Europe 1 with AFP 12:29 p.m., March 24, 2024

This Sunday, Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the list for the PS and Place publique, launches his campaign in the European elections with a large meeting near Toulouse. He will be accompanied by the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, and the socialist president of the region, Carole Delga.

After a quiet start to the campaign, Raphaël Glucksmann, head of the list for the PS and Place publique, launches into the European battle on Sunday with a big meeting near Toulouse. Objective: to interfere in the match between Renaissance and the RN. In Tournefeuille, in the heart of Occitanie, a land of the left, the MEP will be on stage with the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, and the socialist president of the region, Carole Delga. The founder of the small Place Publique party convinced just over 6% of voters in the 2019 European elections.

Credited five years later with 9 to 13% according to the polls, he is for the moment at the head of the left, in third position behind the head of the National Rally list, Jordan Bardella, and that of the majority Valérie Hayer. A good score would "reshuffle the cards for the presidential election" and the next union that the PS is calling for after the failure of the Nupes (New ecological and social popular union) born in June 2022 after an agreement between the left-wing parties, sums up a socialist.

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For the 44-year-old essayist, the objective is clear: try to win back the voters disappointed by Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon and get ahead of Valérie Hayer. “If we exceed the majority, the signal is extremely strong,” remarks senator Alexandre Ouizille. The stakes are also high in the European Parliament.

“We are 33 seats away from tipping the majority”, currently held by the EPP (right), notes Olivier Faure. Becoming the first group would allow them to have a preponderant weight in the choice of the next president of the Commission, a position occupied today by Ursula von der Leyen (PPE), candidate for a second term.

“Fight of his life”

Tournefeuille is not the first meeting of Raphaël Glucksmann who has embarked on a discreet campaign for several months. But it is the first of the two formations (PS and Place publique) united, following an agreement which allowed his small party to obtain at least three places in eligible positions. The MEP should rely on his major themes: the unfailing defense of Ukraine and Europe, “the fight of his life”.

“We can show that Europe is capable of changing software and having a more protective logic,” comments Christophe Clergeau, MEP in fifth position on the list. Raphaël Glucksmann committed himself in Brussels "against foreign interference", notably from Russia and China, he also defended the directive which gives rights to workers on digital platforms, scrapped for the transformation of Agricultural Policy common and a “taxation of superprofits”.

Criticized in 2019 by part of the PS, who took a dim view of a non-socialist head of the list, he is now almost unanimously supported by the pink party. Including among former rebels who appreciate his positions breaking with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Having also made himself known in Brussels on the defense of the Uighurs (a Muslim minority that Beijing is accused of persecuting), he assumes deep differences with the rebellious leader on China, the Ukrainian question or European defense.

Insoumise France, disappointed at not having obtained a single list for the Europeans, criticizes him for representing the “old left”. “We are not doing it with LFI or the Greens, but against the far right and the liberals,” retorts Christophe Clergeau.