Former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve wanted to open Saturday “a path of hope” for “a left without decibels but with solutions”, seeming to take a step closer to a possible presidential candidacy in 2027.
The former Minister of the Interior once again denied any personal ambition in front of the press but, in the sports hall of Créteil, his speech took on the accents of a candidate, to the delight of the activists.
“I’m starting to believe it again,” rejoiced Anne Meynent, 75. For her, “Bernard Cazeneuve has the stature, the seriousness and I give him all my confidence”, she assured, seeing “no other possible candidate” on the left for 2027.
The former mayor of Cherbourg left the PS after the Nupes agreement concluded more than a year ago with LFI, EELV, communists and socialists. With his movement La Convention, launched last March, he intends to federate leftist tendencies hostile to this alliance to prevent the arrival of the far right in power.
“It’s the life-changing left of government that you seek to revive,” he told around 2,000 people in the sweltering heat.
And faced with “those who seem to fear” that he is a candidate, to launch: “when you have been a candidate 12 times in an election, nothing prevents you from being it a 13th time”.
While Olivier Faure, the boss of the PS, estimated this week that this anti-Nupes left was a dead end, Bernard Cazeneuve retorted to see rather “a wide avenue, not to say a boulevard”.
He assured the audience of his “will”, his “stubbornness” and his “determination” because “the Nation aspires to another path”. But “it’s a business that requires a lot of energy. It’s a bit like having to cross the Himalayas without the mittens”, he admitted to the press a little later.
Very severe on the “strategy of confrontation” developed by La France insoumise for six years, he tackled: “no, noise and fury are not an option for the French”.
He also criticized Olivier Faure: “I never thought that in PS, the S means sectarian”.
All the anti-Mélenchon left had made an appointment for this first public meeting of his movement, which now has 7,000 members.
Before a debate on Europe with in particular the former Belgian Prime Minister Elio di Rupo, the former President of the Italian Council Enrico Letta or the former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, François Hollande justified his presence.
The challenge is to be able to “reconstitute the great force of the left that the country needs” but “there is no victory on the left if it is not this force that is the first on the left”, has he asserted.
For the Europeans of 2024, Bernard Cazeneuve pleaded, like the former head of state, for a list of the left “resolutely European, which does not confuse dictators with representatives of the free world”.
In the audience, mostly made up of white heads, were the local representatives of La Convention, many socialist personalities such as the former First Secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadelis or the former President of the National Assembly Claude Bartolone, but also representatives of the left of Macronie, such as Gilles Savary.
The representatives of the Refoundations movement – the anti-Nupes line inside the PS – who are also trying to federate this left of government, were mostly on video.
“Together, united, we are the left,” exclaimed Guillaume Lacroix, president of the Radical Left Party, which supports Bernard Cazeneuve’s initiative.
Social democracy, “it’s a movement in the making which is starting to become fashionable again”, greets Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, who also organized a rally in mid-May.
Bernard Cazeneuve says he is convinced that in the end, all these initiatives will come together. “We need to create the conditions for a large foundation of the left in government so that there is a political force in view of the upcoming deadlines,” he explained to AFP.
10/06/2023 21:41:20 – Créteil (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
