After several days of tension linked to the contested results of the ballot to appoint the leader of the party, the time has come for appeasement within the Socialist Party (PS). In his closing speech at the 80th Congress of the PS in Marseille, Olivier Faure acknowledged, thanking his opponent, that "finding each other was not necessarily obvious".
“There were hurtful words, overplayed disagreements, and a final week where many activists felt insulted, disrespected,” he stressed, “but, you and I, we made a choice. That of overcoming these moments" and "doing it together rather than against each other".
He praised the "spirit of responsibility" of the elected Norman, who agreed to become the party's first delegate secretary, alongside the mayor of Nantes, Johanna Rolland, a close friend of Olivier Faure.
"You and I are going to do better. Starting tomorrow, let's bring the clear demonstration," he said.
Olivier Faure quipped about this Congress: “With us, everything is discussed. This is what makes us unique, perhaps even our charm. We can spend days debating direction. And then spend nights putting the broken dishes back together. »
Returning to Nupes, the main stumbling block with his rival, more skeptical about this alliance forged with LFI, the PCF and EELV, he stressed that "for the first time in five years, the French have been able to locate [them] for sure ". "We have affirmed our unwavering belonging to the left," hammered the first secretary.
He regretted, since 2017, "the loss of a bond of trust difficult to rebuild" with the French, with "the election of Emmanuel Macron and the appearance alongside him of former socialists". The message was therefore "blurred", according to him: "Who is a socialist? An aspiring minister in the waiting room, a traitor in the making. This is what many of our fellow citizens thought. »
Believing that "we do not build anything by proclaiming the irreconcilable lefts", Olivier Faure said he wanted to bring with socialist activists "the affirmation of what we are at the heart of the left".
In a tackle to those who find him "submissive" to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and LFI, he snapped: "In this congress, I have often heard of submission. Fear submitting only to the mighty! "It is by winning the PS that we can win the left," he said.
