Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP 16:50 p.m., September 25, 2023, modified at 16:50 p.m., September 25, 2023

While La France insoumise accuses the other parties of the Nupes of having, by their refusal to include them in an alliance, "cost the left nearly 10 seats" in the electoral elections, the Socialist Party has, for its part, rejected these accusations. "It's not at all a dozen senators of the left lost," replied Monday Pierre Jouvet, the secretary general of the PS.

The Socialist Party on Monday rejected the accusations of La France insoumise, which accuses the other parties of the Nupes of having, by their refusal to include them in an alliance, "cost the left nearly 10 seats" in the senatorial elections on Sunday. The leader of the socialist group Patrick Kanner, willingly critical of the Nupes, had sealed an agreement with the communists and ecologists in fifteen departments for the senatorial, without LFI.

"The refusal of the union around the Nupes will have cost the left nearly 10 seats," LFI denounced Sunday evening in a statement. "It's not at all a dozen senators of the left lost," replied Monday Pierre Jouvet, the secretary general of the PS.

"I'm not accusing anyone"

According to him, the presence of Insoumise candidates had the "direct effect" of losing a seat to the left in four departments: Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne. "I am not accusing anyone," he said at a press conference, adding that the request of the Insoumise "to have a senator (him) seemed difficult". "The LFI candidates made 1,633 votes out of the 67,131 votes" cast Sunday night, a score of 2.5%, he said. "It is very difficult to make projections on what would have been complete lists of the Nupes in the departments," he also recalled.

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An agreement with LFI (which has very few local elected representatives) could have pushed socialist, communist or ecologist candidates to present dissident lists, which would themselves have caused the Napes to lose votes. Pierre Jouvet also welcomed "the win-win electoral agreement with the socialists and ecologists" which has advanced the left in the Senate. Depending on the choice of a few non-carded MPs, the left could approach 100 representatives in the upper house of Parliament. The ecologists hope to rally under their banner at least 15 elected representatives (three more than before) and the communists 17 (two more). The Socialists hope to win two to reach 66.