PS members vote to elect their First Secretary, the future of Nupes at stake

The members of the PS vote this Thursday to choose their new secretary, between the outgoing Olivier Faure, and two other candidates, Hélène Geoffroy and Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, with the bet for the place of the PS in the left-wing Nupes alliance.

Craftsman, for his party, of this agreement concluded in May for the legislative elections between the LFI, the PS, the EELV and the PCF, Olivier Faure is risking his position in this vote but also the future of the union, criticized by his two rivals.

Some 41,000 affiliates will be able to vote in this first round, between 5 and 10 p.m. in the premises of the sections, to choose the next text of the party’s orientation.

More than 40,000 voters

Results won’t be known until late at night, or even Friday morning. Difficult to determine how many activists will turn out to vote, and what the balance of power will be between the three motions.

“Faure will make an important score,” said a Socialist senator, “but will he be a majority?” “He has the support of the vast majority of the first federales,” a deputy abounds.

If the Nupes agreement made it possible to maintain a group of 32 socialist deputies in the Assembly, despite the historic failure of candidate Anne Hidalgo (1.7%) in the presidential election, it also deeply divided the PS, causing departures, thus, emblematic , of former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, and dissident in the legislative elections.

Towards an alliance against Faure?

For someone close to Olivier Faure, his competitors “are in denial of the reality of the political situation. The Nupes are not some kind of monster that will devour us, but a space for dialogue on the left”.

The vote is scrutinized by the members of Nupes. If Olivier Faure loses, it will be terrible”, estimates an environmentalist deputy, while an insubmissive elected official acknowledges that “it will not help us”. After the vote on Thursday, will Olivier Faure’s two competitors ally against him? Two movements do not rule out the hypothesis .

“It would be the alliance of the carp and the rabbit”, estimates Dieynaba Diop, close to Olivier Faure, recalling that Hélène Geoffroy has always been against Nupes, while Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol voted in favor of the union in May.

But the latter assures that he will call “the other two to come and work with us. We have been in a sterile brawl for too long.”