(Paris) Despite the profound differences, Jean-Luc Melenchon has achieved the feat of bringing together the main left parties under the banner of the Ecological and Social Union of the New People for a common adventure that poses an existential challenge to the Socialist Party.
Posted at 6:38 am
Updated at 3:06 PM.
The union of the left, long imagined and often described as impossible, became a reality Thursday night to Friday when, after sometimes heated debates, the National Council of the Socialist Party adopted a 62% pact with a rebellious France.
This historic change of direction consecrates a great winner: Jean-Luc Melenchon who succeeded, with 22% in the first round of the presidential election, in his attempt to take over the left by uniting the Socialist Party under the same flag, but also the EELV and the Communists, in view of the legislative elections In June where he aims to be named “Prime Minister”. He said at 8 pm France 2 that in the near future he himself would not be a candidate for legislative elections.
The rebel leader organizes a family photo on Saturday for the inauguration conference of the “New Popular Ecological and Social Union” (Nupes) in Aubervilliers, near Paris.
This event represents a profound break in PS, particularly with regard to Holland’s five-year tenure, the consequences of which in the short and medium term remain uncertain.
The chief socialist negotiator, Pierre Jouve, welcomed this “historic gathering” on Friday, which is awaited by “the French who are desperate for this division.”
“We have proven that we can come together around a common project to change people’s lives,” the PS New Wave actor rejoiced as a generational divide has clearly emerged in recent days.
On the one hand, a young guard is impatient to make deals over the ashes of the failure of socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo in the presidential election (1.74%). On the other hand, “elephants” such as François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve, Jean-Marc Ayrault or Jean-Christophe Cambadellis headwind against this union with Mr. Melenchon who never delivered them.
At LFI, we applaud, as do LFI MEP Manon Aubry. “I remember the first time we saw the Socialist Party, a big week ago, I had the feeling that I had before me a new Socialist Party, ready to return to the wine laws. [sur le droit du travail]willing to defend retirement at the age of sixty, the Sixth Republic, and even disrespect for some European rules.
PS, “It’s over”
This shift to the left is leading the political world (and former LDP candidate for the 2015 regional elections) Dominique Resnais to say that the Socialist Party is “finished”, at least as “forming the government, that comes to power, that governs, that conducts public affairs in a reasonable manner Who can make the repairs?
“The Socialist Party now finds itself on the heels of a force that is a force of protest, La France insomise,” he quipped on BFMTV, recalling the initially huge differences between PS and LFI, particularly in their “relationship to Europe, to the world, to the Republic.”
Political opponents enjoy it, such as the movement’s MP Jean-Noel Barrot who provokes “a triple denial of the Socialist Party on the question of secularism, and of the French Communist Party on nuclear power and the Greens in Europe”.
Many characters in PS also spoke out against this “big gap” at several key program points, which were filled in at the expense of many semantic deviations. Some have already called for “rebel disobedience,” such as Senator Rashid Temal.
Carol Delga, the powerful head of the Occitanie region, who opposed the agreement, was concerned about the few constituencies allotted to the Socialist Party (70 out of 577) and warned that it would support dissident candidates.
It was announced in two interviews, in the Parisian and regional daily SendIts intention is to organize “the general states of the republican, European and ecological left, open to activists, sympathizers and civil society, all those who, on the left, want a social project that is neither that of Emmanuel Macron nor that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon”.
Former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has already returned his PS Card. Other members can follow and leave the party “turned into a doormat”, regretted Wednesday with AFP Herault’s department chief and former MP Kleber Mesquida, 76, including 47 in the Socialist Party.
On the part of the majority of Emmanuel Macron, we are already in a hurry to reach them. “I say, ‘Join us,’ to the Social Democrats. LREM President Stanislas Guerini insisted on Friday, ‘Our doors are wide open.’”
Minister Olivier Veran, the former Socialist Party, sent him a letter to his “ex-comrades inquiring” telling them: “It is not you who left the Socialist Party, it is he who has just left you.”
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