French Socialist Party leadership election

[augbell]

Hi there, as a member of the Parti Socialste (PS), I'd like to talk to you about our current leadership election

Context:
The PS used to be the strongest French political party. In 2012 we controlled the presidency, both houses, all the governors but 2, 60% of the big cities' mayors... Then, we lost every election. Mayoral in 2014, gubernatorial in 2015, presidential and legislative (for the lower house) in 2017.
Our party has been divided in two wings since the 90's. The right wing and the left wing. The first has allways dominated the party except in 2008-2012, when Martine Aubry formed an alliance with half of the right wing.
In 2017 primaries, the Prime Minister Manuel Valls, seen as the rightest man of the Party, lost to Benoît Hamon, who criticised the government in the campaign and adopted a very leftist platform. Manuel Valls, Gérard Collomb (mayor of Lyon), Bertrand Delanoë (former mayor of Paris) and other leaders of the right wing defected and joined Emmanuel Macron.
After his loss in presidential election (6%) Benoît Hamon left the PS and founded a new movement, Génération.s.
The PS only has 30 MPs, out of 577. A lot of members left the Party to go in En Marche (Emmanuel Macron's new party), or in Générations.s, we might have less than 30 000 voters. Former leader Jean-Christophe Cambadélis resigned after the legislative election. The interim leader is senator Rachid Temal.

The questions raised by this election are which attitude do we adopt towards the government (strong opposition or constructive opposition, you need to know that bipartisanship is not usual in France), and can we exist between En Marche and La France Insoumise (unsubdued France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party). We had been the major left party since the 70's, when Mitterrand managed to surpass the Communist Party. But now Jean-Luc Mélenchon does far better than us (20% in presidential election, and surpass us in every by-election). Fun fact, both Mélechon and Macron was members of the PS in the 2000's.

[augbell]

Candidates:

First Orientation text (order was drawn lots): a shared progress to make the left win, by Luc Carvounas

Who is he ?
Current MP from Val-de-Marne (working class suburbs), former senator, former mayor of Alfortville.
He's the weirdest candidate. He switched from the right wing to the left wing.
He used to be the henchman of Manuel Valls. He endorsed him in 2011 primaries, when Manuel did only 5%. He strongly advocated the "loss of nationality" law in 2016, which divided so much the PS. He endorsed Manuel Valls again in 2017, but, unlike him, he then campaigned strongly for Benoît Hamon. Elected MP, he voted against the "déclaration de confiance du gouvernement" (a new government has to receive approval from the National Assembly). Only two others (out of 30) socialist MPs did so. 4 voted for the government, the others abstained. He built an alliance with the friends of Benoît Hamon who stayed in the PS (MP Régis Juanico, former MP Matthieu Hanotin). He's also endorsed by people from the medium line in the party, who endorsed Vincent Peillon during the 2017 primaries (he tried to break the left wing right wing divide), for exemple senator Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie or former MP Patrick Mennucci (Jean-Luc Mélenchon is now the MP of his former constituency). François Pupponi, an MP that was also close to Manuel Valls, is also endorsing him.

He stands for a clear opposition to the government. He wants to build a "rainbow left" alliance (which is funny because he's homosexual. He was the first MP to marry a same-sex partner after same-sex marriage was legalised), with Génération.s, the Green Party, the Communist Party and the Left Radical Party (which is center-left), BUT without Jean-Luc Mélenchon, because he wants to destroy the PS.

He might finish last, because he has few local supporters. Because he switched his position in the Party, he might have made more ennemies than friends everywhere. But the Génération.s members who were not excluded from the PS might vote for him. His candidacy might be a way for Benoît Hamon to divide the left wing of the PS, and thus to ensure Génération.s to be the only left party, with a center left PS. Benoît Hamon is known to punch below the belt.

[augbell]

Hi Augbell, welcome to the forum! And thanks for making this thread. PS is probably irrelevant now, but still fascinating to follow their internal squabbles.

You know, we survived during WWI and WWII, we can survive a young centrist

[augbell]

Second orientation text: Dear comrades, by Stéphane Le Foll

Who is he ?

