“We didn't make all these efforts to become social traitors again”: tensions return to the PS before the nomination of the Prime Minister

Tensions are resurfacing in the Socialist Party, which is launching its summer days in Blois on Thursday by tearing itself apart over the strategy to be implemented with regard to Emmanuel Macron, while the latter continues his quest for a Prime Minister after having excluded a government of the New Popular Front led by Lucie Castets.

The candidate of the left alliance for Matignon, who has already participated in the Ecologists, Communists and Insoumis returns, will end her tour with the Socialists on Friday.

A way of demonstrating that she is “still supported by the four forces of the NFP”, as she stated on Thursday on BFMTV and RMC, announcing that she was leaving her position as director of finances at Paris City Hall in order to “put all (her) forces into preserving the union of the left”.

But her presence in Blois will not prevent the divergences within the PS from coming to light, after a short period of calm and unity at the time of the European elections, around Raphaël Glucksmann.

Internal opponents of First Secretary Olivier Faure criticise him in particular for his refusal to return to the Elysée to discuss the appointment of a Prime Minister other than Ms Castets. “I am always ready to negotiate, but today the head of state is not negotiating”, he justified on RTL.

“It is a position that has not been validated by the party”, replied Carole Delga, who spoke with Mr. Macron on Thursday morning as president of Regions of France, in tandem with Renaud Muselier. “Candidate for nothing”, she nevertheless judged “necessary for the left to be in a demanding but constructive approach”.

“Social traitors”

Another stone in the garden of Mr. Faure, already targeted by the mayor of Vaulx-en-Velin (Rhône) Hélène Geoffroy and the mayor of Rouen Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, who also demand that the PS continue to participate in the discussions and not censure a priori a government that would be led by a left-wing personality outside the NFP.

Hypothesis that is gaining ground, as the name of the former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who left the PS two years ago after the agreement on the left-wing alliance Nupes, in which La France Insoumise had carved out the lion's share, resurfaces in the press.

But for the management, as for the PS deputies, the line is clear: censure of any government that would be an extension of Macronist policy, regardless of the Prime Minister.

“We didn't make all these efforts to return to the heart of the left, and end up becoming social traitors again”, explains a socialist MP.

“It's a storm in a teacup unleashed by people who invent a parallel world where a left-wing Prime Minister with left-wing measures would be supported by Macron”, sweeps aside MEP Christophe Clergeau.

The revolt nevertheless reveals deep disagreements within the party, which the explosive Marseille congress in 2023, where the PS was torn apart over the Nupes, defended by Olivier Faure who won by a very short head (51%).

"Funnel work"

"We always replay the same sequence“, laments MP Laurent Baumel, stressing that opponents of Olivier Faure “yet voted for the creation of the New Popular Front”, with LFI.

Resoumis who are carefully observing the divisions in the pink party. But “we are not worried”, assures a member of the leadership of the Mélenchonist movement, for whom “it is not new that a part of the PS dreams of an under-secretariat of state for Mr. Macron”.

On the Elysée side, we see rather the confirmation that the NFP is “ideologically fractured” and that its members “don't agree on anything”, according to a close friend of the president who is therefore continuing his “funnel work” to find the right profile for Matignon.

The head of state thus had an appointment with the president of the Association of Mayors of France David Lisnard on Thursday morning, then early in the afternoon with that of the Department of France François Sauvadet. Before flying off for a state visit to Serbia, until Friday.

Which would postpone the decision “rather until the end of the week”, according to Mr. Macron's entourage, while the resigning government of Gabriel Attal has been dealing with current affairs for 44 days already.