimated Thursday that the former President François Hollande had "perfectly the right to be a candidate" in the legislative elections, but that it was not necessary "to start the PS again with the elephants of yesterday" .

While François Hollande clearly displayed, during a meeting of candidate Anne Hidalgo on Tuesday evening in Limoges, his desire to take part in the reconstruction of the PS, Olivier Faure, whose differences with the former president are notorious, is intended to be conciliatory, on

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"François Hollande is an eminent socialist, he was President of the Republic and as such, he must receive all our respect", he explained, but he warned: "to suggest that tomorrow will be rebuilt in the same way that we have built in previous years, the answer is no".

"I hope there is a new generation, the one that hatched at the time of the municipal elections, which can take its full place," said the First Secretary.

The activists will decide

When asked if François Hollande was "a cumbersome elephant", he replied: "I wouldn't say cumbersome, I would say that everyone should be in their place. For me, the place of a former president is to seek to bring out the next generation, to be among those who are facilitators and not impediments".

Regarding the possibility for the former president to stand in the legislative elections in Corrèze - a hypothesis that François Hollande "does not exclude" according to his entourage -, Olivier Faure explained that "if the socialist militants wish it and if the ex -president wishes to be a candidate, I do not see what right I have to oppose it".

Faure reluctant to invest Holland

"He is a socialist, he has every right to be a candidate", and if he is, he will have the PS logo and he will be invested", he added. However, he stressed that he had "led for 4 years" the reconstruction of the PS "In all the local elections, the PS held up well," he recalled.

“I am not sure that those who have not sought to rebuild for four years are today in the best position to explain that tomorrow they will be those who will rebuild”, he asserted, denouncing “ those who have spent more time soaping the board than trying to help the PS to rebuild itself".