Nearly 82% of the 29,212 votes cast against only 18% for his opponents: "It's a plebiscite beyond our expectations", exults Guillaume Roubaud-Quashie, member of the management.

The score is the highest since the appearance in 2001 of the possibility of presenting to the vote an alternative text to that of the management.

"Fabien Roussel is the best installed at home" of all the leaders of the left, while Olivier Faure came close to defeat at the PS and Jean-Luc Mélenchon is criticized at LFI, estimates the coordinator of the executive, Igor Zamichiei .

Fabien Roussel's triumph is all the more marked as divided opponents at the 2018 Congress had banded together against him, from former national secretary Pierre Laurent to deputy Stéphane Peu, close to LFI.

After having supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2012 and 2017, "a quasi-sacrificial effort for the militants", in the presidential election of 2022 "hope was reborn with the candidacy of Fabien Roussel", explains Barbara Gomes, spokesperson for his campaign. and Councilor of Paris.

"The time when people told us on the markets + Do communists still exist? + is over," she rejoices, speaking of the "icebreaker effect" of the deputy from the North.

By his sense of the formula and his distrust of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate Fabien Roussel made himself known and invited in the media.

These qualities took precedence over the real tensions that aroused, on the left and even in the party, his declarations on the left "benefits" or his food fads around "good meat, good wine, good cheese" .

Just do we find a trace by the minority position (46%) of this text in the important federation of Seine-Saint-Denis.

"Counter-example"

For MP Elsa Faucillon, support for the defeated alternative text, "it was on the promise not to be stepped on by the partners, LFI and Jean-Luc Mélenchon" that the vote was decided.

"Rather than on how we disseminated ideas, how we lost a delegation to the European Parliament and on the results of the solitary initiative in the presidential election", resulting in a score of 2.3%, she regrets.

But according to Léon Deffontaines, president of the Young Communists, the very large score shows that "the real debate was not whether or not we continue the strategy started in 2018 but on how we continue it: it's been a long time since I've seen the party wondering so much about how to structure itself "effectively.

A statement that worries Elsa Faucillon: "It's not an executive meeting but a Congress".

She recalls that a phase of discussion and amendment of the "common base" is now beginning in the sections and federations, before the Congress from 7 to 9 April.

In private, a party leader believes that the magnitude of Fabien Roussel's unexpected victory is also due "to the counter-example of the PS" - which narrowly avoided the split last weekend - "and by the battle of pensions".

By taking the initiative of the first Nupes meeting against the reform in Paris, Fabien Roussel was able to reassure those who feared that his skepticism vis-à-vis the left-wing Nupes coalition would disrupt the necessary rally in the sequence.

The First Secretary of the Socialist Party re-elected Olivier Faure at the 80th party congress in Marseille, January 29, 2023 © CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

Make no mistake, however, analyzes PCF historian Roger Martelli on the website of the review Regards: "In the balance, classic for communist culture, between the affirmation of identity and the concern for gathering majority on the left, it was the first term that was considered more fundamental than the second".

© 2023 AFP