Former european MP, former principal private secretary of François Hollande when he was the PS leader, former Secratary of Agriculture and government's spokesman, MP for Sarthe (rural western department).
He's the most loyal politician to François Hollande. He supported him during the whle presidency. He's from the former right wing majority, and is the less leftist candidate. He advocates a "cosntructive" and "intelligent" opposition to the government. He wants to focus on the defense of last government's policies, like ecology, or putting the economy back on track. His ambition is to make the party great again in a sence. He wants us to be proud to be socialist. He strongly defends European Union. Europe is maybe the subject that divides the most the PS . Some are strong "europeist" because Europe is bringing us international cooperation, peace, cultural exchange, a stronger economy than if we were alone... An other wing, the moderate, agrees that Europe is important but focuses on saying that we need to make a "social Europe", that helps the working class. A third wing, really minority (but mine ) claims that Europe can't change and will remain economicly conservative, so we need to distance ourself from it. Stéphane Le Foll is from the first wing.
He's endorsed by former secrataries: senator, former Secratary of Labour and former mayor of Dijon François Rebsamen, former Secratary of transport and mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer Frédéric Cuvillier, former Secratary of Outre-mer and only remaining socialist MP for Paris George Pau-Langevin.
His supporters are mostly old members (in my section his representative joined the party in 1973), that love the PS and support the PS whatever happens. He has strong support in some federations (the PS is divided not by region but by department, one federation per department), such as Isère (Grenoble region in the Alpes), Pas-de-Calais (in the north), Paris (mayor of the 18th district of Paris Eric Lejoindre is supporting him), in Sarthe and surrounding departments (his region), in Pyrénées-Orientales (french Catalonia). Meanwhile, he has absolutely no supporter in other department, like Saône et Loire (in Burgundy, Arnaud Montebourg's department), in Haute-Pyrénées... Luc Carvounas is facing the same problem. He has strong supports in departments where the local PS leader is backing him (Val-de-Marne his department, Hauts-de-Seine, Parisian leafy suburbs, Cher, in central rural France), but is completely absent in others (much more than Stéphane Le Foll).

Stéphane Le Foll is known for his charism. He speaks well and is good to fight. Yesterday there has been a debate between the four candidates, he strongly attacks left wing candidate Emmanuel Maurel. Something very relevant, he said that the PS needs to have a strong leader to exist and survive. The platform will only follow, and will be made by the Party members. He insisted on the fact that we need someone to "punch" against Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Marine Le Pen, or Laurent Wauquiez (new right wing party Les Républicains leader). He didn't mention Macron. His supporters are pushing his personal qualities forward, and want to make this election a leader election and not a platform election.
His strategy to win is to reduce the advance of the leading candidate, also comming from the majority, Olivier Faure. Their ideology is quite the same, so he's insisting on his own personality.

[augbell]

Salut augbell et bienvenue au forum

In general, who did these guys support during the Reims Congress? Are there any substantial members of the Hamon or Ségolène wings left?

In 2008, Le Foll was with Delanoë, Maurel with Hamon, Carvounas with Royal. I don’t know for Faure.
Hamon has still partisans in the PS. The right wing tried to exclude them but was not able to do so. Regis Juanico, Mathieu Hanotin are still in the party. Ségolène Royal partisans are gone with Macron.

[augbell]

Merci pour tes/vos contributions sur le forum augbell.

Tu devais choisir entre "tes" et "vos" .

Forgive my French!
Ok, in all honesty I wasn't sure which term to use. So I used both.

Because we're on a forum "tes" is OK.
You use "vos" or in general the second person of plural for addressing people formally. A bit like the third person "usted" and "su" in Spanish ("gracias por sus contribuciones sobre el forum").

I don't think augbel minds though.

I found the debate if you want to practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQoT1wg7mjc

The comments are quite funny.

I hope he at least appreciates my efforts to talk to him in his native language at least. Too frequently, we Yanks are too lazy in trying to do that. Sad!
French is a beautiful language.

I appreciate it of course !
I think we’re as lazy as you are, it’s just that we must learn English. People who learn languages in America are not lazy, in France it’s just like... mandatory

[augbell]

augbell, why you are still a member of PS?

I'm a leftist, I want to get involved, and I think a well organised party is the best thing to do so. I'm not a green (they're multiculturalist), neither a communist. The PS is a place where we can debate and have different minds, but it's not the chief who decides what we will defend, neither a simple vote. More than all, I've an affective bound to it. I've been a member since I'm 15, and the PS is the historic left party

[augbell]

Are the traitorous likes of Gérard Collomb still members of PS?

No, the last one, Secratary of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian, decided to leave the PS today. But we still have mainy members that campaigned against the party in presidential and legislative election.

