Who is on the starting line to lead the PS?

• The Socialist Party is entering its campaign for the congress, which will be held at the end of January 2023 in Marseille.

• Olivier Faure, the outgoing first secretary, could be challenged by two other motions.

• The main dividing line: the report to Nupes.

The Socialists have set their meeting: in Marseille, from January 27 to 29, 2023. This is where the next congress of the Socialist Party will be held.

Olivier Faure, the first secretary since 2018, will try to win a new mandate at the head of the party.

But it may be a little less easy than at the last congress, in Villeurbanne, in 2021. At the time, the deputy of Seine-et-Marne had been re-elected with 72% of the votes against the mayor of Vaulx- en-Velin, Hélène Geoffroy.

"If it's like in 2021, with two motions, there will be no problem for Olivier Faure, if there are three, it will be different", exposed, in mid-September, a pro-Faure deputy.

The congress is still a long way off, but it is indeed towards a scenario with three major currents that we could be heading.

On Sunday, around 150 Socialist Party executives signed a column in

to create a "third way" between the current leadership and its opposition.

At the head of "Refoundation" (a word found in almost all socialist congresses) there are three local elected officials: Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, mayor of Rouen, Lamia El Araaje, councilor of Paris, former deputy, and Claire Fitta, elected from Occitania, close to Carole Delga.

The day before, it was Hélène Geoffroy who gave the cover in a platform called (surprise) "Refound, gather, govern".

Nupes at the heart of the debate

If this summer everyone was still denying it, the main question of the internal campaign will be very strategic: what to do with Nupes?

At Olivier Faure, we want to continue, the others want the union, but without LFI.

“The gathering of the left, we bring it to life every day, estimates Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen who governs locally with the ecologists, in particular.

But to unite, you have to be clear about what you are.

And what we are not.

In the 3rd way we are really not rebellious.

"I'm tired of being associated with Danièle Obono or Sandrine Rousseau", breathes a signatory, local executive of the PS.

This malaise vis-à-vis LFI or the most radical figures of Nupes, the outgoing majority does not sweep it away: “Their figure is crystallizing in opinion as among socialist militants, describes a pro-Faure.

There is a desire to instrumentalize the rejection of rebellious people to make it a political line.

But that's enough.

The union of the left without LFI, it makes no political sense, it's suicidal.

Moreover, the proponents of the 3rd way do not want to make this issue the most important, claiming that a congress is above all a political line and substance.

“A political congress is always content and strategy!

“, we retort among the pro-Faure.

Basically, few differences

On the merits, therefore, we do not yet know what Olivier Faure will propose, but the opponents have not advanced anything very new.

“Are we satisfied with the world as it is not going? Asks Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol.

France is unable to meet the challenges of this century in social and ecological matters.

The mayor of Rouen wants to base himself on the “credibility” of local socialist elected officials to rebuild the credibility of the PS at the national level… Overall what the PS has been saying for a few years already.

“Frankly the platform could be taken over at 80% by Olivier Faure”, ironically a close deputy.

“Perhaps, but after five years we are told that the PS is in a lethargic state,” replies Mayer-Rossignol.

This is clearly Olivier Faure's weak point: for many, the Socialist Party has not worked hard enough in recent years.

On the management side, where we recall that the party has only 20 permanent members compared to 150 ten years ago, we find that it is a bit much coffee: "I would like these people to put a little more hands in the grease, annoys the pro-Faure deputy already mentioned.

When we did the auditions for the project led by Boris Vallaud and moreover almost entirely taken over by Hidalgo, we didn't see them much.

Also, the discomfort with a feeling of coming and going more or less to the left could make some fall into the opposition.

The congress is in three and a half months, and the lines are not fixed.

On the Faure side, we wonder if the 3rd way, which they consider very Parisian, will manage “to keep everyone in this strategic denial that the militants see well”.

We can not totally exclude that these get along in fine with Olivier Faure.

And Hélène Geoffroy, in all this?

If in "we" nobody says anything bad about it, it passes - and the word is weak - for the foil of this congress.

"She sucks and around her, there are only big suckers," stings a senior party official, still unaligned.

Even on the 3rd way side, an alliance with her passes for the kiss of death: “Ah no!

We don't want pro-Le Foll!

Certainly not !

If we make an alliance, I will go back to Faure”, explained at the start of the week at

the local framework mentioned above.

The battle has only begun.

Policy

Marseille: The city proposed to host the next PS congress

Company

Nupes: Olivier Faure pleads for a "code of ethics" on sexist and sexual violence

• Socialist Party (PS)

• Olivier Faure

• Nudes

• PS Congress