“I was ready to tackle her to the ground if she came on stage. A few minutes after Olivier Faure’s speech on the forecourt of the Halle aux grains, a conference center in Blois, this PS executive breathes. Ségolène Royal did not go on stage. In the entourage of the first secretary, we are wary of the initiatives of the former candidate for the Élysée. She has just taken back her PS card, which is obviously not trivial.
The leadership of the Socialist Party was right to watch Ségolène Royal like milk on the fire. Late Friday afternoon, the Socialists gathered in Blois for the party’s summer university learn, raising their eyes to the sky, that the former Minister for Ecological Transition proposes to lead a common PS- LFI to Europeans.
The next day, Saturday, Ségolène Royal continues. If her presence at a round table is canceled on Friday, because a senator opposed her coming, she organizes early Saturday afternoon, in a dress with Toile de Jouy patterns, a small press conference in the courtyard of the Maison des provinces, where the Young Socialists invited her to take part in a debate. Cameras and microphones cluster around her. “I do this for young people,” she said with a big smile, obviously very relaxed. I want to put people back everywhere. »
Asked if the parties concerned, LFI and PS, will follow it, she replies that it is primarily addressed “to people, and not to political apparatuses”. Olivier Faure, whom she had informed a few weeks ago of her desire to lead a joint list, had opposed an end of inadmissibility. She therefore, as usual, dark, without really asking anyone’s permission. “A lot of people have asked me,” she says, without you having to believe her.
Also invited to the courtyard where the Young Socialists meet, the rebel Alexis Corbière is rather happy with the Ségolène effect. “His initiative can make things happen,” said MP LFI. The Insoumis have, it is true, everything to gain: Ségolène Royal’s service offer allows Jean-Luc Mélenchon to appear as a defender of the union. “He’s going to use her like a hare,” said a senior PS leader. If she succeeds in marriage on the left, Mélenchon will flatter herself; if it fails, he will wash his hands of it, recalling that he has tried everything for success.
The socialists are much more skeptical. Certainly, in his speech delivered late Saturday morning, Olivier Faure does not close the door to a list of the left to the Europeans. “Logically, if our partners were to evolve, we would take part in the discussions,” said the first secretary in front of an audience of activists and white flags waved by the Young Socialists. But his point of view is only formal. Olivier Faure does not want to appear as an opponent of the union of the left, of course. He knows, however, that a common list is no longer relevant: environmentalists and communists have long announced that they would present their own list, in particular for financial reasons (the ballot brings in money). They have no reason to go back. “We are not going to rob the PC with a pistol”, notes, fatalistic, Olivier Faure.
For a few weeks, moreover, the first secretary has been saying that a list with the Insoumis is unlikely, after having left doubt for a long time. Its internal opponents, resolutely against an alliance with LFI, applaud weakly. “We appreciate Olivier Faure’s recent reversal of the jacket on the Europeans, but it is not based on any ideological argument. He has a spine made of chewed gum,” mocks a PS tenor close to Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, Olivier Faure’s main rival within the PS. Others criticize him for announcing a socialist list as a default, because the others are going there on their side. “If you want to count in the Europeans, you can’t say that you go alone because you have to! », criticizes Stéphane Le Foll, mayor of Le Mans.
The announcement of Ségolène Royal, which has somewhat shaken the torpor of the Blois campus, is unlikely to change the point of view of the majority of socialists. The former presidential candidate distinguished herself by taking ambiguous positions on the conflict in Ukraine (she had notably questioned the reality of a bombardment on a maternity hospital), which did not pass within the PS . “A joint list with LFI cannot be discussed like that, without any basis for reflection, denounces Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen. We have too many differences with LFI. Does Ms. Royal consider that we can break the treaties [what LFI suggests concerning the EU, editor’s note] and at the same time ask Mr. Putin to respect them? »
Others point out that Ségolène Royal is not at her first attempt. In 2018, hadn’t she proposed to Yannick Jadot to take second place on the list of environmentalists? Jadot had flatly refused his offer of services, denouncing “yet another sleight of hand from the PS to save the day”…
Olivier Faure does not want to joke with the European ballot. He dismisses Ségolène Royal’s initiative with one hand, because he wants to make this election a springboard for the PS, but also for Nupes. “On election night, if the whole left is 30, 31, 32 or 35%, a space opens up, explains the boss of the Socialist Party. It must be shown that the four formations of Nupes, when they go into battle, score higher than that of Macronie and the right. Faure is already aiming for 2027. Tuesday evening, at the party’s national office, he will put to the vote a text on the European ballot, evoking the single list of the PS, but also on the next presidential deadline. He wants, by linking the two, to show that the union on the left is not tainted by the disunity of the Europeans. “I am in favor, then, of a primary which will decide between the candidates of the left for the presidential election”, explains Olivier Faure. He mentions the names of a few suitors, including François Ruffin or Fabien Roussel. Ségolène Royal does not appear there.