[augbell]

Btw the election is held in one week

[augbell]

Third orientation text: socialists, a path to revival, by Olivier Faure

Who is he ?
Former PS spokesman, MP for Seine-et-Marne (far Parisian suburbs), leader of the socialist group in the lower house since 2016. After former leader Bruno Le Roux became Interior minister, an election opposed Faure and a friend of Manuel Valls, the central PS wing (Faure's wing) formed an alliance with the left wing to defeat the right wing. Valls was furious, and then blocked Faure's attempts to find a compromise between the government and the left wing MPs during the labour law.
The story of his candidacy is interesting.

After the huge defeat in the legislative election, former leader Jean-Christophe Cambadélis (don't mistake the PS leader for the PS group in the lower house leader) resigned, and some young socialist executives decided to stay united with a view to the congress: former Secratary of education Najat-Vallaud Belkacem; MP for Landes (southern Atlantic coast) Boris Vallaud, her husband, former spin doctor of Arnaud Montebourg and former "Secrétaire général adjoint de l'Elysée", President's coordinator's assistant, where he succeded to Emmanuel Macron; MP for Tarn-et-Garonne (rural south) Valérie Rabault, former chief of budget committee between 2012 and 2017; and Olivier Faure.
Belkacem was supposed to be the candidate: she's a young WOC, very popular among socialists, well known by the population. But as she lost the legislative election in Lyon's suburbs, she currently holds no office. So she asked to be retributed as PS leader, and to be automatically PS chief candidate for next european election. Faure opposed this, and rumors claim that he's the one who disclosed those conditions to the media. Anyways, Belkacem decided not to run.
Meanwhile a group of young members lead by Montebourg's partisans started to build a platform for the congress and the coming years, "En Commun" (together). They gained popularity, and received support from Valérie Rabault, but also from Emmanuel Grégoire (Leader of the powerful Parisian PS) and Sébastien Vincini (Leader of the Haute-Garonne PS, Toulouse region, another strong local PS). Olivier Faure declared his candidacy to outstrip Rabault. After a period of uncertainty, En Commun decided to endorse Faure, so that the central wing don't go divided to the congress.

What's the sense of Faure's candidacy ? One word, unity. He wants that we stay together, right and left wing, to preserve diversity of ideas and to be the strongest possible. He puts stress on the fact that this congress isn't a platform congress, but a congress to renew the PS. His proposals are focused on internal change. He wants to "to yield the floor to members again". He's the heir of the synthesis socialist tradition. A compromise has been prefered to clarification for ages. He's endorsed by people from the right wing (Former mayor of Nantes, former Prime Minister and Secratary of foreign affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault) alike people from the left wing (mayor of Lille, former Secratary of Labour Martine Aubry, a left wing totem), but also a lot of opportunists.

He's seen as the frontrunner, he's endorsed by a large majority of office olders. But his campaign is uninspiring. He's not very charismatic and was retiring in the debate.

[augbell]

Fourth and last orientation text, the one I campaign for: Union and hope, by Emmanuel Maurel

Who is he ?
Former Jean-Luc Mélenchon's assistant, european MP, specialised in international trade, already candidate in 2012.
He's from the left wing. They're called the "frondeurs", the name of aristocrats who rebelled from the central government, because they opposed some bills during last presidency. In France, it's extremely unusual that the governments gets blocked by th lower house. Majority members that don't vote governments' bills were bad seen by a majority of PS members. Several times, the government had to use the article 49-3 of the constitution, which allows the government to pass a bill without vote nor debate. This is extremely impopular also. François Hollande, when the right did so in 2008, called that a democracy denial. The only way for MPs to reject the bill is to strike the government. Each time the government used "le 49-3", only republican and centrists MPs voted to strike it. But the last time Manuel Valls decided to use it, he did it BEFORE the bill was even discussed. So he asked the lower house to adopt the labour law without debates... Left wing socialist MPs, allied with green MPs and communist MPs, tried to strike the government but missed 2 votes to ask for an official strike vote. This was also very bad seen among right wing socialists.
Though he's not MP, Emmanuel Maurel is coming from this group. But his candidacy is both wider (some central wing socialist endorsed him, like former senator Gaëtan Gorce) and narrower (a lot of left wing personalities left the PS, and some endorsed Carvounas or Faure).
Even so, he's endorsed by historic left wing socialists. Former MP, former housing minister, former european MP and current Senate vice-president Marie-Noëlle Lienmann (one of the last christian socialist), former MP and Aulnay-sous-Bois (parisian suburbs where riots happened in 2005) Daniel Goldberg, former MPs Laurent Baumel and Christian Paul. I know from a reliable source that Arnaud Montebourg will vote for him, but he doesn't want to disclose it.
I think we're having the best campaign, he clearly won the debate, but it won't be enough to win. The remaining PS members are not happy with the left wing, accused to have lead to the fail of the PS. But our orientation text is the more built. It's leftist, but Maurel tried to understand current interational fail of social-democracy in the world without focusing only on politicking. He wants to build a new sythesis between historic socialist values and the current world. He criticizes globalisation, speaks about wages.
He's also accused by some moderate socialists to intend to turn the PS into a satellite of Jean-Luc Mélenchon movement La France Insoumise. Some left wing socialists also accuse him not to have enough campaigned for Hamon, and rumors claim that he voted for Mélenchon.

[augbell]

That's it for the candidates. I'll give you the results when I know them. If you have any question about this election, or the PS in general, or even the French left, feel free to ask, I'll be happy to answer

[augbell]

Hello augbell, welcome to the forum. You know, this particular board is a sophisticated one with politically articulated posters, so you shouldn't oversimplify things by calling regional elections "gubarnatorial" and regional council presidents "governors" : posters here know better.

Also, I'm sorry I couldn't resist laughing out loud while reading the name of the thread, just for the heck of it, no offence meant to you. I also had a chuckle learning that the PS interim leader is called Temal (sounds like "t'es mal", "you're in trouble" in French...).

Anyway, this should be interesting. Or, maybe more accurately, this should be fun.

Good to see your condescending, hostile post was not taken into account. You're a joke.

Keep up the great work, OP!

I think being condescending and hostile and mock the PS is part from French culture you know

[augbell]

Hello augbell, welcome to the forum. You know, this particular board is a sophisticated one with politically articulated posters, so you shouldn't oversimplify things by calling regional elections "gubarnatorial" and regional council presidents "governors" : posters here know better.

Also, I'm sorry I couldn't resist laughing out loud while reading the name of the thread, just for the heck of it, no offence meant to you. I also had a chuckle learning that the PS interim leader is called Temal (sounds like "t'es mal", "you're in trouble" in French...).

Anyway, this should be interesting. Or, maybe more accurately, this should be fun.

Good to see your condescending, hostile post was not taken into account. You're a joke.

Keep up the great work, OP!

I think being condescending and hostile and mock the PS is part from French culture you know

What is the PS retrospective analysis of Benoît Hamon and his campaign? Or will the answer to this question be revealed only by the election results?

For the right wing, he betrayed the PS, adopted a different and radical platform without asking the members.
For the left wing, he was betrayed by the right wing who didn't accept to be minoritary for the first time since the 90's.
It's also globally accepted that he paid the price of Hollande and Valls' impopularity. Even if he was in the internal opposition, voters didn't take that in account.
He was trapped between Macron and Mélenchon. When he started to collapse in polls, a lot of usual socialist voters decided to vote either for Macron or Mélenchon, hopping they would be able to run in the second ballot to avoid a Le Pen-Fillon choice. As an example, half of the Montebourg partisans I campaigned with voted Mélenchon, and I did so.
The PS was strong because it was strong. Left wing voters had voted for the PS because we were the most likely left party to win. It was over, and Hamon paid this.

[augbell]

He comes from the MJS (young socialists movement). More precisely, he was the first MJS president when it was rebuilt in the 90’s. Mitterrand had abolished the MJS, calling it the “school of vice”. In the 90’s Rocard, eternal ennemy of Mitterrand, rebuilt it. MJS is maybe the most crooked French political organisation.
Another problem with Harmon is his tolerance toward Islamism. This is the reason why I didn’t vote for him. I’m a stubborn laicity partisan, and he’s like Trudeau about religious minorities. He’s from that political wing that considers Islam is the “religion of oppressed people”, and therefore we should be more tolerant with them and the radicals... The PS is not only economically divide, also socially. He alienated both right wing economically and neutral religion wing socially. This hurt him, because those two separations of the PS are absolutely not correlated. Only one quarter of the PS remained with him.

[augbell]

Today's the day !! We're voting from 5pm to 10pm

[augbell]

Results with 66% of the votes
Faure: 49,75%
Le Foll: 25%
Maurel: 18%
Carvounas: 7,25%

Le Foll withdrew, there won't be a second round.

[augbell]

well, there’s an explanation: yesterday we didn’t vote for our leader, we voted for an orientation text. I simplified it giving their first signatory. But here’s the rule, only the first signatories of the top two texts can enter the race. If one doesn’t want, the other is elected.
But since I campaigned for Maurel, I’d have loved he could go.
Tomorrow we’re holding the federal conventions (in every French department), I’ll be a delegate in Paris for Maurel, I’ll give you updates